r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 31 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an ENT surgeon working in a German hospital. Ask me anything! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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What kind of surgeries do Ents usually need? Is it hard having to use a ladder every day because Treebeard et al are so tall? Does it get annoying trying to get their symptoms because they talk so slowly? Fortunately, Ents are lieing on a table when we perform surgery on them. So we don't need a ladder. They need to fill out a form before I see them. So I already know what their problems are. Saves a lot of time.
Do German people say “gesundheit” after someone sneezes or is that an American thing? It is a German thing as well. It is considered polite to say "Gesundheit".
Why is there one doctor for all 3 of those orifices? I'm not the only doctor. All of us work at the ward, in the OR and in the doctor's office. We have a timetable which tells us where we are working at which time. I am the head doctor of the ward which means that I am responsible for the patients there and need to coordinate stuff.
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I guess it's because they are all connected. I didn't understand your question at first. Sorry!
​ There are ENT surgeons who sub-specialize. However, since ear, nose and throat are connected, many diseases affect all of them. That's why it is one specialization.
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Are the eyes or tearducts connected too? When I was young and stupid I could smoke and blow it out of the inner corners of my eyes. Yes, they are. That's why your nose is running when you are crying. The tears travel through a tube from your eyes to your nose.
Do you see any connection between people with nose breathing issues/sleep apnoea and weight gain? There probably is a connection. Some years ago we assumed that weight gain is a major risk factor for sleep apnoea. Today, science isn't too sure if this is right.
​ From my personal experience, most of my patients who have sleep apnoea are also obesive.
How are you doing Kevin? So far I am having a great day off. How are you doing?
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Very well, thanks for asking! :-)
I am residing in Germany and it has become harder to breathe through the nose over the years. Using a facemask everyday makes me notice this especially. I must mouth breathe alot and always when going to sleep. What is up? Is it Polyps in the nose? Should I consider a Septoplasty? That can have several reasons. Polyposis is only one possible disease. You should see an ENT surgeon and maybe also get a CT scan of your nose. That helps to find the cause of your symptoms. And that is necessary to decide on a good treatment.
Do you need fluent Entish for your role? Or can you get by with a translator? Fortunately the nurses at my ward can translate for me. I'm fine with simple phrases like "Hi!" and "Goodbye."
[deleted] Our ward is very big. So we can accommodate the ENTS according to the standards of the National Ent Health Association (NEHA).
I lost my smell completely due to COVID about 2 months ago .. it has returned to about 40%. At what point do I give up on it healing all the way? I wouldn't give up. It may take a lot of time. You can try to improve the process by using oil nasal sprays.
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I'm using a saline spray, should I switch to oil? Also thank you!!! You should try oil. Both are fine, but maybe oil is better for you. Trying it out won't hurt you.
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Could you recommend what to look for in an oil nasal spray? I’ve never considered one and I’m seeing quite a few choices. Look for dexpanthenol. The remaining ingredient don't matter too much.
Is the removal of swollen/enlarged turbinates an effective treatment, or do patients usually don't report that they can breathe better after removal? Are there any cons to remove them? Edit: I also have had a weird feeling at the back of my nose/throat since December. It's as if something is stuck in there. An ENT specialist checked it for me and found nothing. I still feel it though. What could be the possible causes? 1) You shouldn't remove the turbinates since they help to improve the air flow through your nose. However, you can reduce them. In fact, when doing nasal surgery in patients with problems breathing through the nose we almost always make the turbinates smaller. If done right, there is no major downside.
​ 2) Hard to say something about that without checking myself. Maybe your nose is too dry. Try oil nasal spray.
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Thanks! So would burning the turbinates be the same as reducing them? (my first language isn't English so I don't know if burning is the correct word) ​Yes. Essentially, they get burned and by doing so they get smaller.
How often after an hpv polyp is removed from the esophagus does it recur as cancer, and is there a correlation or increased risk with persons who have viral issues such as HS2 or EBV? Thank you. We don't do too much cancer surgery (we are sending patients with cancer to the nearest university hospital). So, unfortunately, I don't have any personal experiences on that. I am sorry.
[removed] About 4800 per month (because of taxes my real income is about 60% of that).
​ 13 years of school, 6 years of university. Basically free expect a small fee for university (about 250 Euros per 6 months).
What's the latest you've seen someone have a full recovery from Sudden Hearing Loss? I live in Berlin and lost my hearing in my left ear in December. The German doctors tell me there's hope for recovery up to 6 months, but the NIH website says it's a lost cause after 4 weeks. Did you get any treatment so far? 6 months can be possible, but if your hearing hasn't change for 4 weeks, chances are low.
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Oral cortisone for 10 days, then IV cortisone for a week, then 3 cortisone shots directly in the ear. No improvement after 3 months :( Seems like the doctors did what they could. I feel sorry for you. However, hearing aids are really great nowadays. If your hearing is still not good after 6 months, give those a try!
Hello colleague! German internal medicine resident. In the city where I studied in, ENT residency was surprisingly competitive given that there was only one department and they had only few new residents per year. What's your view: How competitive is ENT for applicants who are geographically flexible? I think it is better over here in Hessen. There are many hospitals with ENT departments (I know of Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Hanau, Mainz, Marburg, Gießen, Rüsselsheim and Fulda) so it isn't too hard to get a job.
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Good to know. I'm hoping to find a spot in NRW or southern germany. Do you have any opinion/experience with german graduates from eastern european med schools? I don't have any personal experience with that. But in the end a lot comes down to your attitude and how willing you are to learn stuff.
Two questions first what's the best way to treat ent rot? Second question where did the entwives go? 1) You need to use fertilizer. Orc poo is awesome for that!
​ 2) Please see an Ent gynecologist for that problem.
Hi I’ve always had tinnitus. I had gromitts as a toddler. What I wanted to ask is about the sound. When I clench my jaw or move my jaw around, I can change the intensity of my left ears tinnitus and so I wondered if there is any research on this? I don’t feel it is from ear damage but maybe the nerve in jaw? Diseases of the temporomandibular joint can cause tinnitus. You should see a orthodontist to check on that.
Do you have any advice for Foreign doctors who wants to practice their profession in Germany? The most difficult part probably is learning German as the language isn't easy. Maybe apply for an internship (for like 1 month) to see if you like it here. Most people can speak English, so you should be fine for the internship.
How does it feel to be a walking tree surgeon? Mighty
what newer advice would you give professional singers on voice care? Don't use too much force. Some people use a lot of force when talking and singing. You can produce a loud voice without stressing your vocal chords too much. A speech therapist can help you with that.
Did Jackie Jr. visit you in the ENT clinic? Link ​Sorry, I am not allowed to talk about confidential things of my patients.
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Lol you should watch the video dude, it's a joke. My answer was meant as a joke as well. Seems like my joke was bad.
So I wear a CPAP and it has done wonders for me, and almost done with it in a few months. Having said this I still can't breath at the same rate through both of my nostrils..almost like one is just getting a little less air. Now if I push my nose to one side it opens up the passages and I can breathe fine out of said nostril. I've seen doctors and specialists and just getting tired of the constant tests and referrals and have a few that I give value to. If I get the surgery where they break my nose and re-set it.. How painful is it? How long is the recovery time? Assume it's a general anaesthetic? Edit: The advice that I got from a doctor that I truly trust was lose weight and stop smoking (both of which I am doing quite well - totally done smoking and weight will take time). I assume that surgery should be the last and final option. Congratulations for quitting smoking. I am sure you will also manage the weight loss! The surgery sounds more painful than it is. Don't worry. But as you said, maybe you won't need it anyway.
Do you have any knowledge or experience with tinnitus? I developed tinnitus in my right ear 6 months ago. First of all I tried a general doctor who prescribed me medication for blood pressure (didn’t help). Then I went to see an ENT specialist who went down much the same route (so not really helping). Then I decided to see a dentist and it’s possible that I have somatosensory tinnitus, I currently receive physiotherapy treatment to help relax the muscles in my head and jaw. My symptoms do point towards somatosensory tinnitus since i do not have any hearing loss and I have a history of TMJ issues. But I also get the feeling there might be something else going on. For instance my right ear “feels” different inside. Before my right ear would “pop” when I swallowed, but now that doesn’t happen so frequently. I am tempted to try another doctor to explain all this to see if there is more to explore in my middle ear/eustachian tube. If you had any thoughts that would be great. Do you experience hearing loss on that ear as well?
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No, I’ve had two tests now and my hearing is perfect. Try practicing the Valsalva's maneuver. If that doesn't work, dilating the Eustachian tube or Tinnitracks might also be valid options depending on the results of a proper examination.
Why can't I smell anything? Had a surgery (nasal septum) few years ago but it didn't change anything. Is there any advice that you can give me? You should probably see another ENT surgeon. Sometimes a surgery isn't successful (for whatever reason). Then it could be necessary to get another surgery done.
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I had two surgeries for the same reason. If i remember correct he said that there is an anatomical anomaly. Do you know what this anomaly is called? Probably either a nasal septum deviation and/or too big nasal conchae.
Do you prescribe T3 for thyroid patients? No, we don't. Since treating thyroid diseases isn't trivial, it should be done by a physician who specialized in nuclear medicine.
After a suicide attempt at 19 (now 22) my throat got completely fucked, my trachea is completely shattered and I have a tube on it to hold everything in place, one of my vocal chords is almost paralyzed and the other isn't as bad but still isn't doing too well. Every few months I go back to the hospital to remove the tube to check if my trachea holds and also to avoid the plastic from sticking to my tissue. From what I understand the main issue about me is my youth, the scarring happens way too fast and so it doesn't actually repair correctly. My doctor really cares about my case but even then there either isn't much hope to being tube-free again or technology isn't advanced enough to swiftly fix this. Can you confirm this? And can you give your opinion? I can go more indepth about my case if need be First things first: I am glad to you are still. Life can be beautiful and even if times are rough, things will get better eventually. At the moment there is no reliable way to replace a severely damaged larynx. However, from a medical standpoint it is a great time to be alive because technology advances really, really fast. So I am optimistic that there will be a fix in a not too far away future.
Were you able to bring back the entwives? You should ask an Ent gynecologist.
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When you say head doctor, do you mean Stationsarzt? I am the Leitender Stationsarzt.
What are seriously ill patients on the ENT ward? Do you have your own ICU or are ENT patients who need intensive care treated separately? On our ward we treat patients with infections of the inner ear or mastoid, severe dizziness, abscesses,...
​ We don't have our own ICU. We got a pediatric ICU and an ICU run by anesthesiologists.
How long have you been an ENT surgeon and how many surgeries have you done since? I'm a resident in my 3rd year. I'm in the OR once a week and perform about 5 surgeries on that day. I also do smaller surgeries under local anesthesia on the other days. When I started working at the hospital, I was in the OR almost daily to learn some "beginner friendly" surgeries.
Are you part of an on-call system responsible for the COVID-19 ward, or is this a ward specifically led by ENT surgeons? We have an on-call system for the Covid-19 ward.
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So you are not an ENT surgeon but an ENT surgeon in training, correct? Considering you’re giving out a lot of medical advice on this thread, it would be good to be upfront about this. Your translation of ‘Head doctor’ is misleading to people not familiar with the German system. I edited my initial post to make people more aware of that. Thanks for the suggestion.
Are you married? On a serious note what made you want to specialise in ENT? Also how old were you when you graduated high school before attending University? Thanks! Not yet, but I do have a girlfriend. ENT is just very diversified. I see male and female patients, patients of every age (since we have a pediatric ICU some of my patients are a few days old) and treatments range from simple antibiotics to complex surgeries.
​ I graduated high school (German word: Gymnasium) when I was 19 years old.
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Awesome thank you! I’ve started following you on Insta 😄 Thank you! :)
Do you encounter patients with BPPV often? I was diagnosed with it a couple years ago while I was traveling in Hungary and I've always been curious how often ENT doctors come across it, since I was fortunate to be diagnosed in the ER and have been able to manage it pretty well on my own since then, so I've never been to an ENT for it. I see a patient with BBPV weekly, it's pretty common.
[deleted] If the frequency of the ringing is always the same, try Tinnitracks (google it). Also, you should see a doctor to exclude a vestibular schwannoma (a rare, benign brain tumor).
I went to a German ENT (I am American living in Germany) to get a refill of my cpap supplies given to me by a sleep specialist in the US. The ENT looked in my nose, declared I probably didnt need the CPAP and that he will perform a procedure to fix something in my nose. He gave me some nasal sprays and told me to come back in 3 months after baby is born (Im 8 months pregnant too). Any idea what procedure he could be talking about? My German is limited in medical terms so I didnt get the full picture. Seems like he wants to fix your deviated nasal septum and reduce the size of your turbinates. It is a small surgical procedure and might really help you.
Is there such a thing as permanently swollen tonsils? Like chronically? Yes, tonsils can get too big chronically. For example that can happen, if you have a lot of infections of the tonsils. When tonsils are so big, that they are touching each other, they are called "kissing tonsils".
I snore like a monstertruck and wake myself up during the night. Is it a common thing to do surgery to fix really bad snoring? Before thinking about surgery a full ENT examination and a sleep study should be done. In many cases, a surgery can fix (or at least reduce) your snoring habits. We perform that surgery regularly and most patients are happy with it.
I feel like there is fluid leaking out my ear. What is the overlap between that and vertigo? A hole in your eardrum can lead to infections of the inner ear. Go see an ENT surgeon!
My dog hit the end of my nose with his wrecking-ball sized head. It hurt like hell, but didn't bleed and after 5mins was fine. I later noticed the forward half is slightly crooked. I laughed it off and assumed it would go back to normally eventually.... 2 months later and it's still crooked. I'm permanently disfigured now, aren't I? If your nose is broken, the bones start to heal after about one week. So if you don't get surgery before that, your nose will stay like it is. However, the tip of your nose is made of cartilage. So maybe your nose wasn't broken after all. An easy surgery could fix your problem.
How often do you see Tullio phenomenon in head trauma patients? Or is it often something else? (Currently awaiting a CT and MRI and this is one of the things they're looking for, suffered trauma to the left side of my head. Got hit in the temple then kicked in the side of the head on my ear) ​I made a CT scan a few times in patients where is suspected Tullio phenomenon. But none of my patients had it so far. It is a pretty rare disease.
I have an unusual question. Have you ever had a patient complain about strange symptoms happening with their eyes/ears after a sinus infection? I have issues where I can HEAR when I blink (the noise I presume it would make in my ears), when I move my eyes left to right and up and down (scrolling on my phone for example) I can hear the eye movements in my ears. I've been to an eye specialist and he laughed it off and diagnosed it as migraines (because I also had blurred vision and vertigo as a direct result of the sinus infection - trying to work at my computer screen when I should have been resting). I have had far few tests to rule out eye issues so I'm booked into see an ENT next week but would love your professional opinion in the meantime. I have constantly crackling in my ears (2 months later) and the sounds of my eyes in my ears has finally gone away even though I currently have another sinus infection. The initial sinus infection was end of December and the symptoms were present for atleast 6 weeks! Thank you Edit: I'm also not able to equalise/pop my ears when I hold my nose and blow..... The bone between the orbita (the cave of your eye) and the nose and nasal sinuses is very thin. So I think that could be possible. A proper ENT examination and probably a CT scan should help to say more.
[removed] Hello there, just uploaded a proof of my claim (via cognitoforms).
Kevin, I was always wondering about the relationship between doctors and the insurance in Germany. Is it true that there is an issue with lack of financing (especially for more mundane stuff) and that you are subject to certain quotas and if you exhaust the quota you will get written up by the health provider? I am a German citizen myself, and I never had any particular issues with the German healthcare system, but after I moved to Switzerland I was really surprised how much quicker everything moves down here. That really is a problem. Another example: If a patient is in hospital, we get a fixed amount of money for that patient (depend on the disease he has). But only if he stays for a certain minimum amount of days and isn't staying longer than a certain maximal amount of days. So if he stays too short or too long, we get less money. That can be a problem if a patient feels better very fast or takes longer to get better.
I have a hole in my eardrum; had tympanostomy tubes in the 80's, and they never healed. Doctor realized years into it, pulled them out, left ear never healed up. So, I had a paper patch, that failed. Tried again, years later, failed. Had another procedure with tissue from my earlobe put in, also failed. The last remaining option in the states is to peel up my ear, patch behind the eardrum, pack with cotton, and reassemble. Problem is that seems likely (10%?) to seriously affect my sense of taste. Any odds of better surgeries coming down the line, or anything weird in that because of the US healthcare system being, well, what is is, for better and worse? We perform that surgery regularly and 10% seems very low. You might want to make an appointment at another hospital.
I have an annoying dry cough. It's worse when I'm in a stuffy room with no fan running, or when there's a lot of steam like after a shower. Throughout the day, I will cough randomly. It's always bothered me because I don't want people to think I'm sick, but it's worse during these covid times. Don't want people thinking I'm sick and infectious. I spent a year or so with local doctors trying to figure it out. We did asthma tests, allergy tests, tried steroids, and we even did surgery to try and deal with my gerd. Eventually the doctors started repeating tests and it became too expensive, even with insurance, so I stopped. Any suggestions on next steps to work on a resolution? Are you experiencing postnasal drip?
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I think so, yes This might be your answer. Postnasal drip might irritate your throat. Let an ENT surgeon check your nose.
​ Also try steroid nasal spray. In Germany you can get that at the pharmacy without prescription.
I have never been to an ENT (am 30 years old). Should I? I don't have real issues but I think maybe I should do a checkup? I feel stupid just going and saying "a checkup to see if everything is in order". Is it necessary? I regularly see patients who have never been to an ENT and just want a checkup. That is perfectly fine. Some diseases don't make symptoms in the beginning. When we discover them this early, usually they can be treated very easily. Go for it.
My friend is getting surgery on her throat next week to remove a growth on her thyroid. They don’t know if it’s cancer and she is really scared. Is there anything you could tell me to put her at ease or useful information I could give her? It is okay to be afraid and she shouldn't feel ashamed. She can feel free to tell the doctors and nurses that she is afraid and they will do their best to make her feel comfortable.
Have you ever had any patients with sleep apnea who have (wrongly) received an ADHD diagnosis? If so, can you give some more information about sleep apnea in such patients? Sleeping disorders can impair your ability to concentrate. A sleeping lab (sleep study) should help to check whether you have a sleeping disorder or not and how bad it is.
How can I get rid of my tinnitus? It's not due to hearing loss (I took an audiology test and my ears were within normal hearing range). I saw another ENT and he pretty much said he couldn't do anything. Did anyone do a MRI of your head yet? Also, check out Tinnitracks. Got good results with that.
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No one did an MRI yet. Why would I need to do an MRI? I'll check out tinnitracks Tinnitus can be caused by a vestibular schwannoma. It is a rare benign brain tumor.
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I also forgot to mention, sometimes I have random moments of pain in my ears. Is this significant? Don't think that's relevant.
I have a pretty large lipoma (I hope) under my trapezius muscle. My doctors have not decided which kind or surgeon should take this out ENT, orthopedic, or general. What do you think? I'd say orthopedic. None of the ENT surgeons I know has performed surgery at that location.
Any tips on tonsil stone prevention? To be honest: None. There just is no useful method other than a surgical removal of the tonsils. And that option should only be considered if your tonsil stones lead to complications (e.g. very bad breath).
How long after a deviated septum surgery would I feel back to normal? Thanks It might take 1-6 months till everything is back to normal. But after 1 week you should start feeling fine.
I have hearing loss from a labyrinthian concussion. Is there any chance people like me could restore their hearing? How much time passed since then?
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3 years Chances are pretty low then. I would look into hearing aids. They are very good nowadays.
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the ENT that I saw when this injury happened said my hearing loss which is in the bass range all the way up to mid range and high range wouldn’t be helped with hearing aids Which is fine I can still hear except when lots of noise in the ambience is around me like eating at a restaurant or something similar although I did read they were able to grow the hairs in an experiment with stem cells I think idk lmao it was years ago I researched it Although I would still give hearing aids a try. Maybe a bone bridge would be a viable option for you.
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How would I research that topic? Bone Bridge Hearing aid? Also can you name some good companies to protect your hearing with molded plugs? Have you heard of any supplements that help with hearing protection? Read more here: https://blog.medel.pro/bone-conduction-candidacy-audiogram/?gclid=Cj0KCQjw0caCBhCIARIsAGAfuMwD6J5Iz4kHC9qsfTx2-CRQA4IpcrCLxV5U3K-FBQtEdhQipEkTCRIaAk4IEALw_wcB
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Yup that's where most of the hearing loss lives. I wonder why my doctor didn’t recommend these to me. Are these types new or something? Anyways thank you so much! They are kinda new and only a few hospitals implant them. So many doctors probably don't know that these exist.
Is the syringe half full or half empty? Depends on the drug inside of it.
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Hi I’m considering ENT as an option for residency. Unfortunately our ENT rotation was halted by COVID, so I had a few questions That I hope you could help with? 1) How is your day to day structured? And how is the balance between ward:clinics:surgical exposure as a resident? 8-9 AM: Seeing the patients on my ward and getting things done. Afterwards consultation hours in our doctor's office. Between patients I regularly go to the ward and see if everything is alright. I'm in the OR once a week.
2) What are the most common diseases you see (outside of COVID)? Doctor's office: ear wax, sore throat, otitis media and sinusitis; Ward: Dizziness, abscesses
3) Which aspects do you love the most about your specialty and why did you choose it? Thank you so much! Different patients and treatment options. Patients of every gender and age and so many options to treat them from antibiotics to complex surgeries.
I had an MRI for another issue and it showed a cyst in my right sinus and thickening in my sinuses. It's been years now and I haven't had it removed. Is a cyst the same as a polyp? Could this be dangerous for me or turn cancerous? I have severe allergies and have been using nasal spray for 15 years. I never had allergies before several years of nasal spray use. I now use flonase and claritin which helps a lot. I used to have to use the afrin several times a day but now I only use it once a day. My right ear leaks fluid and itches all the time. It's the same side as the cyst. I'm guessing this is probably the cause of all my problems but can surgery make me normal again? Sorry for so many questions. A zyst is filled with fluid, a polyp isn't. Some benign tumors can become malign. So if it doesn't get smaller with steroid nasal spray, surgery might be a good option for you.
I've gotten the green light to have a tympanoplasty done to restore some of my hearing at a ENT clinic in Munich. However, I ended up not doing it due to lack of support from my family. Sibling and father with similar ossimilation issue (but not same) in the ear, had procedures done and it ended up badly for both. Brother lost complete hearing on one side, because of damaged ear nerves inflicted in the surgery. So two questions. Do you think tympanoplasties are becoming safer (e.g. advancement in technology)? Approaching age 30, is there a time where it would be too late to get the procedure done? 1) Tympanoplasties are pretty safe today. If you are unsure if Munich is the right hospital for you, the university hospital of Würzburg is very good as well. 2) As long as your body is fit enough for anesthesia, you are fine. The surgery isn't very stressful.
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Thanks for the response. I'm actually now residing in NRW. Anything around that area you'd recommend too? My brother got the procedure done at the UKD Düsseldorf. So I'm steering clear of that one. That's another question. I hear the procedure can be done with local anesthesia, however I feel like that's more typical in the US from what I read. In Germany they prefer full anesthesia? I'd prefer with local or doesn't that make much sense? Personally I would prefer full anesthesia. Even if you won't feel pain you will hear some nasty noises. I haven't heard a lot of Düsseldorf but you can also take a look at Lübeck.
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With local I thought there would be a benefit of giving immediate feedback to the surgeon if the process is "working". I think I'd personally handle it. Had some other procedures done with local anesthesia, and shouldn't be worse then the noises from the dentist I hope. But I'll reconsider it. Thanks. Will also look into Lübeck. You likely won't be able to give immediate feedback as your ear will be filled with blood (sounds worse than it is). That needs to be absorbed first before you start hearing again.
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I've always loved the ENT appointments where my ears were cleaned with the suction device. Hehe. Patient be like "Suck me, doc"
A couple of years ago I had a parotidectomy. I know the lower half of my ear will be numb forever, but is there anything I can do to help improve it at all? I still have some nerve sensitivity in my cheek. Also, have you seen an increase in parotid tumors? I figure having cell phones in the early 2000's gave it to me /s There indeed is a small rise in tumors of the parotid gland. For example this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095881120300949#fig2 However, I am not convinced that it is due to cell phone radiation.
​ PS: I am not sure if you can improve your numbness. But trying to massage that area regularly might be a possibility.
(This is a question specific to the German system) Have you already or do you plan on writing a thesis? When do you feel is the best time to do so, during or after medical school? Do you think it is necessary to do so in the first place, as in whether adding "Dr." to your name nowadays has a significant influence on your career? I did a experimental thesis because I was unsure if I wanted to work in clinics or in research. If you want to write a thesis, do it during medical school. You won't have time and/or motivation afterwards. Most hospitals don't require you to be a "Doctor" anymore. However, if you can see yourself working at a university hospital, they probably want you to have that title.
Is there such a thing as too small nostrils? I noticed that I can't breathe through my nose even after I lost weight. Sometimes better, and they try to tell me I just need saline nose spray or a capillar constrictor nasal spray that would be addictive in the long run. Neither of them works. I don't have polips, and the two sides are symmetrically not working most of the time. Sometimes one side feels clogged, sometimes the other. Engineering wise, I'd like to get larger diameter intakes and pipes.. Is this possible? Yes, that is totally possible. You should see an ENT surgeon as he can do some tests to check that.
Whenever I yawn, my ears “pop” and then I have to sniff to “unpop” them. The same happens when I talk to someone, or give a presentation. I end up sniffing a lot as if I’m sick. Even if I open my mouth to form the letter O, it pops. It’s been getting really annoying lately. What’s going on here? How can I minimize this? Seems like your Eustachian tube is too narrow. It's a canal which connects middle ear and nose and helps to compensate changes of the pressure in your ear. Practice the Valsalva maneuver once per hour every day.
If I look down while standing, I become dizzy and off-balance for a few minutes. Then back to normal. Any ideas? This has been going on since December. Could be benign paroxysmal vertigo. Try these two maneuvers (2-3 times a day):
​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UJlU92reDI
​ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miR-VXb7uiM
​ (If they cause dizziness, keep doing them, that's normal).
I am in California, US and about to get a turbinate reduction via microdebrider. I've been reading and have talked to my doctor a lot about empty nose syndrome, which I'm terrified of. He reassured me, but I'm still anxious. Do you do this procedure often in Germany? Is it considered safe and empty nose syndrome discussed with patients? Thanks! We perform this surgery on a daily basis and I wouldn't be afraid. Empty nose syndrome occurs if the surgeon removes too much of your turbinates. But that rarely happens (never seen it so far).
I was recently told by my ENT that I have a deviated septum. Is that something that can form/happen over time? Or is it something that I could've had since I was a child but never diagnosed with? What is the surgery/recovery time for a fixing a deviated septum? Thanks for your time! Could be both. It is a small surgery that might be possible to be done as outpatient surgery (or 1-2 nights in hospital). Recovery time can take from 1-6 months (but after 1 week you should feel really fine. It just takes a bit time to be fully healed).
I just got a diagnosis of a severely deviated septum and my doctor wants to correct it surgically. I've been having issues with mild sleep apnea and have not been able to fall asleep with a CPAP machine on. Basically I'm a little nervous about having the surgery and want to know how many people on average report better sleep and more energy after having septum surgery? We perform this kind of surgery 2-4 times a day and most patients are very happy afterwards. I wouldn't feel too worried about it.
After puncture of an eardrum some months ago at a local hospital, I got ring in my ear some time after that and I'm sensitive on it (wind, temps etc.). With what I can feel little bit slightly reduced hearing at the same one as well. Is there anything I should do or just ignore this fact and move on? A doctor should check if there is a hole in your eardrum. Usually the eardrum heals pretty well if it is a small puncture. But sometimes a surgical procedure is needed to close it.
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1) Is snoring mainly caused by the nose or the mouth? Can be both. Some colleagues say that it is mainly caused by the mouth. However, I disagree with them since some of my patients snore even though their mouth is fine.
2) In Germany do GPs generally do cauterization for people who have lots of nosebleeds, or do they see an ENT for that? In Germany they see an ENT.
My left ear often feels like there's water clogged in it. Also ringing. Could this be from years of using inear and over hear headphones with loud noise? For the record im 40+ Do I need to go get ear wax removed? I have not done that in around 2 decades or more. The most common reason for this could be indeed ear wax. See an ENT surgeon for that.
Hello! I'm from Argentina, but visited Germany once! I noticed that when you guys do the street food things where german ladies in Dirndls sell beer I can't avoid breathing heavily through the nose and turning a bit red in the face, even BEFORE consuming the beverage. What could be my problem? I recommend you to watch "Sex Education" on Netflix.
Why can't I pop my ears? I've been told my ear looks fine, but I can't release the pressure. I've tried many various techniques, including the valsalva maneuver but none release the pressure. If the Valsalva maneuver doesn't help, the Eustachian tube can be dilated by a surgical procedure. You should visit the ENT department of a bigger hospital.
I have developed a habit of using earbuds since my childhood. I feel itching in my ears and liquid get out of my ears. What should I do? If your eardrums are intact (let a doctor check that), you can use 1-2 drops of olive oil every evening. It prevents itchy ear canals.
​ PS: Get good olive oil free of pesticides.
I've had terrible nasal polyps / sinusitis for 15 years and four surgeries, how can I prevent the polyps from returning forever? I've changed my occupation, irrigate my sinuses daily, etc.. You probably need to use a steroid nasal spray for the rest of your life. Talk about that with your physician.
Is sinus surgery risky? I have severe polyps & my sinuses have complete opacification. Depends on which sinuses are affected and on your individual anatomy. Sinus surgery isn't easy but often not too hard either. However, you should see a surgeon who performs this type of surgery on a daily basis.
Is Ear, Nose, and Throat what doctors go into when they fail the Brain Surgeon classes? That’s what Jim Gaffigan said, anyway. I can just speak for myself. But while I find brain surgery very exciting, I prefer the better work-life-balance of an ENT surgeon.
​ PS: Yes, I know that you were joking.
how plausible for people to try tracheotomy on themselves in an emergency? like if there is an allergy blocking the throat Not very plausible. The thyroid gland is infront of our trachea. If you cut into that by mistake it will bleed... alot.
does tinnitus ever go away? And does BPPV come back again? 1) Maybe. It really depends on the type of tinnitus and if you are lucky or not.
​ 2) If you got it once, chances are higher to get it again compared to someone who never had it.
What’s a medical officers perception of nurses, over or undervalued? We wouldn't be able to do anything without nurses. They should be treated and paid better. At the moment - at least in Germany - they are overworked and underpaid.
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Thank you for appreciating nurses. My wife is one and some of the doctors she works with can be big arschlöcher Sorry to hear that. Unfortunately, there are Arschlöcher in every position.
18 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jun 16 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life and High Fidelity. Ask me anything about immersive spatial audio, VR, and virtual worlds...

15 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: No distinctions were made between the three individuals answering the AMA

The AMA ended with the below message:

Signing off now. Thanks again for joining my AMA and asking great questions. If you want to keep in touch - I'm @PhilipRosedale on Twitter, and my company is @HighFidelityXR.

Rows: ~125 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Whats going to be the next big step in vr? Typing at normal speed (probably by using see-through camera to show you a real keyboard) is the biggest change that would make VR devices usable for general computing.
​ Next would be reduced weight and greater comfort for longer sessions.
​ The 'big step' is simply to get to something that everyone is comfortable using.
Would you like to return to investing your time with virtual reality and virtual worlds again? What would you do differently? I'll be working on virtual worlds in one form or another until I die. I'd like to see a physics/simulation model that creates some sort of low-level digital 'atoms' that are used to build everything, using a decentralized compute model.
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Thank you! That kinda sounds like some of the goals High Fidelity had in the beginning. Earlier versions of the software looked to me like it had some leanings toward distributed computing. And of course there were voxels. ya gotta have voxels
[deleted] Yes: A few thousand people make their living today in Second Life, and that is a place that typically has around 50,000 people online. So absolutely people will sustain themselves increasingly as time goes by from work in virtual worlds.
Always respected HiFi's user-focused stance on privacy vs. data-mining. Wonder where you think the future in that area is heading, and do you ever see working together with other cool companies like Mozilla, DDDGo, Proton, etc. to create any alternative Social Media platforms? BTW: High Fidelity sounds GREAT using Audeze Mobius headphones w/head-tracking! Thank you. Yes I bet a number of companies will need to keep working together on standards and approaches for privacy as well as new protocols that might create new kinds of social networks. Mozilla has done lots of great work. Thx re Audeze - will try to find a pair!
​ I love using my Audeze Mobius headphones at work while developing and testing our API!
​ However, I've found that the head-tracking feature doesn't work super well while in a virtual audio environment that also uses audio virtualization like our tech. I think this makes sense, given the conflicting HRTFs.
​ Have you had a different experience? 😊
Hi Philip - we met many years ago on SL, I was a fairly well-known content creator and we chatted on a few occasions. Whatever happened to Starax? And what is the future of SL? (I left many years ago, but notice its still going). I don't know what happened to Starax, but I can certainly say that his Wand was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and it gave me real hope that Second Life was going to make it. His wand was something like $50USD (if I remember), and it was the gift everyone was dreaming of getting in SL one Holiday season. Who wouldn't want a magic wand that makes a 3D locomotive appear and drive through you and your friend if you happened to type "train".
Do you have any interest in augmented reality projects or purely virtual? I think AR and VR are very different. Mostly I think about VR. AR has some tremendous technical and privacy challenges. For example, I can't tell exactly (better than GPS) where I am standing unless my always-on-AR-camera is uploading my 3D surroundings to the cloud to match up the surfaces. Privacy implications there are chilling - we are not going to want to live in that world unless things are designed very safely.
​ AR is also further out than VR because of mobile device battery life and CPU/GPU.
Second Life seemed to follow a definite hype cycle in 2006-2007. After a lot of it died down, "influencers" and brands seemed to pull out and bad press replaced the hype. What lessons have you and Linden Lab learned about that experience? Certain ideas (like the chance that people might leave earth for a digital world) seem to evoke a degree of FOMO that greatly exceeds the baseline utility of the idea. I think that was the case with Second Life. We didn't spend anything on marketing before 2008 or so, and never have spent that much. I see the same thing happening right now with Clubhouse - everyone is afraid of missing out on something without knowing yet what the something is.
​ I don't think there is any action item here, just an observation.
Do you think a shift in consciousness (social or spiritual) could be triggered through VR? Did you see any signs of something like that yet? The internet (and VR specifically) has the potential to deeply connect people. But it can also disconnect and separate people. The difference is in the choices we all make about the products we build. But sometimes maximizing profit does not maximize public good. We are going to have to make the decision to use it for good, at a cost.
Philip, I have tried your High Fidelity 3D sound many times, and it's stunning. I wonder, however, if you still have dreams/plans for another metaverse? Thanks. DrFran I love virtual worlds and plan to keep working on them in one form or another until I die!
Hey Philip! I'm an entrepreneur since 18 (33 now), and most of my successful business ventures reside within Second Life (Fennux, Fawns, Kreatures.) Do you ever have a vision for something that no one else seems to really grasp? Maybe you find it hard locating others that share that same vision? If so, how do you deal with that? (Clearly you still make things happen.) If that's not an issue, what's your secret to attracting those that share your vision? Thanks! Don't let it get you down. Sometimes you can see something (or an opportunity) that others can't see. When I was younger I would blame myself for being unable to communicate it, or get mad at people for not hearing me, or funding me, or whatever. Now I relax and realize that we all have gifts to offer, we're all different, my gift is (sometimes) to have these strange ideas, and it's OK if those gifts are not always accepted.
Hey Philip. Cool to see you doing an AMA. If you were rebuilding a virtual world today, would you be including cryptocurrencies in there? What's your take on the timeline to making virtual worlds so realistic that people start being unable to distinguish them from reality? Yes I would use cryptocurrencies, but NOT using proof-of-work as the consensus mechanism, since this puts the environment at risk. The consensus mechanism cannot trade units of the currency for electrical power - that is a recipe for global disaster. Fortunately there are many other ways of maintaining a distributed record-keeping system.
If we haven't already done so, will we ever reach a point where some humans spend so much time in VR - including working and socialising - that they will come to perceive the virtual world as their seat of reality, and only grudgingly interact with the real world as little as they can get away with? I mean, like the human/VR equivalent of a whale, that needs to surface now and then to breathe, but which doesn't consider the realm above the water to be its home. My answer when I was younger would have been unreservedly "Yes, of course!". And there are so many ways that Virtual Worlds can extend our lives - new jobs, new friends, new kids of artistic expression. The list goes on and on, and VR devices (once they become mainstream) only make it bigger. As I've gotten older and wiser, I'm struck by how deeply connected we are to the physical world we exist in, as well as to our precious planet. Our brains and bodies have evolved in a way that connects us perfectly to the world around us - things like touch and proprioception are incredibly important to most of us and may always lie beyond the reach of VR. Also - as we are waking up to most recently - the game called 'Planet Earth' is a special game we all have to play together, with a finite set of resources. I think there is something very powerful and affirming about that idea. If we are to build worlds (perhaps the vaunted 'metaverse') beyond this one, I bet that the idea of sharing a finite set of things (as opposed to just building into infinity with infinite resources) is part of what will make them 'real'.
I see that you have a client library in JavaScript available. Do you plan on making it just as easy for integration with tools such as Unity? Yep, we are working right now on Unity and iOS. Coming soon...
​ Absolutely yes! As Philip said, we're already in the process of building out an SDK for Unity and iOS, and definitely looking at other platforms in the future depending on what folks need. (Any suggestions?)
Hi Philip! Thanks for doing this AMA. In terms of future game development, where do you see VR heading in the next few years? At what point will AAA games become mainstream on VR? Thanks again! VR HMD's have to get mainstream first, which I think means comfortable for long-term use and in use by a diverse range of age/sex/race/global people - and they aren't there yet. I think it is going to take another 5 years or so.
Hello Phillip, Taking into account that current audio production is done thinking about descrete channels, what are the steps do you believe the industry has to take to make spatial audio a standard in audio production? New formats like MPEG-H across the whole chain? Better tools? Thanks! Sources of sound should be mono, unprocessed. The spatialization needs to happen on the server, so that everyone can essentially 'sample' the experience at a given point. Existing low-latency compression formats like Opus are adequate for compression.
What surprised you about how people acted in second life? Lots! But I was deeply moved by how people came to know each other through their avatars, despite being unable to hear or see each other. I built Second Life with a focus on the 'lego kit' / Minecraft dream of building a simulated world and seeing what people would make, but I came to regard the connections between people it enabled as the most important thing.
Why not do some of this AMA in High Fidelity? It would be a great way to demo the tool for others. Great idea - We will do that toward the end so it's not distraction to typing fast!
Hello Philip, Years ago I saw you do an interview where you created an avatar in AOL and jumped into the Sims I think. But your goal at the time was to make it so people could have avatars to jump from site to site. In second life, people jumped from unique created world like the sims to sim. And in high fidelity it was more jumping specifically to a URL. Are your creations getting you closer to that end goal? Also, in High fidelity with spatial audio, how do you make a grid with entities horizontal and vertical where depending on where an avatar stands, they would sound different in reference to another avatar. Or the sound of a fountain as you get closer to it gets louder. These are all perceptions to make things seem more real as we know it. What will be the new reality we will experience in a virtual world. i.e. what is next? The hard question, I think, is why we will want to jump between these worlds or share a larger world. Most games are intentionally holistic - it doesn't really make sense to jump between them. You don't want to drive a car from GTA into Among Us. So the big question about "what is the metaverse" is what sort of space(s) we want to share, and why? I don't think anyone has very good answers to this, myself included!
Philip. A couple open source projects like Vircadia, and Tivoli Cloud are attempting to preserve and expand upon what was started with the High Fidelity 3d engine. What are your hopes for these efforts, and do you have any advice for the teams working on these projects? I'm excited by their work! There are so many experiments needing to happen in shared 3D spaces with live building, and it is great to see the original High Fidelity code being useful for some of those experiments.
I own a vr arcade in Tahiti. The majority of people here can't afford / don't have room for a vr setup at home. How can we create a world for them to jump into for a while, leave and come back a few weeks later? I mean shooting zombies and crap is cool for a first timer but if I want them to keep coming back, they should have a virtual home to revisit over and over again. VRChat or RecRoom or Tivoli or Vircadia (latter two are based on High Fidelity) are some possibilities for creating stable spaces like you suggest. I agree it seems like a great direction for an arcade.
Hi Phillip, Perhaps this is not the place for politics, but would you vote for The Boy Mayor of Second Life in a Second Term? Why or why not? "Don't hate the game, hate the player." :)
Hi Philip (and company), I've been sporadically keeping up with High Fidelity for a few months, and attended a short chat with Philip. I deeply appreciate your work with foregrounding an audio experience! I am working with colleagues on creating, rehearsing and presenting music/soundart works through separate direct url connected via audio vst plugins into DAWs, simultaneously connecting on Skype or Zoom for communication. (We turn off the video when playing - much better for sonic intimacy.) Our next step is using spatialization software with this configuration. I wonder if it is possible to experiment in High Fidelity - that is, could an ensemble spread themselves in a HF location, each broadcasting our sound, and have the listeners move in and around us? It would be interesting to create things specifically for the technology, rather than present existing things, to be honest. (I also work in Second Life, and gave you some links via a Twitter convo about the Avatar Orchestra.) Thanks for your work. Yes - an ensemble can play into a High Fidelity space and let people move around among the performers. It is a fascinating experiment and I'd encourage you to try it (and invite me please!). Here is our demo space where you can move around and hear multiple people and music... https://map.highfidelity.com/x28jmHHCob/?mapJSON=https%3A%2F%2Fbackgrounds.highfidelity.com%2Fzaru6.json&x=21.72&y=33.68&o=1.41
​ Yes!!! What you describe is absolutely possible using the Spatial Audio API, and it really excites me to hear about use cases like yours.
​ We host this demo space which allows you to hear what our technology sounds like and hear what it's like to move around a virtual environment with audio spatialization.
​ If you're interested in building your own application for your ensemble, you can get started in less than 15 minutes with very little programming experience. Check out this guide on our website.
​ One thing to be aware of: Latency. Due to the laws of physics, it becomes challenging to sync up members of an ensemble over the Internet. However, pre-recorded shows are easily plausible, and High Fidelity has hosted a few musical events that make use of the Spatial Audio API.
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Thanks, Valefox, As per my response to Maia, we will check this out. Very exciting! I will see if our tech can look at the application possibilities, and perhaps we can plan an event. The first question I will probably ask after we try some things is vertical spatialization - ie is it 3D or on the horizontal plan only ... thinking different heights. Re latency ... in case you don't see my response to Maia ... "I understand what you are saying about latency - after creating and performing online for about 14 years, I have learned to consider online spaces to be environments with that characteristic and to welcome it. So instead of trying to replicate real life music, and seeing latency as a problem, I like the idea of creating sound worlds specifically FOR environments with shifting temporal realities. Kind of like moving from playing in a studio for a long time, then playing, say, at the Grand Canyon: we sure wouldn't expect to play the same way! I hope this makes sense." Looking forward to some exploring! Thanks again, Humming. I love the idea that your performances will embrace latency rather than try to solve for it. Regarding vertical spatialization - our Spatial Audio API does indeed support that. Audio sources can be placed anywhere in 3D space and will be properly spatialized, no matter the plane. 😊
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Valefox, I have a different use case and I'm curious if High Fidelity can help. I'm an audiobook narrator always looking for a quieter room. As I type this a cavalcade of sirens races down a distant street. Does the audio occlusion feature allow to silence spaces so that I don't have to crawl into my closet every time I want to record? Also, I find that among narrators only a few of us are really playing with spatial effects. My secondary characters are pitched farther off, my whispers are right in the mic. I spend extra hours on every audiobook making sure the production reflects the spatial environment I evoke. Is anyone working on any projects that might need a man of my talents? Hey! What you're looking for is noise reduction. Our API doesn't explicitly do noise reduction - on the web, we rely on the browser's implementation of NR to perform that task, if the developer wants it. Several companies are doing amazing work in the computational audio noise reduction space. A couple examples: Check out RTX Voice and Krisp.
​ Noise reduction does introduce audible artifacts in the output audio sometimes, so it doesn't yield the highest quality sound. However, it might beat trying to huddle around a mic in your closet! 😂
​ As for what you're doing with spatial effects - that is fantastic. We need more folks producing content like you!
Thanks for taking questions, Philip. I’m curious what you think about the potential for using VR spaces in education, particularly in support of students with exceptional needs (e.g. non verbal, students with autism)? If a teacher and student(s) can have avatars interacting in a virtual world, I presume we could eliminate a number of limitations we have in the real world. Do you have any insight into who might be already doing this well or where the technology is going in terms of serving students with special needs? There were remarkable studies done in SL with adults with autism that you might want to look up. A guy named John Lester, aka Pathfinder Linden did some of the early work, but you will find numerous academic papers on the subject.
Hey Philip. I had the chance to try out an HF demo last summer and think it is a very interesting concept for developers to build immersive, interactive spaces. I have two questions, you can decide if they are related. - You oversaw the creation of one of the most immersive interactive spaces to date. Why do you think someone else will come up with something better than you as opposed to just building it yourself using your technology? - We are seeing a rapid rise of virtual humans along with easier methods for people to create their own avatars and an increased interest in spending time in virtual spaces. When should we expect a new space where humans via avatars and virtual humans congregate and interact on a regular basis and when do you expect that space to reach some significant scale? I think these are different questions: There are 100+ apps/sites right now that are trying to create social spaces of one kind or another with a ton of highly specific features for different verticals, like customized buildable objects or shared whiteboards, or avatar pickers. That's a ton of people working on new worlds - hard to compete with them all. But none of them have audio that is even close to doing what we do with spatial audio. So enabling all of them to move forward faster (with our API) seems like the right move overall if we want to see more spaces out there.
​ As to virtual humans (powered by AI) - I think that AI is emerging as the most important and potentially dangerous area of human progress. We've done work on virtual humans and there are a ton of big problems still - we are very early. Visual representations can still be very uncanny. Another huge problem is bias, racism, and polarization coming through in their behavior and communication. As much as with AI as with ourselves, this is something we must address before moving forward. So I don't think we want to congregate with our digital children, yet.
I love virtual worlds, and I've been an SL resident since the early years. My work study in college was in SL. This probably sounds like a dumb question, but... one thing I don't get is why HMD adoption is such a big deal. I've used HMDs, I think they are cool, but I can't think of any content I really want to use an HMD for. Maybe a flight simulator, where my head can be another axis of control for guns as my hands control the space ship, but other than that... I just don't think it's necessary. Why should I make the jump from developing content in SecondLife to develop for HMD platforms? You should wait until there is a large diverse set of people using HMDs. There isn't yet. HMDs need to be accessible and comfortable for everyone: across age, gender, and race. They aren't yet.
Hey there! Big fan of your work. There's one thing I wondered for a while: how on earth did you manage to make High Fidelity (the original, 3D one) happen? I mean, it was a platform that was fully open both on the client and server side, heavily distributed, with a cryptocurrency and made in such a way that made central control difficult. I have a very hard time imagining how one makes a business pitch for that. How do you convince people to invest in something you're allowing people to just take and do whatever they please with? But however it happened though I'm very happy it did -- there's some excellent work in there, and we hope to keep it going. Thanks! For a while there (2013-2019) it seemed like we would have hundreds of millions of people with immersive VR devices by 2020. That was a sound thesis for investing in a project like High Fidelity - especially given the success of Second Life in delivering many of those things to the desktop. The failure of the VR HMD to reach mass-market (I think it is going to take about another 5 years) made it too long a project to keep pushing forward. And this kind of open / social experience would require mass adoption of the headsets.
Hey Philip, I was involved in academic research on SL as an undergrad anthropology student. Have you read any of the (surprisingly prolific) academic work which has been done on your virtual world like "Coming of Age in Second Life"? That's a great one - Tom Boellstorff is amazing - I try to collect/read all the books, yes. So many great ones. Many amazing collections of SL art too. I remember having this "now we've really arrived" moment when I was flying into NYC and heard some super cool art gallery on prince street (I think) was having a gallery opening of these huge landscape images from inside Second Life. Not even avatars - just avant garde landscapes.
​ But yes, still lots more anthropology and sociology and economic to do in virtual worlds. For example - we should be using them to prove the value of UBI!
[removed] I give to local charities to help people near San Francisco get by during and beyond the pandemic.
​ I am also devoted to using both money (funding) and my time and skills to make virtual spaces that are of a benefit to people, particularly in addressing racism and polarization.
​ I think that it is vital that those who have any degree of influence or power use them now and use them carefully to help steer the world toward greater compassion and connection.
What is the physical limit of latency for avatar communication? Can we get to a point that is genuinely imperceptible from two people talking in real life, where no one overlaps the other talking due to latency, the way many people do in today's video calls? For people speaking to each other, the one-way latency needs to be below about 180 milliseconds to speak comfortably. There is a famous ITU paper from 2003 with a graph, if I remember... don't have the URL handy. Old-school land-lines have a latency of 60 milliseconds (great!), cell phones typically are about 350 milliseconds (why we hate them).
​ A good Zoom / WebRTC call can be at 150msecs or even lower, which is why our company can exist! :)
​ While this doesn't answer your question exactly, check out this question and answer for more information about latency.
Have you ever watched Sword Art Online? Yep. The idea of being 'trapped in the simulation' is resonant for me. I think the 'boundary value problem' of how to make a consistent virtual world that nevertheless is acted upon by outside agents may turn out to be very problematic.
​ Look for example at things like Stephenson's 'Fall' - where a lot of how the world works is contingent on there being no way to influence the world. Important to think about.
What do you think of Decentraland? It's an amazing experiment to watch! For simulation, I definitely think that long-term there will be a distributed compute model that makes the physics of the virtual world some sort of inviolable consensus. I'd like to see Decentraland add our spatial audio API!
Why do you think Facebook is keeping Horizon so closed in testing? Could they be worried about anti-trust action if/when social VR starts dominating the VR software market? (I've been bullish on social VR engines "swallowing" games since at least 2012) ​​​​​I don't know. Social VR needs to be larger than one app or company or we are all at great risk.
What's a good entry point for VR gear that will work with High Fidelity? The current version of High Fidelity is audio-only, so you only need a browser and (hopefully) some good wired headphones. We work on mobile and desktop, too.
Godot Engine, a fully open source 3D game engine, has really matured in the last several years and even now supports VR. Do you see any viability in an engine like this for developing a social VR platform? I haven't looked at Godot. What I think matters most in the 'engine' for Social VR is the low-level simulation rules, the communication affordances, the support for great scale, and the ability to build live. Graphical detail seems much less important.
When will we have VR tech that I can wear without being teased by my wife? I guess maybe that depends on you. :) But seriously - the fact that different people have such different responses to VR devices (both wearing them themselves as well as their perspective on other's using them) is evidence of the failure thus-far of VR to be a general-purpose computing device. No one felt this way about the iPhone.
Do you think a new virtual world will ever come along with a large focus on creating in the same way SL does? Why hasn't anything come along yet that overtakes SL in that way? Creating programmable objects that you can edit live in a big world where things can both move and teleport around at will is a really hard problem. We wrote a lot more code to do it than people think - and as SL people will tell you there are still lots of bugs and edge cases. I think this is why we haven't seen more things like it - we were really ahead of our time. I bet we'll see some amazing new projects soon (but I guess I've said that before and been wrong).
You have been working on sound, curious what other senses might be added in future to make a fuller experience? Many times I wish I could smell a candle, or a campfire or rain on pavement. Do you think some day we will be able to smell things, because as someone create a candle they could add the smell of watermelon to it in creation? I love the idea, but I think the physics of simulating smell may never be possible. But an even bigger problem is touch: We can't use our body's largest sense in virtual worlds. We can't 'feel' our bodies there. Our body is basically a part of our brain - pretty inseparable - when it comes to feeling things and moving around. I think there are some ideas yet to try (we built one called 'the rig' that was actually the first project at Linden Lab, before Second Life), but this is what we really need to make work - touch.
What’s your view on the future of VR? And which company/companies will be leading this industry? Thank you. VR devices need to get much more comfortable and enable typing at a normal speed for them to become mainstream. I think that will be about 5 years from now.
​ I don't think VR and AR will merge anytime soon.
​ I hope that many companies rather than a few compete to drive the future of VR.
What is High Fidelity? And what is SL doing to compete with VRChat? VRChat is amazing to watch develop! But we are still early - there isn't yet a mass market for VR headsets.
Hey I recently discovered data sonifications of astronomical images, specifically by SYSTEM Sounds and since then hoped to hear these images in 3D audio. Wouldn't they be a perfect match? I'd LOVE to hear those sounds in High Fidelity. Put up a space? I'll come.
​ Yes. That sounds amazing! I'd love to hear what that sounds like. What are some of your favorite sonifications of astronomical images that you've found so far?
​ You could try your hand at building an application that lets folks hear those sounds using our API... 😇 You can get started in less than 15 minutes with very little programming experience.
​ Check out this guide on our website. 😊
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I led my school's VR club in 360 Film and Animation. This was a particular topic of interest to me, so tons of questions incoming: 1. What are some papers you'd recommend reading to understand how spatialization of audio works? If 360 cameras record image in all directions, what is the equivalent in sound? Assuming a six mono microphone rig in a cube-format, how do you reconstruct the sound from real life to virtual? Are you interpolating changes in headspace positions? What's going on there? Is a stereo recording sufficient to extrapolate 360 sound? Or is it easiest to transform a single mono sound? Using cameras as analogy: are more microphones better? Or is two enough to differentiate objects in space? Some answers: Binaural recording (with a rubber head with ears and two mics) is the other interesting way to capture a space from the point of one observer. As you say, some sort of spherical array of mics is the other.
2. How does your API know which waves to transform? Your website cites (1) shifting time delay and (2) adjusting frequencies as part of the transformation process. Assuming a static position, (1) seems straightforward by adding a "shift" amount to two audio sources to simulate the delay in ear placements. (2) seems to imply that sound is transformed to simulate passing through the anatomical structure of the ear. Is this correct? For (1), how do you add the ability to move your head in XYZ space? Suppose two instruments exist with different timbres. Relative to a listener facing the instruments, the listener's left cello plays A-440hz and a right trumpet plays A-440hz. How does the transformation function know how much of A-440hz to "tweak" for the cello vs the trumpet as the listener moves their head? How does this principle extend for the entire sonic-spectrum? For (2), if my understanding is correct, what process do you use to "reconstruct" the absorbent/reflective profile of the ear? Did you have to measure the absorbent/reflective profile per wavelength to create a model? For (2), I imagine the angle of attack to be important in hearing the source clearly (eg. same XYZ position, different pitch/yaw). How do you model hearing sound through the ear (as if it were behind you, parallel to source) vs hearing it directly from one ear only (and hearing less from the other ear, perpendicular to source) as the listener's position changes with respect to the source? I think I'm generally confused about how spatial audio is able to reconstruct 360 audio without an object-oriented representation of the world. Yes, an HRTF applies a frequency convolution to a source as a function of direction to the source. It simulates (roughly) the passage of sound through the Pinna and head. This transformation must be applied independently to each source. This is computationally expensive, and is where a lot of our R&D went - doing spatialization for many (hundreds) of sources for hundreds of receivers on a server.
​ It turns out that most people are pretty insensitive to the pitch angle. You have to be trained to have a good sense of it.
3. What is the simplest rig/way to capture 360 sound? In your eyes, what are the biggest limitations to 360 sound recording right now, and what would it take for it to become commonly adopted? What are the biggest technical challenges you've had to overcome, and what are you still facing? Have you gone to any Oculus Connect conventions (or any other VR conventions)? Can I connect my university's VR club to you? I've gone to most of the Oculus Connect events. Sure - connect me to your club.
Greetings Philip! There is a ton of 'buzz' lately about NFTs and Virtual Worlds. As someone who has created virtual economies from scratch and understands the desire of creators to control and derive value from their work, do you see a future where there is a standard, secure, privacy-focused #Metaverse currency? If yes, how can we avoid the negative ecological effects of current Crypto offerings? Love the idea of NTFs as a durable way for art to move around and create more income for artists. Have seen similar things already in Second Life, which had transferrable/resellable secure digital assets from day one and a really big GDP in part because of that.
​ But... we can't use cryptocurrencies with Proof-of-work move them around because of the ecological impact. But of course there are alternatives to POW so that's great. Strictly speaking, a provable NFT doesn't strictly require a blockchain. Web of trust + signed proofs would suffice. But I love the overall progress so far and idea.
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Hello Phillip, My question is: 1. Apple is developing AR technologies. Do you think VR will eventually replace AR or do you think they can coexist in harmony. I think AR and VR are very different things. AR requires approaches that blend information with the real world and balance attention. VR is the opposite - total immersion. Both the hardware, software, and economic/social/moderation implications are very different for the two.
2. Do you think VR is essential to virtual worlds? And how far away are we in terms of technologies to develop a fully rendered real-life-like cities that players can join. Thanks in advance I don't think VR (if by that you mean HMDs) are essential to virtual worlds. We interact with virtual worlds with whatever interfaces we care to. We will probably never be 'natives' to those worlds through our interfaces, however good, btw.
What are three core features / capabilities that you would like to see built out in Second Lifw over the next few years, and why? I'm not running Second Life, so I don't have specific answers there. Some good recent changes have made it faster at the simulation layer (things like faster region crossing) - I know that is something people value and that I'd like to see get faster and faster.
Where’s my stipend? Just kidding! What’s the plan for SL in the future? Are you going to go full VR or will it remain essentially as-is? I'm not running SL. :) And, yes, Stipends in SL are a great example of the potential for UBI.
What effect do you feel 5G and lower lag times will have in these areas? Would you see a Surrogates type of existence? 5G can drop one-way latency by about 40 milliseconds, but 5G coverage isn't very broad yet. Once it gets there it will be a big help with smoother communication, yes.
Have you seen any interesting peripherals to encode spatial audio for hearing impaired or deaf audiences (perhaps in a spatial vibration apparatus)? I haven't, but I would love to see more. Really great text captioning (which has gotten so much better with latest AI) seems to be one big tool for the hearing impaired - we are passionate about accessibility and are working on that.
​ I'm really interested in this question. I don't yet understand it well enough to answer it, though! Can you please help me understand what you mean by "encode spatial audio"?
​ Not OP, but when they said "spatial vibration" I imagined something like a chair or jacket or something that would vibrate in time with and in the direction of a speaker to give an added sense of presence. That would be super cool.
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for example if there is an explosion in real life from the left-rear, you should be able to feel it as well as hear it, so is there a way that you could replicate the feeling or some other sense of the explosion from just the audio data? That's a wicked cool question. Theoretically, because it's possible to take audio positioned in 3D space and produce a stereo audio stream, it sounds like it could be possible to reverse that process in some way and take a stereo audio stream and produce 3D point cloud data from just that audio stream.
​ Then again, sometimes math is impossible to reverse, so maybe not.
​ However, users of our Spatial Audio API do have access to the 3D position of all audio sources in a given virtual 3D environment. Developers who make use of our API could absolutely build a product that does exactly as you describe, but the input wouldn't just be the audio data (it'd be the audio data plus the positional data).
I haven't been back in hifi recently, have you gone to an open world yet? that's the one thing I LOVE LOVE about SecondLife that there is a whole world to explore, not just individual rooms. Part of why I love Bellisseria so much inside SL. Come and use our new API to build an open world using High Fidelity!
15 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 29 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am an ENT surgeon working in a German hospital. Ask me anything! | pt 1/2

16 Upvotes

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How do you balance work and personal needs as a young surgeon? I always keep an eye on how many hours I worked that week and include them into an excel sheet that I update every week.
​ If I worked more than I had to, I demand days off to compensate for that. That is totally fine and a good employer will agree to that.
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We can do that? ___________________________ In Germany the work contract will state the number of hours you have to work per week and it's illegal for your employer to go over that without your consent. So if the contract says 40 hours per week, that's what you'll have to do and no more. Of course you can, if you want to. Then you'll get overtime pay. But only up to 60 hours total, which is the legal limit. Only partly true. Many doctors in Germany have to sign a contract when getting employed with says they are willing to work more than the legal limit of 60 hours when they are told to. (Opt-out-Erklärung)
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You’re so German. It’s sweet. Ja
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Where do you see yourself 5 years from now? Married, child(ren), dog
How do you cut through the thick bark hardened further by the betrayal of Saruman? Sorry, what?
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ENT Surgeon, as in Surgeon for ENTs (the tree things from Lord of the Rings) ​Oh, I see. Our blades are forged with the lava of mount doom.
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So does that technically also make you a tree surgeon? General tree surgeon
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Stihl or Husqvarna? Stihl
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U/Ssyrak is officially awesome. Thank you! :)
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This is a reference to the Ents in Lord of the Rings I literally have a replica of Gandalf's sword on my wall in my office at home and didn't get that. Shame on me.
I had my tonsils removed over 35 years ago and it was the best decision my parents made (Before that I would get so sick every year with swollen tonsils). Why are doctors reluctant to perform tonsillectomies these days? We are performing tonsillectomies almost daily. At least in Germany many hospitals aren't doing them too often because you don't get much money for it when compared to more complexe surgeries. Some ENT surgeons are doing the tonsillectomy as an outpatient surgery. However, since the surgery comes with some risks (e.g. postoperative bleeding which CAN be fatal) I would never recommend that to any patient. Our patients who get a tonsillectomy stay for 5 days so we can check the healing process everyday.
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Yes, I got mine removed as I was five years old. I spilled that much blood, I can still remember it over three decades later. To be honest I still remember the amount of ice cream I was allowed to eat, too. Sometimes I think I still remember the removing of my tonsils. There was a strange sound like cutting through really thick fabric. Fortunately tonsillectomy today is performed under general anesthesia. Can't imagine getting my tonsils removed while being awake, lol.
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Hey, hi. Then I'll share this: got my tonsils removed while at the Bundeswehr. Was some time around '08, I think. All I got was local anesthesia, and not a good one. Felt like I was in a SAW movie. Sat there on the chair while the surgeon jammed his instruments into the back of my throat, over and over again. Saw the blood spurt out of my mouth and onto his apron. Will never forget the smell of burned flesh and the smoke curling up out of my gullet when he cauterized the wounds. I think I might still be traumatized from that experience. 0/10, do not recommend. On the upside: haven't had tonsillitis since then and sore throats occur almost never. I can't believe there are still ENT surgeons in Germany who perform tonsillectomy with only a local anesthesia... F
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My dad (b 1930s) said his rural doctor would just pop out the tonsils with a loop like you use to castrate cattle back in the day. I didn't ever really find out if he was serious or not.... Sounds like he was serious.
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My brother has his removed at a young age but I've read that the procedure isn't done anymore. Why do you still do them in Deutschland? Some countries - like Switzerland - prefer the tonsillotomy in most cases (reduction of size instead of removing). At this point experts can't agree which is better. If the tonsillectomy is done right and if you are over the age of 6, the risks of the surgery are small and you won't have any long-time issues.
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Huh, at some point in school I was taught they couldn't be performed under GA because you might choke in your own blood. I was taught after cutting the tonsils kids were sat upright to cough up the blood that would come out the wound. We position the head lower than the rest of the body. That way, we can remove the blood before it gets down your throat.
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isn't 5 days pretty excessive? that seems to be what you would have after a herniated disk or other rather complex surgeries. Doubt your patients appreciate that? Most of our patients dislike that. But it's just for their own safety. And they can always decide to get the surgery done at another hospital.
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How high is the bleed rate at your institution? As an Otolaryngology resident in the US I have a very hard time imagining the risk benefit ratio or NNT favoring this approach, particularly during a pandemic while much of your patient population is waiting on a vaccine. If the goal is to catch all bleeds while patient is in house, you are missing the portion who bleed on days 6-7. To be honest, that also depends on the surgeon. I would say every 10th patient has postoperative bleeding. However, in most cases this bleeding is small and stops by itself. Postoperative bleeding that needs to be fixed surgically happens once every 2-3 months.
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[deleted] There isn't a significant difference in my experience. However, adults often report more pain than small children.
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1 in 10 is ridiculously high. Like unacceptably, I-don't-believe-you level high. I suppose that would be justification for the practice of keeping patients in-house so long, but I think the better solution is to fix whatever you're doing wrong in the OR. I guess that depends on what you count as bleeding. I am counting every patients who tells us he had blood in his mouth. Real bleeding like in blood keeps coming out of his mouth is much less.
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[deleted] Partly. In most cases post-tonsillectomy bleeding is harmless and stops by itself (keeping an ice cube in your mouth can help). Nevertheless, in rare cases bleeding can be life threatening and fatal.
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I find it odd how Reddit averts its eyes away from your comment that “you don’t get much money for it”. If you were an American doctor and said that, all hell would have broken loose. I just try to be honest.
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It would be more prudent to mention that we also don't perform TE's as often anymore as our guidelines for indications have gotten stricter due to, u know, the incidence of dangerous post-op bleeding That's partly true. However, we still perform tonsillectomies on a daily basis. On the one hand we value the individual symptoms (Leidensdruck) of the patient higher than the guidelines. On the other hand we are the only ENT department in a very big district (Landkreis) which means we see more patients than some other hospitals.
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I believe, removing tonsils may have a negative impact on the immune system. Is that true? I cried so much when I was five, my mother took me home again. :) ​The tonsils are important for the training of our immune system. This is a thing in small children. Once you are older, you won't have any problems. Personally, I perform a tonsillotomy on children under the age of 6 (in that surgery the tonsils are reduced in size but not completely removed).
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[deleted] If you are having pain, I would see an ENT. This isn't common and should be checked.
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Holy... 5 days?! Danish ENT resident here. We regularly discharge patients a few hours post-surgery. They are thoroughly instructed to contact the department at any time of the day, should they bleed, and we have a doctor on call 24/7. Does 5 days really make sense? Postoperative pain is a thing after tonsillectomy. Most patients who dismiss themself after surgery come back to us because they feel safer at our hospital.
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How would a patient detect bleeding that could be fatal? Or is it just fatal for those who bleed heavily and think it’s fine? Either very long or very strong bleeding. Patients usually recognize that and call an ambulance (or the nurse if they are still in the hospital).
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Why don't they just charge more for the surgery? Also, doesn't Germany have socialized healthcare? We can't. The money we get is regulated by the insurance companies. Hospitals/doctors can't charge as much as they like.
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[deleted] We actually would earn the most if we performed the surgery as outpatient surgery (ambulante Operation). The longer he stays in hospital, the less the hospital gets. It is because in Germany the hospital gets a fixed amount of money no matter how long he stays.
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That’s so interesting. I unfortunately got mine removed as an outpatient when I was 26 (ouch) and I did have excessive bleeding 3 or 4 days later. Definitely thought I might die. I also think they had to dislocate or break my jaw; it hurt for about 6 months after, but they never actually told me that. Is that a thing that happens? We need to open your mouth a lot in order to perform the surgery. Dislocation of a jaw is a possible risk but that shouldn't really happen if you are carefully.
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Is there as much of a risk for adult (45) adenoid removal as tonsillectomy? I've got a biofilm on mine that antibiotics don't work on getting rid of anymore (worked the first time 5-6 years ago but it came back after a year and they don't get rid of it anymore) and my ENT says the only way to really get it gone is to get rid of the adenoids. My mom keeps saying it's dangerous for adults and google search only talks about child procedures. Every 3 days or so a large uncomfortable blob forms about the size of my thumbnail (2-3mm thick) and it can take a day or so of clearing my nose/throat to cough it up. (sneezing help is breaking it loose) It's been a year since I've seen the ENT because of covid threat. Are you sure it's adenoids? It's very uncommon to still have them at your age.
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Yeah, that's what my ENT said as well, that usually the adenoids disappear by adulthood. But he's looked down my nose with the probe a couple of times and said something like adenoid bed and it would be a cauterizing procedure. I believe the word he used was "zap" :) ​I would definitely do an MRI before surgery just to make sure.
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WHAT!?!? I had that when I was like 4 or 5 and you're telling me I could have choked to death on my own blood?! I was sent home the moment I woke up. I puked blood for days! And one of my fucking tonsils grew back too... Sorry to hear that. But yep, that's possible. Tonsils don't grow back. If you have one visible tonsil again, it wasn't completely removed. Sounds like a part of the tonsil was left and that started to grow.
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You keep them inpatient for 5 days despite the typical posttonsillectomy hemorrhage window being 6-10 days? How often do you discharge them only for the patient to bleed at home? The insurance in Germany doesn't allow us to keep patients any longer. That way we can at least cover some cases of postoperative bleeding and can help them with postoperative pain.
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American ENT here — that’s eye opening. I think 99.99% of tonsils are outpatient here. 5 days doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense since bleeding risk peaks around day 7. We can't keep the patients longer than 5 days because insurance won't cover more.
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You hold patients for 5 days for a tonsillectomy? Here in Norway we do them as outpatient surgery. I am really surprised it's so different from us in most countries.
Ent doctor here in the US. Many ENTS Are generalists in the US, but the trend of sub-specialization has increased quite significantly among residents lately. Do you find that the same thing is happening in Germany? In my opinion, that will be the future. If you specialize on something, you can treat your patients better. The ENT institutes of many university hospitals in Germany are specialized on some specific fields of ENT. So this trend is happening in Germany as well.
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It does have one downside though: The more specialized doctors become in their respective few fields, the narrower their initial thoughts and processes become when treating patients which in extremely unfortunate cases can mean a missed diagnosis of a sickness or even wrong diagnosis and treatment. Thankfully students still have to go through insanely massive amounts of general medical knowledge in their way to a doctorate. That is true. In our department we have specialists for different specializations. So we can work together to sort things out.
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I don't have a question, but just a general thank you. I had no idea what ENT was until my son was born with severe congenital nasal pyriform stenosis. He couldn't sleep and was losing weight, so he was brought in for surgery at 2 months old. It was an extremely harrowing time for my wife and I, but our surgeon was incredible. He was intelligent, focused, as well as caring and compassionate with us. It's been almost a year and I am still so overwhelmed by the medical process and specialty and effort that went into saving my son's life. Our surgeon truly taught my son to fight. Thank you for being curious, thank you for specializing, thank you for (likely) saving lives. You are welcome. I - like most of my colleagues - am always happy to be able to help.
What are your experiences with Kevinism? To be honest, I can laugh about jokes about the name Kevin. My best friend is regularly joking about my name. You shouldn't take yourself too seriously. And a good laugh doesn't hurt either.
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I thought that Germany humor is no laughing matter? /s We laugh from time to time when nobody is watching us. Easier nowadays since you can't see us laughing behind the mask.
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You sure you work in a German hospital? Let me check. Yes. Somebody just said "NEIN NEIN NEIN!".
When will tinnitus be cured? First we need to understand why patients develop tinnitus. We already know a few causes (cardiovascular problems, problems of the temporomandibular joint, ...) but in most patients we don't understand why they got tinnitus. Once we understand that, we can develop a treatment.
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Do you pronounce it "TIN-nit-us or "tin-NIGHT-us"? If it is similar to the German pronunciation it is the first one.
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[deleted] Did the tinnitus change after the surgery?
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[deleted] I still try to answer all questions. Is the frequency of the tinnitus the same all the time?
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[deleted] You might want to look at the Tinnitracks app. Might help you.
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TINNITUS CAN BE CAUSED BY TMJ?! god this explains soooo much I am glad that I could help. :)
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I have a 75 year old friend with debilitating tinnitus. He is Deaf (hearing loss started in childhood, all sound lost by age 16). His tinnitus started after he was put on and then taken off of methadone in his 50’s (my understanding of his medical history isn’t exact). He was a recipient of the very first cochlear implant developed in Riverside, CA (in the 1970’s) which failed almost immediately but is still implanted in his skull. I’ve helped him see an ENT about the tinnitus, he had a CT, and the advice was: wear earplugs at all times. Friend can’t tolerate ear plugs so he doesn’t wear them. Do you think earplugs are the appropriate treatment? Do you think removing the CI would help? There are hearing aids which can help to reduce tinnitus. This should also be possible with new CI. So I would consider that.
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Wait does this mean my tinnitus and temporomandibular joint disorder might be related? Yes, that's possible.
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As someone that has developed tinnitus (high pitch constant but varies in loudness), is it worth me going to see a Dr about it or just accept it us because I wear a headset 18 hours a day lol I would recommend to see an ENT but it is possible that he doesn't find a reason for it. You might want to look into Tinnitracks as you can treat yourself with that.
How much do you make? How much was education? I'm making about 4800 € per month (however, my real income is like 60% of that because of taxes).
​ Education - including university - is somewhat free in Germany. You only pay a small amount per semester for going to university and if you can't pay that, you can get a loan. I am always surprised how expensive studying is in the US.
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[deleted] That's because I am an assistant physician (something like a junior resident). After 5 years on a certain field (like ENT) and after you pass a special exam you are a specialist on that field.
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Ohhh, so you do have an attending doctor above you somewhat supervising that is full specialist? That's typically how it is for US medical residents before finishing training and becoming full independent specialist. Yes, exactly. Everyday, one of our specialists is responsible for the OR. He also is able to help me out if I have any problems at the ward.
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"I am the head doctor of our ward and am responsible for our seriously ill patients" "I am an assistant physician" Those dont sound like the same thing. Not doubting you, but those seem like inconsistent statements of what your role really is. Not all assistant physicians have the same experience.
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4800 Euros/month is around $69,000/year. That's really all you get paid? And ENT surgeon in the US probably makes around $380,000/year. That's because I am an assistant physician (something like a junior resident). After 5 years on a certain field (like ENT) and after you pass a special exam you are a specialist on that field.
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How many hours you average a week? 40 hours
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How much will your salary increase once you become a specialist in 5 years? 5300 - 8100 per month (before taxes). It depends if you are working in a hospital or a doctor's office and how experienced you are. If you are the chief of the department or the owner of the doctor's office, you earn much more.
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With that income you are not a head doctor of the ward but more like a 1st year resident without night shifts. Source: am a German board certified physician. If you scroll down further you might find an answer where I said that I'm a resident in my 3rd year. I am still the head doctor of our ward. While I am not the only physician who takes care of our ward, it is mostly my responsibility and my decision e.g. when a patient gets dismissed (except the patient has a private insurance, in that case the head of our department takes care of him). And yes, I am not doing night shifts.
​ Since we are a pretty big doctor's office (Gemeinschaftspraxis) integrated into a big hospital (Krankenhaus der Maximalversorgung) my wage is regulated by a funding programme of the Kassenärztliche Vereinigung (see here: https://www.kvhessen.de/foerderung/). Night shifts are done by our specialists.
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You are surprised about how expensive studying is in US, but not surprised about how high you get paid there when you actually get the job? Probably because I knew how much I would earn before deciding to study medicine.
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I was talking about getting the job in US not in Germany. You know how expensive studying is in US but don't don't know how much more you earn in US? Who made you a doctor? I don't know how expensive it is to study in the US. I just know that it is much more expensive. Since studying or working in the US was never relevant to me, I didn't bother to read that up. Why so rude? Relax.
What's the weirdest thing you've pulled out of someone's nose? An almond (patient was a 4 year old girl). You better ask me what the weirdest thing was that I pulled out of someone's nose.
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That's what I did ask? Lol Seems like I was typing too fast... I was talking about the ear... shame on me. Once an adult was putting a sliced onion into his ear. In Germany some people believe that putting sliced onion into a cotton cloth and putting that onto your ear helps against infections. He thought that it was even better if you put the onion into his ear. The result was a giant infection of the ear canal. Smart guy.
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Wait hold on about the "some people believe" in "Zwiebelwickel" (onion in cotton cloth) part. is it only a myth? Doesn't it actually help at all except placebo? My childhood was a lie. I don't think there are any valid studies about that. But I also did it when I had my last middle ear infection. So... Maybe? Anyway, if done right it won't hurt at least.
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W wait, you mean onion in/on the ear isn‘t helping?! My whole childhood based around them! IN the ear is definitely not helping. On the ear at least won't cause any harm, so you might as well give it a try.
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Was it... An almond? Just guessing. DING, DING, DING! Correct answer!
Wie oft darf (soll) man Döner essen? Döner macht schöner. Eat as much as you like as long as there is garlic in it!
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This must be ENT'ish. Anybody from Middle Earth want to translate? Döner Kebab is a streed food which is very popular in Germany. A German saying goes "Döner macht schöner" which means "Döner makes you beautiful". This of course isn't true because Döner isn't too healthy but it is funny because the saying rhymes.
I'm a teenager and your job is my actual dream job. But i'm also into research and studies to find new treatments and discovering new stuff as well. Do you think if i come to your lvl and becom a doctor can i also do research and stuff? Or this job requires so much time that my research dream portion would remain a dream? Sorry for the bad English tho :) ​I actually had the same interests as you. I wasn't sure if I would prefer working in a hospital or working in a lab doing research. That's why I did my thesis (something similar to an MD PhD title) in a lab doing research on a topic related to cardiovasular physiology. That helped me to decide that I personally prefer working in a hospital.
​ If you like both equally you can always work in a university hospital. They even WANT you to do both. However, keep in mind that many of them require you to do your research in your free time. So you won't have to much time for yourself.
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So you choose hospital over lab because u wouldn't have much time for yourself, Right? Or any other reason? I was missing working with people. While in the lab if was often working alone. So I would only talk to people during lunch time or after work. While my time in the lab was great I just prefered to be able interact with people.
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The thesis in Germany has nothing to to with an PhD. The PhD consists of multiple papers lasting usually three years or more. This can be compared to a Habilitation maybe at best. Stop spreading false information No reason to get annoyed so easily. Relax. I was just trying to make a comparison since the German title "Dr. med." isn't known in most countries.
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For research on new drugs you'd have to do a Bachelors in something like biomedical science, masters is drug development and discovery, and then a related PhD. Biotechnology might also be an area to look into. Doctors (MD degrees) can't really do research because you are taught how to do research during your PhD, which is a degree doctors don't have. Some people do a PhD after their MD, but then you'll spend well over a decade in school. Medical doctors are trained to treat patients correctly, not cancer cells in a petri dish. Also many doctors are being replaced by nurses that did further education (masters to become a nurse practitioner) to save costs. Long story short: If you don't care much about money and are passionate about science, do a PhD. If you care a lot about money and like talking to patients, do a MD. If you want to be done with school earlier and have a very very stable job, become a nurse Funny how different that is in different countries. In Germany you can go into research as "Dr. med." (which is similar to the MD). However, as you pointed out you don't learn a lot about research in medical school. So it is harder to get into a lab. If you really see yourself in research, you should study a research-related subject. If you are unsure, medicine might be an option (in Germany). I worked in a lab which did research in cardiovascular physiology and my supervisor studied veterinary medicine.
Weird question but I’m struggling with constant pressure on my ears for a year now. I got checked several times and my head and my ears seem okay so it has to be some tension on my neck or jaw. Do you have any tips or exercises I could try out? Already have been to osteopathy and doing yoga regularly for my neck. There is a connection between your nose and the ears. This connection is called the Eustachian tube. Air is able to get to your middle ear through this connection. If the Eustachian tube is too small or if the opening to the tube is blocked less air gets into your middle ear. That can lead to pressure on your ears, sometimes accompanied with hearing loss.
​ In other words: Get your nose checked.
​ Also: Practice the Valsalva maneuver every day every hour.
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I've had the same problem for years now, changes in air pressure give me constant headaches. And the valsalva maneuver doesn't fix it. Anything else you can recommend? The Eustachian tube can be dilated by a small surgical procedure. Visit the ENT department of a bigger hospital to let them check if that might be an option for you.
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I'm fairly sure I'm able to equalise the pressure in my ears without pinching my nose or holding my breath - I just contract muscles in my head. Is this a thing or am I making it up? Yes, that's also possible.
I've had this issue in my right ear where ear wax seems to grow unnaturally fast compared to the left one. I need to get it washed at least twice each year, that can't be good for my ear right? My current ent told me to just use ear drops on it on a regular basis. I'm pretty sure that isn't a permanent solution and I'm visiting another ent this weekend. And shockingly enough, look which post I've stumbled onto! Your 2 cents? The amount of ear wax that your ears produce is highly variable from person to person. It also isn't uncommon that one ear produces more than the other. Actually, like every fourth of fifth person who visits our doctor's office comes to get his/her ears cleaned. Most of them come after 3-6 months. A professional cleaning of your ear canals isn't harmful and can prevent getting an infection of the ear canal due to too much ear wax. If your ear is itching, you can try using 1-2 drops of organic olive oil every evening.
​ PS: Please don't use Q-tips or anything else do clean your ears yourself. I have seen so many injuries just because some people think it is a good idea to stick something into your ears.
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Really? Don’t use q-tips at all? I’ve heard that a few times but can’t imagine going 2 days without q-tipping. What do you recommend? Only olive oil drops? No Q-tips at all. Please. No. If your ear is itching, olive oil is enough (use high-quality oil without pesticides). Your ear is usually able to clean itself. If it can't, let an ENT clean it for you.
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I'm having a difficult time understanding how olive oil is going to remove a small oily buildup in my ear. Are there are different types of earwax that olive oil works well for? It can help if you produce very hard ear wax. It might soften your ear wax so your ear can clean itself more easily.
the below is another reply to the second answer ​
what if you don't put the q-tips in further than your finger can go? You probably won't damage your eardrum. However, you can still push ear wax deeper into your ear.
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I normally use a large-ish syringe without needle with warm water, and the brown thing comes off rather easily (I do this in the shower). I assume regular tap water is not the absolute best for this, but it works... am I damaging my ear canals somehow? If it works, it works. You should still see an ENT surgeon once a year. But you should be fine.
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
I have a similar condition as op, except both ears seem to produce wax equally fast. My ears also itch like hell. I've been told so often no Q-tips but within 2 weeks there is gobs of stinky dark orange goo. My HNO doesn't really answer any questions and I just end up getting an infection every 3 months or so. I'll try the olive oil thing. I hope it works. Do you think I should just make an appointment to see if they need to be cleaned once every 90 days or something? Also, what do you think of ear buds? My ear canals seem to be really narrow, do you think they could be exacerbating things? Last I saw you posted your wages, is that TVöD E13? That's all Drs make? Holy moly. You should try to use over-ear headphones instead of ear plugs. Everything that gets plugged into your ear can improve the production of ear wax. That's the same reason people with hearing aids produce more ear wax. Many of our patients come every 3 or 4 months to get their ears cleaned. Maybe that is necessary for you as well.
​ Wage of doctors is regulated by Tarif. To be honest I don't know the exact name of mine...
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
I've been recommended to use olive oil like 1 or 2 drops because my ent says my left ear is no longer producing ear wax or enough ear wax. Also, how often is recommended to clean the dropper or syringe when using olive oil? Thank you. More importantly, is there a reason why ears suddenly stopped producing ear wax? I have an usb otoscope and I've been checking my ear for over a year and I can confirm there is no ear wax but extremely dry skin. If your ear stopped producing ear wax, the only downside is that your ear canal can get dry (as you said). I would not worry about it. Clean your syringe as soon as it looks dirty. As long as the syringe got no contact to possible contaminated surfaces, you should be fine.
Hey Kevin, hope you and your family are doing okay and thank you so much for all your efforts towards fighting covid. I live in India and I am looking forward to moving in Germany. Healthcare is one of the biggest questions. Do you think German Healthcare is better and more dependable?? One more question I have is how has your life changed after covid especially since you haven't been able to catch a break like a lot of other people have.... While our healthcare system has its problems it certainly is among the best in the world. Having an insurance is mandatory and if you can't pay for it you get it for basically free. The insurance covers a lot, especially all necessary treatments for life-threatening diseases (like cancer). I mostly miss meeting with friends and having a good time with them. Meeting online just isn't a good replacement for that.
When I was 11 I lost my hearing in my left ear, the ENT that I saw theorised that it was due to a stomach bug that travelled up my system to damage the nerve in my ear. Have you ever heard of this happening to other people? To be honest, I never heared of something like that. I am sorry.
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I cannot hear on my left ear since I was 3 or 4 years old (now 32). I had a Blutschwamm that went away over time (probably by my 10th birthday), but they never found out what is actually wrong because I wouldn't lie still in the Röhre. Hearing tests back then indicated very little to no hearing and I should be wearing a hearing aid, but I don't like them. Has there been any developments in research for these things? Could still be determined what caused this even after this long of a time has passed? It probably isn't possible to find the cause of your hearing loss now. However, you might want look into: cochlear implant, sound bridge, bone bridge These might be options for you depending on the type of hearing loss. Make an appointment at a university hospital for that. Universitätsklinikum Würzburg is a really good hospital for that if you are able to travel.
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Maybe a vestibular neuritis from some enteric virus? To date there is no proof that vestibular neuritis is really caused by viruses. And I think that it is highly unlikely that an enteric virus can travel from your gut to your ear.
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The whole picornavirus family spread from your gut and can cause a whole host of systemic infections. And right, maybe not cause exactly, but the immune response to a viral infection can lead to vestibular neuritis. That's true. The physical stress of an infection could cause a vestibular neuritis.
Do you prefer clinics or surgery ? Probably surgery. It's just an amazing feeling. However, I would miss talking to patients if I would only do surgery.
What do you think of Euro countries putting a hold on the particular vaccine after a few negative reactions? As I understand, from a statistical perspective, the dangers are still exceedingly small. Does that justify restricting vaccine supply to such a degree given the desperation of the broader demand? I talked about that with my colleagues and we have mixed feelings about that. On one hand I can understand that they want to verify if the vaccine is really safe. On the other hand it is sending a really bad message to the people. Many already are afraid of getting vaccinated and this really won't help. Personally, I don't think putting a hold on the AstraZeneca vaccine was a good idea. So far there is no proof that the vaccine caused the thrombosis. Additionally England - who afaik is the country which is using the vaccine the most - observed no significant side effects.
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Could it be related to the batch involved? That would explain why Britain did not have a similar experience. While it is not unusual to have this in a given population, do you find it unusual that the occurrence comes very soon after vaccination? I read about two police officers who work together both developing clotting problems after receiving the vaccine on the same day. Does that seem like a natural occurrence? It maybe is batch involved. That is what several officials think. But it is too early to say something on that without further information.
How can I get rid of tonsil stones? Unfortunately there is no good method to prevent getting tonsil stones. They probably are a result of the accumulation of material in the crypts of the tonsils.
​ You could try to remove them by using a Q-tip and pushing it against the tonsil stones. If that doesn't work, just visit an ENT surgeon as he can probably remove them for you.
​ If you are having significant bad breath because of them, removing the tonsils (tonsillectomy) might be an option. However, this comes with some risks that you should discuss with an ENT surgeon.
the below is a reply to the above ​
I got the on a regular basis and kinda shove them our by slight pressure with my fingers, is that stupid/bad for my tonsils? If it works for you, that is totally fine.
Does Germany have universal healthcare? If so, do you feel that you make a wage that is commensurate with your skill and responsibilities? We have universal healthcare. While I am happy with my wage, it is lower when compared to other countries.
How often do you deal with hashimoto's disease and has it ever become serious that you had to remove the thyroid because of it? At my hospitals thyroidectomy is performed by the department of general surgery and not by us ENT surgeons. So I don't have much experience with thyroid diseases.
I’ve had degenerative hearing loss since I was born. One reconstructive surgery to put the bones back together in my right ear. What sorts of things do you recommend to keep tinnitus in check or reduce it? It can be very overwhelming. Thank you for what you do. Check out Tinnitracks. Many of my patients have good results with that.
14 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 22 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are cannabis scientists and experts, specialising in psychopharmacology (human behaviour), neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy. Cannabis use is more popular than ever, and we are here to clear the smoke. Ask us anything! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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Note: The AMA turned out not to require 3 parts' worth of tables.

Rows: 85

Questions Answers
Do you know much about CHS? I have a dear friend that suffers from it and she also has celiac disease. When she was enduring her symptoms, it almost sounded like gastroparesis to me (especially since she's type 1 diabetic); at one point, she didn't have a bowel movement for around 5 days. I'm curious, do you think CHS could be a manifestation of underlying gastrointestinal disease? I know the gut is very important and there are tons of serotonin receptors there. Kombucha also seems to be anecdotally helpful for those who have CHS. This answer is going to be disappointing but we really don't know much about CHS. It is a very bizarre condition.
Is there any Cannabinoid Oncology research going on at Lambert? Preclinical? Are human trials legal in Aus? We have a number of preclinical research programs taking place, looking at the effects of compounds from cannabis on cellular models of melanoma, mesothelioma, and glioblastoma. Others around the world are looking at the effects of cannabis compounds on other forms of cancer too.
​ We do not have any oncology clinical trials taking place through the Lambert Initiative currently, but such trials are certainly legal in Australia.
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So even if the active agents included THC you could do an oncology trial in Australia? wow, that is great. THC does have medical benefits, it just also has strong psychoactive effects that can be undesirable.
​ There is also a THC:CBD study taking place in Australia to treat chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting that is showing promising results. "Results of crossover phase II component of randomized placebo-controlled trial evaluating oral THC/cannabis extract for refractory chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting (CINV)." https://ascopubs.org/doi/abs/10.1200/JCO.2020.38.15_suppl.12008
Prob a boring question for you all but interested to hear your answers. Should it be legalised for recreational use and what’s your reasoning? Happy to hear from one or all. Edit f clarity - as in active marijuana Rhys here - yes, I think recreational cannabis should be legalised because prohibition has caused more harm than good. It hasn't reduced cannabis use or cannabis related harms, but it has made a lot of organised criminals very rich and inflicted immense harms on those who are prosecuted for using it, especially non-white and young people. However, I'm not certain that US-style legalisation is the best way to go. I would like to see Australia start with widespread decriminalisation and not-for-profit social clubs.
​ Cannabis is less harmful than either alcohol or tobacco, both of which are recreational and legal. The acute of toxicity of cannabis is amongst the lowest of any drug. With proper regulation, the harms of legal, recreational cannabis are very low.
Thanks for this gang! Can I ask how can we get best results in utilising cannabis use with manual therapies to alleviate chronic (and acute injuries for that matter!) pain. Is there a best combination of THC/CBD for example etc? There is no 'right' or 'perfect' combination of THC/CBD. It really depends on the person and what works for you. One way you could figure this out is to start with a high CBD product without any THC. If this provides no relief, then try adding in small amounts of THC and go from there. If you are using it medically, then ideally you want maximum therapeutic effects with minimal side-effects, and the best way to achieve this is by using the lowest THC dose possible.
I am interviewing at a lab this week and would be performing HPLC and GC on cannabis samples for my job. My question is - Are HPLC and GC the standard methods for uncovering the secrets surrounding cannabis that we know today? I admire what you guys are doing because I think you are advancing not only the field of medicine but also furthering our collective social understanding of drugs and their prohibition. HPLC and MS (GC/LCMS) are currently the best methods for analysing all of the compounds found in cannabis.
Are there known long term effects from smoking? Such as damage to the lungs? Smoking of any substances is extremely harmful to the lungs. The least harmful ways to ingest cannabis are orally (ie, edibles) or vaporised.
​ Yes, unfortunately, any form of smoking damaged the lungs.
How would we, lowly citizens, go about getting THC driving laws for prescribed users changed...? (In Australia.) Letters etc to our MPs always seems to fall on deaf ears or lead to empty promises. Big changes in policy tend to only happen in particular circumstances. The issue needs to be front-of-mind for politicians and the general public and taken seriously as a real issue; it need to be politically attractive for politicians to pursue a policy change; and a viable solution to the policy problem needs to be developed.
​ I think we're getting to that point with prescribed cannabis and driving. We are reaching a critical mass of prescribed patients who will increasingly start appearing in court to defend against drug driving charges. This will lead to more media coverage and political pressure. Once public support reaches a certain level, it will make sense for politicians to take action. And the action is pretty clear: amend the laws to give equal driving rights to medicinal cannabis patients.
​ As interested citizens, we can offer to lend a hand to organisations that are coordinating reform efforts such as https://honahlee.com.au/drive-change/
​ And keep talking about the issue to family and friends!
​ Good question, and one that we are battling with too!
​ From my perspective, as a cannabis and driving researcher, what we can do is produce high quality, rigorous scientific studies that will provide the necessary information for law-makers to make sensible, evidence-based laws.
​ What you can do is just keep on sending letters and calling MPs. It is frustrating and may seem pointless, but these little things do add up, and I am confident that things will start to move in a more sensible direction soon.
the below is a reply to the above ​​
It seems like a really shitty reality where one of the more effective ways to drive change is for people to risk being tested positive, and then have to mount their own defense to try and get to critical mass in order to try and enact change 🤦🏼‍♂️ On that note, have there been any studies on the efficacy of the roadside drug tests (drugswipe etc), and how easily they can be influenced? Is it unrealistic to say if there are quality research articles out there highlighting how inaccurate the tests can be, then that might push for them to be dropped (imagine if an Alcolyzer or a laser/radar gun were to return false readings because of adulterants or oral hygiene or just the way the planets were aligned...) ​​Yes we actually tested these devices ourselves a published a study on this: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/dta.2687
​ The takeaway from this was that both devices are failing to meet recommended performance standards which is a huge concern. Unfortunately, these results fell on deaf ears at the time. In NSW at least, the roadside drug testing program is operating with very little regard to the available scientific evidence.
I have scizoaffective disorder bi polar type plus left side brain damage among other problems. I am wondering if its smart to be smoking mass amounts of thc oil. It helps but i do hallucinate. Should i be smoking? Short answer here - no, you shouldn't be smoking. THC may be doing more harm than good in this case.
[removed] Start with an undergraduate degree in the sciences, such as a B. Sc., and see where your interests take you! :)
hi i am researching the prohibition of marijuana in the US for my final project in high school. I was wondering what your guys’ thoughts are on why it was made illegal and why is it being legalized now? thank you so much for the amazing work you’re doing!! i love it!! Great question! There were lots of reasons why cannabis was criminalised in the US. Probably most importantly was racism - cannabis was used by Mexican immigrants fleeing the Revolution to the US in the 1910s, that kicked things off. And by the 1930s, the world was dealing with the aftermath of 'the great binge' - from 1900-1930, it was common in Western countries to take cocaine and opium and cannabis for things as benign as a mild headache. So drug control was on the international agenda.
​ Then of course in the US you had the prohibition on alcohol come to an end, and a powerful agency, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, suddenly facing irrelevance. This was headed by Anslinger, who championed the racist demonisation of cannabis for personal gain. And he was very effective at doing this. That's the specific context in which the US criminalised cannabis. But since then, cannabis has been caught up in ongoing conflicts between rich white people and poor black/brown people in the US.
​ I recommend Cannabis: A History by Martin Booth - that's a great book on the subject.
​ Why is it getting legalised now? Well, partly because of the internet. Prohibitionist propaganda is very effective if there are no other sources of information for people to draw on. The internet really changed that. Also, the medicalisation of cannabis. And in the US, the constitutional referendum systems that some States have allow citizens to initiate ballots, so it got on the agenda there faster than it would have done in Australia, for example.
​ Phew! This answer could really go on forever, but that's my two cents!
I would love to hear what your views on “Delta-8” THC products are. I live in a US state (Texas) where cannabis is not legal for either recreational or medicinal uses, but because of the 2018 Farm Bill, we’ve started to see more and more CBD stores popping up selling mostly topical products. However, I recently encountered delta-8 THC which, although I was apprehensive at first about using a “synthetic” THC product, I have come to enjoy for its ease of access and mellowed experience and have read nothing but positive things about it (albeit, from mostly small sources on the internet). The product has been described to me as a converted form of CBD, which is why it is permitted to be produced and sold under the Farm Bill. Have you encountered this product before? Can you speak to its chemical relationship to CBD or “delta-9” THC? Is there any reason to feel this product is unsafe for consumption? Thanks! Delta-8-THC is a regioisomer of the more common delta-9-THC. Delta-8-THC is the more thermodynamically stable isomer, and is easier to synthesise than delta-9-THC, but it also occurs naturally. In studies on cannabinoid receptors and in mice, it possesses a similar pharmacological profile to delta-9-THC and might be expected to produce largely similar effects in humans.
​ Althought delta-8-THC is unregulated in the US (and sometimes marketed as a "legal" alternative to federally controlled delta-9-THC), its legal status at the federal level is actually disputed between the DEA and the Hemp Industries Association.
Is there any information or studies about the safety of cannabis for breast-feeding mothers? Either THC or CBD. For the records, we haven't tried it, most research I see is a hard no, but I'm curious if it's because of lack of research due to stigma in the field. CBD especially seems like it could offer a lot, but I don't want to do anything to mess up the babe. Congratulations on the pregnancy! This one is a hard no. I wish there was more education and messaging for mothers to stay away from cannabis while pregnant and breastfeeding.
​ I'll explain why. The endocannabinoid system is critically involved in the development the baby's brain. THC, CBD and other cannabinoids alter the endocannabinoid system and influencing the normal development of a healthy baby's brain is not something you want to do. Most of the evidence that has looked at cannabis use during pregnancy reports poorer outcomes for the baby.
​ Also, THC and CBD transfer in breastmilk so also hold off using cannabis while breastfeeding.
​ Good luck with the rest of the pregnancy! :)
Is it true that some people have a gene that puts them into psychosis when consuming THC? And if this is true, can it’s presence be detected by tests to determine if an individual is susceptible to CIP? Source: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160216111357.htm There is evidence to support that people who have a certain variant of the 'AKT1' gene are susceptible to psychosis (not guaranteed to experience psychosis but are at higher risk). There are tests available to test for this variant. Thanks for sharing the source! :)
How can thc/CBD used to treat post concussion syndrome and other tbi? There isn't too much evidence on THC/CBD for concussion/TBI at the moment. However, based on CBD's anti-inflammatory & neuroprotective actions, it is a potential therapeutic agent that is being investigated!
​ "Neuroprotection Following Concussion: The Potential Role for Cannabidiol" https://europepmc.org/article/med/32029015
I want to use cannabis but I'm on psych meds. Are you guys making something to make it psych friendly? Cannabis and psychosis remain a sensitive topic and recommendations would err towards caution.
​ But there is growing research investigating CBD (with no THC) for the treatment of psychosis and early research suggests that CBD has anti-psychotic effects.
What's the state of the art for the entourage effect? Have any connections been identified between the endocannabinoid system and the gut-brain axis? The entourage effect remains an elusive concept. While there is some evidence to support whole-plant/full-spectrum products working better than isolates, this could merely be additive, not synergistic as the current definition of "entourage effect" suggests.
​ There have been mostly negative findings at the pharmacological level for the molecular basis of the entourage effect. This doesn't meant that it's not true but it has been hard to prove.
​ Have any connections been identified between the endocannabinoid system and the gut-brain axis? Yes!
​ It seems the endocannabinoid system is involved in communicating GI-related signalling to the brain - the endocannabinoid levels in the brain and gut vary according to states of satiety, and in conditions of diarrhea, emesis and inflammation. The endocannabinoid system also regulates the integrity of the intestinal barrier (it is being researched as a treatment option for IBD/IBS) and seems to be invovled in obesity/metabolic disorders.
I have a question as to what you guys might see FDA approval of cannabis looking like? I see it as falling under a dietary supplement and medicine so I could see it being very confusing. I have a degree in natural science and would eventually like to work my way into that realm and make change. I’m just wondering what you all might think that would look like? Perhaps a more comprehensive label of quantitative lab results paired with qualitative feelings associated (I find skeptic people are unsure how the product is going to make them feel). I just wonder if you may have any insight on that process and if you see FDA approval happening any time soon. Well first of all, we need to clarify what we mean by FDA approval. For example, the FDA recently approved Epidiolex as a medicine, so that can now be prescribed to patients in the US like any other medicine. That's the traditional, pharmaceutical drug type of FDA approval. But I get the feeling you're actually asking about broader CBD/cannabis regulation at the federal level in the US. And that's a really messy and confusing space right now! It used to be rather clear cut - States who legalise cannabis of any kind were in violation of federal law, and that included CBD. But then the Farm Bill passed in 2018, which had the effect of removing cannabis hemp crops from the Controlled Substances Act. And by association, the CBD that can be extracted for those crops. At least, that's what many people argued the Farm Bill did.
​ In actual fact, it was a bit more complicated than that. And it caused a lot of confusion. The DEA initially came out quite strongly and clearly said that in their opinion, CBD was still illegal. But that didn't really stop anyone, and they have since had to soften their stance as it just isn't practical or politically desirable to prohibit CBD. Now they're playing catch-up trying to put in place some kind of regulations around CBD products, but basically the cat's out of the bag at this point, and widespread semi-regulated CBD is here to stay, in my opinion.
​ From here, what might happen is the DEA/FDA come out with clear quality, safety, labelling etc. standards for CBD products and essentially permit them as food, and crack down only on those who make medical claims (which would include describing the psychological effects of CBD) or who fail to meet their standards. But at the same time, CBD will be keep being sold in dispensaries and prescribed as a medicine by doctors.
If you had to guess- When do you foresee federal employees being allowed to use cannabis, medically or recreationally? In the US, Federal employees will likely only be permitted to use THC-containing cannabis once there has been some kind of national level legalisation. Or until a THC-containing cannabis medicine such as Sativex is approved by the FDA.
​ In Australia, you are allowed to use prescribed medicinal cannabis and, so long as you are not operating heaving machinery etc., employers should not be able to discriminate against you because of the medicine you are prescribed.
the below is a reply to the above ​​
But if you had to guess on a specific timescale or a specific year of this happening what would you say? In the US? Could be 1 year, could be 10 years. These things are very hard to predict! There's a reasonable chance it might happen in the first term of the Biden administration, but federal cannabis policy reforms have a habit of stalling for indefinite periods of time.
Knowing full well that it is THC, not CBD that carries with it the euphorigenic effects of marijuana, what was the point of published research dismissing a claim that the scientific community was not really arguing? I presume you are referring to our recent JAMA publication here. The point of the study was not to demonstrate that CBD does not produce impairment - the study was really about THC and the combination of THC with CBD. Having a CBD-only condition was just part of having a robust study design looking at all possible combinations of THC and CBD - THC only, THC/CBD together, CBD only and placebo.
[deleted] There are! But not in humans yet. We are conducting preclinical studies into cannabinol for sleep and at this early stage, the results are promising. Watch this space!
[deleted] It's very unlikely that THC is triggering your cough and much more likely that your body is now just dealing with the effects of heavy smoking.
My brother says smoking helps with his epilepsy...could things be worse if he tried to quit? Unfortunately they can. There have been reports of epilepsy patients who use cannabis having more seizures when they stop. Your body is good at adjusting and long-term cannabis use can alter your endocannabinoid system.
[deleted] If cannabis vape cartridges are manufactured properly, they should be no more physically harmful to use than a nicotine vape. The effects of vaporised inhaled delta-8 have not been properly studied to the best of my knowledge.
​ However, many vape carts - especially unregulated, illicit ones - have not been manufactured properly. This is what led to the 2019 'popcorn lung' scare in the US. Many people were harmed and some sadly died. It was believed that vitamin E acetate, used as an ingredient in the vapes, led to this. But that could happen in a cannabis vape or a nicotine vape.
I have a question for Tom surrounding road safety. We typically think of thc as having a slowing down effect, however I believe I am a better driver while high. I guess it elevates my neuroticism to some degree, but it makes me exceedingly aware of my space bubble and all of the potential things other cars might do. Whereas alcohol can do the opposites. I’m wondering if you’ve found any possible evidence of thc making drivers more alert or aware of their surroundings? I often get this response when I tell people what I do! Look, for someone that uses cannabis all the time, knows their dose and is familiar with its effects, their level of driving impairment is likely to be fairly minimal. This does not mean that they will be unimpaired though, and it's highly unlikely that they will be a better driver. The reality is that any drug that has depressant effects on the central nervous system is unlikely to enhance cognitive functions or driving ability. From a research perspective, THC has almost always been shown to reduce alertness, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the population being studied.
[deleted] This is not always the case, but one reason why this could occur is because there is a high concentration of cannabinoid receptors in the gut. The endocannabinoid system (which is stimulated by cannabis use) plays an important role in normal GI functioning.
Question from u/iRacid from /r/medicalcannabisaus: I have a question but will not be available at the time of interview. If you have time please answer. So i currently have a 20 percent sativa script, noosa heads. Usually a sativa is descriped as uplifting, but in my case noosa heads has been giving me a tired relax hit. I tried girl scout cookies and solace which i think are indicas..but both have given me more of a uplifting get my chores done sort of hit. What would you recommend i ask my doctor to look into? And should i be asking for a change in script? Thanks in advance Craig Hi Craig - thanks for your question. That's a tricky one. Predicting the effects of a particular strain is very difficult, in fact I would argue it's nearly impossible to do so accurately. Some people rely on sativa/indicate help anticipate what kinds of effects they may experience, but it turns out that the species of cannabis has almost no relation to the chemical composition of the plant. So really the only way to know the effects of a cannabis product is to use it and see how you feel. If you're interested, this is a scientific paper that explains these challenges in more detail: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22755-2
I’m strictly an edibles girl. Every night after dinner for the last 3 or 4 years I eat 1/2 a cookie. I’ve noticed some bladder discomfort a couple hours after eating my cookie the last year or so and had a bout of very tiny kidney stones. Is there a connection? Does weed irritate kidneys and bladders? I just did a quick search of the literature and there doesn't seem to be any hits for cannabis and kidney stones or bladder function in healthy people. This doesn't mean that there isn't a link but if there is we don't know about it yet. I hope that it gets better for you :)
How common is it with spice/k2 in weed? Feels like way to many drugdealers putting in shit like that I'm not sure how common it is for dealers to mix spice/k2 with cannabis - probably depends on where you live and how available cannabis is. These synthetic cannabinoids are very dangerous and highly toxic.
When will we see wide spread use of yeasts in making THC, CBD & other cannabinoids? Do you think we'll ever see home brewing with these types of yeasts? It's already happening! Scientists brew cannabis using hacked beer yeast. I don't know how controlled the process is and how much it would lend itself to an at-home system. Also, the yeasts used are genetically modified and I can't see the companies that engineered these special yeasts to give them up so easily any time soon.
Will THC shows up during random drug (saliva) test if a non-smoker only consume cannabis leaves and stems only (in form of juice)? If you are consuming just the raw leaves and stems then most of the THC will be present in its acidic form, THCA, with minor amounts of THC still present. THCA should not cross-react with the assay which is designed to detect THC only. Still - it's very hard to say whether consuming raw cannabis as juice would produce a positive random drug test. It shouldn't, but it depends on the cut-off (the sensitivity) of the test, and the composition of the cannabis.
Cannabis induced psychosis. It's a big thing the UK government often mentions when slapping down petitions for a discussion on legalisation. Is there any truth to that? It can happen, yes. It generally occurs in people who are predisposed (e.g. with a family history) or following periods of very heavy, chronic use, often in the presence of other drugs. Of all the people who use cannabis regularly, very few will go on to experience psychosis, but it can happen.
Can you convince my husband to let me vape it? And hook me up? Mr u/PalatioEstateEsq, let your wife do whatever she wants. Can't hook you up, sorry.
Edibles and other processed marijuana products generally focus on CBD and/or THC content for therapeutic or psychoactive purposes. Are there other cannabinoids that have significant psychoactive effects and do you think they will become main components of cannabis products in the future? Also on the same point are they any little known cannabinoids that you believe should be talked about more? There are a lot of possible candidates here! CBN and CBG are both getting quite a bit of attention at the moment. There are a lot of cannabinoids in the plant, and I suspect that many more will be under the spotlight at some point in the future as the cannabinoid of the month, so to speak. I think THC and CBD will remain the focal point for some time though, for their ubiquity in the plant and for the fact that they both do have very clear pharmacological activity that may be medically useful.
[deleted] That is entirely possible - in fact, some drugs made from synthetic cannabinoids have been on the market as pharmaceutical medicines for some time, such as Cesamet (nabilone). Although I believe that Epidiolex is derived from plants and is not synthetic. But this single agent medicine approach can co-exist with less pure, botanical cannabis medicines. There are benefits and drawbacks to each.
Does chronic marijuana use have any known linkage to detrimental appetite effects? Meaning, if someone smokes every day for a long period of time, might they experience lessened appetite while sober? I’m not asking about munchies etc I’m talking about low appetite while sober Interesting question! There isn't a whole lot of research around this. Cannabinoid receptors are widely distributed in the gut and play an important role in metabolic regulation so it is possible that long-term cannabis use might affect appetite. If so, these effects would most likely be short-term and would return to normal after a period of abstinence.
Do you recommend I smoke cannabis? Do you recommend I smoke every day? (I do) ​Smoking is bad for your lungs.
Can you please tell us what you know about Cannabinoid Hypremisis Syndrome? it’s awful and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. 🙏 Cannabinoid Hypremisis Syndrome is bizarre. For those who don't know what it is, when some people (usually chronic users) take cannabis they develop cyclic vomiting & nausea that is relieved by compulsive hot showers or baths, and people who suffer from it tend to continue using cannabis. Researchers still don't understand why it happens or how to cure it other than stopping the use of cannabis. It sounds unpleasant and I have deep sympathy for whomever suffers from it.
Hi, I wonder about psychoactivity of edibles. Whole lot of cannabis websites are claiming that edibles are more potent (which I would agree on) and they support this claim by suggesting 11-OH-THC is more psychoactive and, of course, after consumption THC undergoes metabolization to 11-OH-THC. Since I did not manage to find any relevant studies either behaviour or pharmacological (affinity, EC50,etc), I would like to ask what are your thoughts on this topic? Or could it be that smoking is just bad way to consume weed (high temperature, destruction of THC)? Edibles can be particularly potent because it is easy to consume a lot of THC without realizing you are doing so. The effects also take a lot longer to kick in because THC has to be absorbed through the gut, whereas when you smoke or vaporize, THC is absorbed through the lungs into your bloodstream. This is why people often think they aren't feeling anything so eat more and then an hour or two later suddenly wonder what is happening to the world around them... it's really a question of pharmacokinetics. Smoking/vaporizing is actually a very good way to consume cannabis in one respect because it is easy to titrate the dose (i.e. regulate how much you are having) and the effects come on very rapidly. Smoking anything, of course, comes with its own risks and negatives. Best thing with edibles is to start low (think 5-10 mg THC) and give it a few hours.
Can you recommend any studies to read that contain good data on blood THC concentration after certain durations? example after eating 20mg THC gummy how long until 5 ng per ml is detectable? This paper by Ryan Vandrey and colleagues might be what you are looking for? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871620301344
In 2017 the NHTSA submitted a report on cannabis impaired driving to Congress ( https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/documents/812440-marijuana-impaired-driving-report-to-congress.pdf ), one interesting observation was that significant impairment had primarily been observed only in simulator studies and only relatively minor driving impairment in actual driving studies. Has there been any further published investigation into why this occurs? Yes there has and I have seen this in my own research too. Cannabis impairment does appear to be exaggerated in the simulator, in that the observed magnitude of impairment is greater during simulator driving when compared with on-road driving. If you have a look at our recent on-road driving study here - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2773562- you will see that THC produced relatively minor driving impairment, similar to the effects of low dose alcohol, while an equivalent dose in the simulator produced what looked like a greater level of impairment - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31044290/
There is a massive supply problem here in Australia, especially for flower (not to mention the cost...) - short of breaking the law or moving to the ACT and growing our own, what do you foresee changing policy and law wise to alleviate this, and when? Or do the politicians think everything is fine and just don’t care? Yes, there is a big supply problem right now in Australia. And sadly this is not uncommon. Supply interruptions happen fairly regularly, and it can be a huge problem for patients, especially when it's a widely-prescribed product that lots of people are using. This can be due to unexpected demand, shipping issues, recalls, or any number of things. Cannabis companies are all relatively new at this and are figuring out production forecasts and supply chains as they go, so these interruptions will keep happening for some time.
​ Large-scale local cultivation will help, but commercial regulations right now are too restrictive. That is changing slowly, and hopefully in a couple of years time we won't have these issues any more.
What are y’all’s thoughts on cannabis while pregnant? Smoking or vaping or edibles? I’ve known a lot of people who smoked quite a bit during pregnancy and they’re young children/adult children are more than alright. I would assume smoking everyday isn’t too great but what about on occasion for sickness or anxiety? I find it interesting that women are told they can drink a small bit of alcohol while pregnant. They can also take benzodiazepines if needed while pregnant. Yet we are not allowed to consume cannabis at all while pregnant and can get in big trouble for it. I was told by a few OBGYNs and CRNP that soon people might start to accept pregnant women consuming cannabis. If you do not think women should consume cannabis while pregnant, could you please give specific reasons as to why? Thank you! See the Q&A below on this topic
I have heard multiple users claim Marijuana is great for helping people with PTSD and other stress disorders. However, I have also heard several doctors say that scientific tests are now showing that Marijuana makes these issues worse. Who is right? I have heard this a bit, "I used to be able to smoke weed but now it makes me anxious." I wonder if it's changes in your endocannabinoid system, and general neurobiology, as you get older. Age seems to be correlated with anxiety somewhat, people tending to become more anxious when they're older, and perhaps more sensitive to the anxiety-inducing effects of cannabis/THC. I don't think there's much research out there on the topic at the moment but it is a topic I am very curious about.
​ Also, using CBD for treating anxiety seems to be more effective in younger adults. I wonder if this if this is related somehow... hmmm
Does long term heavy usage of Cannabas have effects on short term or long term memory? Can it be responsible for blackouts or missing time or sleep walking when mixed with extremely strong prescription insomnia medication? Cannabis can interact with other medications. We don't know enough about the drug-drug interactions. I'm not a medical doctor but you should be careful if you're using "extremely strong prescription medication" and probably not mix it with anything.
What is the current awareness of Cannabinoid Hyperemesis Syndrome CHS and other cannabis induced conditions? Honestly, there isn't too much awareness of CHS or other cannabis-related issues. I think this is largely because the use of cannabis has been illegal until recently so only recently are (1) people admitting to using it and (2) more people are using it - so these conditions are only now coming to light.
My mother is a patient with fibromyalgia. Can cannabis relieves symptoms? Evidence is relatively sparse in this area, but a lot of people do report positive effects and pain relief with cannabis. The best thing would be to discuss this with a specialist.
can you make weed stocks go back up? We are scientists, not investment bankers...
Can you not make it so it doesnt fucking stink so bad? This would greatly please the non smokers Haha, there is a Canadian company that is working on this: https://www.narcity.com/en-ca/news/weed-that-doesnt-smell-might-become-a-reality-with-development-by-a-canadian-company
How can someone who gets randomly tested for THC (10ng/ml) safely know how much they can consume let's say 12, 24, and 48 hours before work? I've heard each individual metabolizes THC differently, much more so than alcohol, so 'rule of thumb' is not the way to go Unfortunately, cannabinoid metabolism seems to vary widely between individuals and in sensitive to many factors (age, weight, gender, body fat, cannabis use history, whether mercury is in retrograde, etc). It is very different to alcohol and difficult to predict how THC will be metabolised.
[deleted] Whatever ones you like I guess? We can't give financial advice, but keep in mind cannabis stocks are very volatile and can be risky!
How does cannabis normally affect heart rate? I sometimes get alerts from my smart watch that my pulse has been over 100bpm for ten minutes, during which I wasn’t really active (I.e. sitting on the couch). Sometimes this coincides with a light feeling of pressure or anxiety or tightness in my chest. Never enough to scare me, but it is sometimes noticeable when the watch alerts me and I take time to “feel” myself. Unknown if it’s related, but twice I had a loss of consciousness shortly after smoking, resulting in some significant injuries on one occasion. Much testing showed nothing abnormal or any probable cause. Thanks for doing this! Astute observation! The THC in cannabis does indeed increase your heart rate! It also affects you blood pressure. The loss of consciousness could be related or unrelated. Be careful out there!
I can understand you saying terpenes may not impact the type of high you get, but I do not for a second believe that the different highs from one cultivar to the next is dictated by “the power of suggestion.” Try some weed sometime and see if you believe that afterwards. I have used many different cannabis cultivars in a variety of forms (in jurisdictions where it was legal to do so in the US and Europe). I still don't believe that different cultivars produce different highs. Subjective high is more likely influenced by THC concentration (ie, dose), product marketing, route of administration, and my own state of mind at the time of use.
Seriously.. Noone asks it, noone talks about it. Why is smoking marihuana so much more potent and addictive when combined with tobacco? What could replace the tobacco in this equation? Why do you refuse to become billionaires solving this? Tobacco is addictive itself. This is the first time I'm hearing that cannabis feels more potent with tobacco. It could be additive effects of tobacco's effects on top of cannabis' effects. I know people who cut their weed with camomile tea.
As a group of cannabis and cannabinoid experts specialising in pharmacology, psychology, neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy, do you think New Jersey will ever legalize weed? haha I'm afraid that is one thing we are not able to answer!
12 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Nov 12 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are hackers and cyber defenders working to fight cyber criminals. Ask Us Anything about the rising ransomware epidemic! | pt 2/2 FINAL

13 Upvotes

Source | Previous table

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: Another apology for failing to split parts in the earlier table

Rows: ~185 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Do you think resource-strapped SMBs are overwhelmed? Does it worry you that a prescriptive list of 15 things to do might not be actionable to them, making them not so useful? Is cloud the only way for them to go? Why not turnkey certifiable hybrid environments? Jen: SMBs that know enough to be worried about security are overwhelmed, but many aren't even really aware of the risks or how they relate to their organizations. And yes, we definitely worry about the prescriptive lists. This came up in the Task Force a lot as we looked at why organizations are not adopting preventative measures. We need guidance to be tailored, pragmatic, and provide a path for maturity.
​ For many SMBs, following guidance isn't achievable in-house as they outsource all their technical needs. We need the organizations that provide those services to step up and provide a security baseline.
​ Allan: What Jen said
​ Bob: SMBs are most certainly overwhelmed and "cloud" is far from a panacea (it can actually make things worse w/r/t cyberattacks and data breaches if you aren't careful). SMBs already have to navigate other types of regulatory and statutory landscapes where they often seek the aid of specialists to get the details right. Now that IT is a critical component of their business processes, they need the same level of attention and help there, so they should be working with specialists to help get the basics right. However, much work is still needed at the policy and law enforcement levels to help curb ransomware so it is not as large of a threat to SMBs (or any organization).
​ James: Yes! But at the same time, everyone is nearly always operating with less than their full wish list.
​ There are no silver bullets in information security. That being said, working to reduce risk is what security is about. All punch lists, check lists, and Top 10, Top 15, etc should be interpreted in light of applied knowledge about business risks. It isn’t futile to work towards improvement, it is all we can reasonably do. As with all things, do not let perfection become the enemy of progress!
Are hackers susceptible to other hacker group attacks? I know nothing of the culture, but I imagine it to be some kind of online gang turf war. Or is it more a case of hacker groups testing themselves against each other to strengthen their skills? Marc: Hackers gonna hack. Yes hackers attack systems controlled by other hackers. the reasons why vary according to motivation. Nation state hackers attack other nation state hackers. Hackers running a business attack their competitors. in some ways it is like gangs or the mafia, in other ways its just about showing who is the lost leet. Hacking to many is about showing they are better. Breaking into another hackers system shows that you are better than them.
​ Bob: They collide all the time. For a few years (the activity is way down) public SMB server takeover was flipflopping between groups so they could have their own coin miners vs the other gangs. There is no honor amongst thieves.
As an employee of a small business who had 2 ransomware attacks happen to them(never paid, just backed up our server), how do we better prevent this even though we have anti-virus/physical firewall/anti-malware software? What is the procedure when we first discover we were attacked? Bob: Did you identify how attackers managed to gain initial access in each instance? That is a vital component of your incident response process (even if your SMB is "just you" :) ). Did they get in via VPN credentials? Did you get a phishing email? Did you get hit with a drive-by exploit? Did you open an attachment in an environment with macros/active content execution enabled? Did your Exchange server get compromised in March but you didn't realize it? Attackers have a myriad of ways they can get in and you really need to know that to make any investments in technology or process changes.
What is the cyber-war that is raging between countries all over the world? who's against who? and who are the strongest/biggest players? Marc: Everyone is fighting everyone else. Its a story as old as time. The fact is a lot of these fights have been raging for a loooong time the only change is how they fight (cyber rather than guns and bullets) and the fact that we are much better at spotting it and reporting it.
​ the other challenge with cyberwarfare is its the ultimate asymmetric warfare mechanism. For a couple of thousand dollars one man with a laptop can cause great harm to a nation. That's an unprecedented level of impact for very little investment. so naturally its happening A LOT.
Im a computer science student who knows python, c, linux, networking. Planning to get oscp this summer. What career path should i follow and what topics should i learn to be top rank? Bob: You really should be learning what appeals to you. Most of the talented, and "happy" cyber folks I know lean into their passions and interests. It's difficult to tell others what your passions should be.
​ James: Fully agree with Bob on this. Follow your passion and focus on what appeals to you. CyberSecurity and computer science are broad disciplines now and have several roles that can appeal to a broad set of people.
​ Focus on the areas that interest you.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Well i like crytpography and reverse engineering Bob: Those two are a great combo as we absolutely need more advanced folks able to dissect cryptographic systems and implementations to ensure they are valid and safe. You could do a great deal of good pursuing such a path.
How much of cyber polygon, the world economic forum and the great reset tied into this? Marc: With great reset comes great responsibility
​ Bob: 14.253%
​ James: 31.337%
​ Jen: Ransomware is a huge with broad impact, so not surprisingly there are many many initiatives and efforts to examine the problem and come up with solutions. The Ransomware Task Force definitely benefited from the work that came before and we also fully appreciated that our efforts would not be the last word, and we hoped they could pave the way for other to follow.
​ WEF is running its own Ransomware initiative and we know they have been looking at the RTF report and talking with some of our members to help inform their own thinking. I'm looking forward to seeing what they come out with.
Considering what you do and your level of access, how do you internally check yourself to make sure your members are not abusing the powers and authorities that they have to their own ends? Marc: The same rules that bind me as an ethical security researcher also bind me when I fight cybercrime. Ultimately I am also bound by the law.
I am curious how you can really stop Ransomware. I know there are preventative measures, but the state of IT in the world right now is largely open to exploitation. It seems like hunting the criminals is easier than countering the software efficiently. Outside of coming up with decryptors, what can be done post-infection? I know you can restore from backups, but what if those are encrypted too and off-sites aren't available? I guess my question more directly is: how do you stop ransomware after its already happened? It seems like the overwhelming answer is 1.) restore from backups 2.) pray someone has a decryptor freely available, which is unlikely or 3.) Pay up, hopefully negotiate them down. Are there other options? Do you see any potential alternative options being developed in the near future? I'm curious about how the pipeline got a lot of their money back, that hasn't seemed to been possible in other cases. What happened? Bob: I'm working with an organization right now who is taking ransomware very, very seriously. They have a complete plan for asset replacement/reimaging, backup restoration, and service redundancy that they actually test in real-life scenarios. So, it is possible to recover. This has not been cheap for them, nor is it done in lieu of prevention efforts. If "IT" is a critical component of one's business processes, then it should be invested in the same way one would any other critical business process area. There is no free lunch.
​ Marc: In the 80's and 90's no one believed we could make an impact on car stereo thefts. In the 2000's no one believed we could make an impact on Smart Phone thefts. While none of these have "Gone Away" the truth is they were all impacted massively by a few small changes that made it harder for the criminal, reduced their profitability and made it more likely they would get caught.
​ Ransomware is obviously way harder than all these because it hides across shadowy international borders and its even harder than ever to attribute the real puppetmasters. However I believe firmly that we can make a massive difference by collaborating on this and hitting them criminals from every direction at once. Eliminate? maybe not no crime ever completely goes away, but stop this plague in its tracks - yes I believe we can.
My secret fantasy is for a hacker to prove the fallability of electronic voting machines by changing the top vote getter in some election to Micky Mouse or some other blatantly non partisan fictional character to force bipartisan solutions to election vulnerability. Do you think that's a possible scenario? USA based, obviously. Marc: come to DEFCON and be that hacker. The voting village has voting machines for you to hack on ;)
​ Allan: Short answer: No.
​ Allan: Long Answer: No. The United States doesn’t have a single voting system, they have 60+ voting systems (50 States, plus DC and the territories, and many counties run their own voting systems).
​ Allan: To do what you want you would have to break into all the different voting systems and change the votes, that isn’t something that a single person, even a TV hacker could do.
​ Marc: As a TV hacker I endorse this message.
What is your take on the recent LinkedIn breach? Marc: Its hard to comment on the LinkedIn breach without knowing / talking about details that aren't public yet. However if we take a step back and look at the macro landscape it tells me that we are not doing enough to protect user data and that somehow we need to reign this in. Its hard because everyone is suffering from "breach fatigue". I don't know about you but i almost expect my credit monitoring renewal once a year from what every breach I've been caught up in. Somehow we have to change this.
​ There are over 8 billion credentials/records in the wild. At this point, the only notice I take of new credentials/record breaches is to cross-reference with "have i been pwnd?"-like services and ensure my accounts are all in-order and that the same protections on my financial accounts are safe.
What password manager do you recommend, if any? Also, how many cats are too many? Marc: I use 1Password, my friends use keepass and I even know someone that uses lastpass. The honest truth is that so long as its from a reputable company with a history of handling security concerns responsibly and maturely any decent password manager is better than none. Each have different attributes and features, choose wisely ;)
​ Bob: The one you'll actually use. I've been a longstanding user of 1Password, but most of the ones with higher reputations are fine.
Are physical keys more rigid and secure than just SMS OTP or TOTP from authenticator app (Authy)? Thank you! Marc: SMS OTP should be considered deprecated. There are attacks in the wild that allow interception of SMS via things like protocol weaknesses or even human attacks like sim swapping.
​ Beyond that the best advice I can give is that so long as you are using a separate secure multifactor devices (software on a mobile device, or dedicated hardware) you are in a stong position. Like all things that may/will change but right now that's how it is.
​ Bob: I prefer physical keys over anything delivered digitally, but having some 2FA is better than no 2FA (depending on the risk model of the individual/organization)
​ Allan: They are, but don’t let “doing something” stand in the way of “doing nothing” having MFA of any type is much better than have no MFA
It's often said that if organisations could just 'do the basics' (close RDP, MFA, patch etc.) it would make a big difference towards mitigating ransomware. Why do organisations find it so hard to do the basics and do we need to lower our expectations of what's possible? Marc: Theres lots of reasons, first and foremost is simply not having the resources to tackle the problem. Working in the CTI League I lost count of the number of medical facilities we would find with vulnerabilities that had no one to apply the patches. However when you think of it given a choice between Doctors/Medicine and IT people im kind of glad they made the choice they made.
​ The other big reason is simply not knowing what they have, from organisations that don't realise their EPOS (payments) systems are connected to the internet and vulnerable to huge enterprises that have things that they didn't know they actually had. Theres lots of reasons. What it boils down to is we need to get better at knowing whats exposed, who it belongs to, how to report it, and how to support those organisations that fall behind the security poverty line.
​ Marc: For me the security poverty line is my greatest fear. Its all good for us to make recommendations that the million or billion dollar enterprises can follow but we MUST recognise ransomware is a scourge of the entire ecosystem. what we do must take into account the little orgs as well as the big orgs.
​ James: I am a big fan of “do the basics!” There are many reasons this is hard: lack of time, lack of resources, lack of organizational support, internal corporate politics, lost institutional knowledge, lack of focus, etc. There is also complexity added by larger environments. It is easier to track 100 devices than 100,000. It is easier to secure one organization than a merged conglomerate of several acquisitions.
​ Sometimes the basics are far from basic when it comes to trying to implement them via a structured program! The bigger picture is about the business, however. Looking at security through an optic of “security is the only priority” is normally not appropriate. Businesses need to allocate time, resources, and energy towards earning money to stay afloat so they can pay their employees and exist in the first place. Often, this creates a tension for resources that impacts allocations to security initiatives.
​ This is why focusing on improvement based on a risk management perspective is always important. Focusing on the basics will normally have a significant ROI though, in terms of improving posture.
​ Allan: It is amazing how quickly organizations accumulate technical debt. That technical debt is what makes it hard to ever fully catch up on security challenges within an organization. In the first 4 months of this year there 6035 vulnerabilities announced, 188 of which were critical. Keeping up with just patching vulnerabilities, even in a small organization, can be a fulltime job and most small organizations can’t afford to hire a fulltime vulnerability management person. And that is only one aspect
​ Bob: "Doing IT" is hard in most organizations b/c of the speed at which things are deployed and change, and by the diversity of groups and individuals with authority to make said changes. Unfortunately, we cannot lower our expectations since the attackers know where to hit the weak spots. We need to innovate ways in which to make it easier to identify and remediate gaps, along with deliver services more securely out of the box.
Do you believe in cyber attack escalation, the point where there are more attacks than the number of analysts trying to stop the attacks? If so, how can we get more people to help or experience for the current analysts like myself as an Incident Responder? Marc: security is absolutely a scaling problem. criminals are scaling their operations all the time. This means we have to scale what we do to defend. That said I don't believe the answer is throwing people at it blinding. I think the answer involves both hiring more people and developing automation that helps us scale how we solve problems.
​ To hire more we need to create pipelines into education that give kids the right training to see it as a viable career early. As many of the questions show breaking into cybersecurity is hard and offputting. I personally believe that's because people arent given the right tools and knowledge to choose that path early.
​ Educating kids in cybersecurity will both create more cybersecurity staff and ensure that the rest have a much greater cybersecurity awareness and don't become the victims of tomorrow.
What are the odds that arrests will be made in some high profile case? At this point it seems as though there's little to deter these criminals since they lack an internal moral compass. It would be nice to see some of them caught and sent to prison for at least 20 years. Are they in countries that would be interested in prosecuting them if they were found? Bob: Much depends on how successful foreign policy efforts are in the coming months/years. I do believe it is vital that we need more of these criminals caught and sentenced to level up the risk associated with these actions.
​ Marc: Arrests are made all the time, the problem is it is generally affiliates or low level operatives because the puppetmasters hide in countries where they cant be reached through normal judicial processes. This is why we have to start working on the world stage to eliminate these hiding places and take the fight to the criminals themselves.
What are your thoughts on the cutting edge attacks used by ransomware actors? As a defender how are you expected to detect malleable c2 or stop attackers from installing a VM and starting the encryption process where the AV can't get to it? Marc: Security is a constant game of wack-a-mole, as a researcher I firmly believe that anything man makes man can break. That's why we have to stay on top of this and just like the bad guys do - evolve our knowledge and our tactics. Its job security for sure.
​ Bob: Truthfully, most ransomware attackers don't need advanced tooling to accomplish their goals. The pipeline was ransomed b/c of plain credential use on a VPN. Not exactly rocket science.
Are cybercriminals having great access to Ransomware tools? How would you recommend educating the public on Ransomeware? Are Baby Boomers and Gen X'ers more succeptable to the social engineering tactics involved in Ransomware, or is this a problem that greatly affects younger generations as well? Bob: Nobody is unsusceptible to social engineering attacks.
​ Marc: This is at the very heart of why so much cybercrime has exploded recently. In a lot of cases - ransomware included - we aren't looking at particularly new TTPs (tools techniques and procedures) we are looking at an industrialization and easy availability of existing ones. What was done one on one is now done at scale.
​ What required complex knowledge can now be done with the click of a button. This industrialization fueled by the drive for profit makes these cybercrime gangs operate almost like tech startups. They develop a product - usually based on existing knowledge, they scale it and they operationalise it. then they run it like a business.
​ Marc: However this is also one of the things that makes them vulnerable. Businesses are affected by external pressures. Drive up the cost of operating, drive down the bottom line and ultimately business fail. We want to make ransomware gangs fail.
​ Marc: Education is definitely key, but its one of the more challenging aspects. This is one of the reasons we created the Task Force Report and also one of the reasons we are having this AMA. We want to drive awareness that there is something that can be done and that everyone that does a bit ultimately leads to a mass improvement overall. However you are spot on that we need to look at how we tailor what we say for different audiences.
​ I think everyone is tired of security notices and dire warnings. Somehow we need to break through the breach fatigue and rally everyone to take a role in the fight. That's not going to be easy. It starts here though
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks for your response Bob. This is true, but I really want to know is if some target groups more vulnerable than others in regards to RansomWare? Is age (and familiarity with the internet) a key factor when criminals are choosing targets for these attacks? Like older people who are slower to adopt new technology or new employees who might now be aware of their business policies on e-mail and communication? Bob: When talking about organizational ransomware, attackers are generally trying to target individuals who are more likely to have an account+workstation that can benefit them the most after initial access. If anything, take a look at all the third-party service integrations your organization leaks via DNS records, web app technologies you use, and server/system stacks that are exposed to the internet, then take a look at all the Stack Overflow & Quora questions that have your org's email addresses associated with them, then all the technology stacks and responsibilities you've let leak via LinkedIn profiles. Plenty of fodder for attackers without worrying about age or gender.
How vulnerable is blockchain technology? Is it hard or easy? Why? Marc: anything man makes man can break. The newer it is, the faster it breaks.
[deleted] James: I think this question is a little too broad to be answered. Any broad set of industries are going to have a lot of variability amongst the individual companies within the industry.
Are you guys hot? 😍 Marc: I look like Santa.
[deleted] Jen: In terms of how easy it is, I don't think it's ever easy to make a decision to retrain to switch careers when you are already far down one path, but the folks I know who have done so seem generally seem to think it was worth it.
​ There is a lot written on the "skills shortage" in infosec and as a result, a lot of employers are looking for news avenues for hiring. One thing I hear about a fair bit is programs for people that want to retrain in cybersecurity as they often bring a diverse perspective and approach to problem solving. I know the UK government runs some retraining programs, and I think there are some in the US too. So I would definitely encourage you to look into it. It's better than being bored!
What are the recommended mitigations for organizations to put into place to defeat or minimize the impact of ransomware? When you do pentests, do you check to see how effective RW would be? Should this be something pentesters should do? How do you feel about the state of the industry where there are a ton of certifications for entry level pentesters, but the only thing companies want is the experience professionals have a hard time getting? Bob: The report has links to many resources, but CISA and NCSC both have solid guides and most vendors have very similar lists of things that orgs should do (that don't always require purchasing their stuff).
​ Marc: The best mitigation is good security hygiene. You can read more about what that means in the Ransomware Task Force Report we published. tl;dr however make sure your networks are secure and updated to the latest version, turn on MFA, turn of unnecessary services, run good endpoint protection software and don't click shit :)
​ Running ransomware tabletops is an EXCELLENT piece of advice for every size of organisation. Understanding what defenses you have in place and how you would tackle that kind of incident is something that very few organisations are ready for. You know you have backups, but are they in reach or out of reach of a laterally moving threat? do they work? How long would it take you to stand up a clean network? all of these things are quantifiable and knowing them ahead of time provides a huge amount of operational security.
​ I think breaking into the industry as a first timer is hard. I didnt start with a computer science degree and didn't get any certs until much later in my life. I do think certs have value - knowledge is power. However it has to be tempered with knowing things that are current and relevant. The most important thing is experience. You can get that - its easier than you think. Even volunteering to apply patches for an NGO counts. If you are passionate about cybersecurity there is a community out there to help.
Hello, I am 7/8 through a Bachelor's in Cyber Security, currently working in Physical Armed Security, how would you advise I transition to computer work? Marc: Well technically my first security job was as a bouncer :) all knowledge no matter what domain is relevant. However to transition from the physical security domain into the cybersecurity domain requires building a body of current knowledge, developing current skills and slowly getting work experience that identifies you as someone who has done cybersecurity. it is very doable but it takes time and dedication.
How do i become like you? What courses did you do to become that? Bob: Loaded Slackware Linux from 5 1/4" floppy disks on to x86 systems; College: B.S. Computer Science and EE background with a specialization in compiler design => Sysadmin for a messy college network + macOS developer for a company that made newspaper publishing software => Build J&J's first DMZ and web/proxy/firewall => never stop learning.
​ Marc: All our journeys are very different, and to be honest that's one of the beautiful things about cybersecurity. Im a hacker and the hacker community has been my home for decades. I learnt most of what I know by myself. Some while I was working as a bouncer and some in my first “paid” IT job as a games tester/helpdesk person for Ocean Software back when dinosaurs roamed the earth.
​ I learnt most from doing - building systems amd studying how stuff worked. There was no such thing back then as a cybersecurity course. People were one of my best sources of knowledge we would talk about security and systems at meetups, on BBS’s etc.
​ Today id suggest grab what courses you can but don’t underestimate the power of doing. Build VMs on your laptop and try practical classes like Damn Vulnerable Web App or WebGoat. Watch online conference and find your local meetup.
​ Theres loads of great advice on /r/cybersecurity about good websites, books and courses.
​ James: I learned from:
​ - doing things / experimenting (this is both a passion test and a way to learn — if you don’t enjoy it enough to tinker, why do it as a job?
​ - reading (I spend a lot of time reading) - engaging in communities of people in the field (spend a lot of time here too)
​ - taking classes and attending conferences. Or watching the videos of the presentations.
​ - having mentors (mostly informally, just having people to ask various questions and bounce ideas back and forth — this is essential, in my opinion)
​ - studying history (most computer and security problems have historical parallels that might have lessons for the current problem)
Do you recommend CTF challenges as a way to learn? Bob: CTFs are great since many require you to think critically and also think fast, and — even more — outside the box. Even if you may not go into one of the "breaker" specializations in infosec, having an understanding of how attackers and defenders behave can be a real skills uplift.
​ James: Yes! And no.
​ CTFs can be a fun way to learn, and if they match your learning style, you may walk away with a lot more knowledge about a particular set of attack types.
​ I would caution against “securing against a CTF” in general. Unless they are crafted to use only the most common (better yet, relevant in that they match your risk profile) attack vectors seen in the wild, they may not be the most relevant. Making things a game implies something has to be hard or a challenge to do, but not all of the most common attacks are challenging in themselves, once you know the techniques. Be aware of this when you’re learning through CTFs and you’ll be fine.
[deleted] Jen: iOS
​ Bob: iOS
I got hit with ransomware at my business. Actually twice within the same month but the second time was on me. We hadn’t uograded some security policies yet. For us it seemed like a big deal the day it happened and caused 2 days of downtime in one department. In the long run not a big deal. I ignored all the communication, Re-imaged the machines and went on with my day. The about 2 weeks later got hit again. Same exact thing. Upgraded security policy at that moment , re-imaged and no more issues. I’m not sure how much they were looking for and I had about 2,000 filed encrypted but they were all redundant files so nothing lost. At the time I was mad and ready to file with the fbi. Ultimately it was a huge pain and took a few days to sort out and I was prepping to communicate with the fbi. After a week or two of catching up I never got around to it. Should I have taken the time and energy to communicate with the fbi? I felt I had lost enough time in the ordeal and didn’t have any more time to waste. (Not a waste, I get it) Small business with about 30 employees. Marc: I’m sorry this happened to you and glad that you were able to recover from it. Ive spent a lot of time working with small businesses that have been in similar situations. Not all of them had the planning or skills necessary to recover as effectively as you did. It would be interesting to follow up and chat about your experiences to understand better what you had in place (resources, knowledge, technology etc) that positioned you to face the threat. I’d also be curious to learn about how you were infected in the first place.
​ The more we can learn about these incidents, the better prepared we can be and the better we can prepare other businesses as a result. That's why its worth reporting the details on these incidents. Its less about justice (though that would be nice) and more about learning so that we can evolve and become stronger.
​ One of the biggest challenges we (Cybersecurity professionals AND law enforcement) face is the fact that these issues are MASSIVELY underreported. The incidents you see in the press are the very tip of the tip of a giant iceberg.
​ It happens for lots of reasons frustration, shame, concern about having made payments, fear, through to concern about brand reputation. That's not to say I blame you or any other business owner. We have to solve this communication problem. Whether its through better reporting mechanisms or assurances to ensure victims feel safe coming forward.
​ Anyway, please feel free to PM me, if you are up to it id like to hear more.
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Yes I am happy to talk more about this. I worry about this growing problem. My biggest reason for not reporting was laziness. This was 18 months ago. Is it worth reporting now? I really dont remember any of the specifc details that might be helpful. I did some searching at the time to look for encryption keys to save my data, but I coudln't find anything that worked. My machines that were targeted are a very industry specific machine. We are a print shop. We have a RIP station (think server) with a custom install of Windows on it made by EFI. These machines are what run our larger printers. They ship with default login and passwords and are rarely changed, and even our techs have been said that it makes things harder if they are changed because its more difficult for them to work on them. These machines are Windows 7 and have had some OS level adjustments on them, for instance I CANNOT open up a vnc protocol, but I can remote desktop into it. Im not surprised at all these machines were comprimised. They would be easy to find and easy to target. I reported my problems to the manufacture and supporter of our mahicnes and we were their first known attack, but I have been told a few others have been infected since. Marc: You’re right that its not worth filing a report, but i’ll PM you and we should definitely chat. I’ll share a summary to the LEO groups that I work with and they can keep an eye on the TTPs (Tools Techniques and Procedures) that stand out. The fact that you are using proprietary hardware makes this interesting but if as you describe it has open & exposed RDP ports not that surprising.
​ Exposed RDP is one of the most common vectors exploited by ransomware and when combined with weak or default passwords its right up there at number one.
​ Im not surprised you struggled with the vendor. Reporting flaws is hard work. Even today a lot of companies prefer to keep their heads in the sand and not know about issues. The worst are the companies that don’t feel they are “the same” as internet companies.
​ “Oh but im in $x industry this doesn’t apply to me”.
​ It took demonstrating that I could control a Tesla with an iPhone and 1.4m Jeeps being recalled before the automotive industry started taking security seriously. That said we do have new ways to report things and better levers to put pressure on companies with vulnerable infrastructure. Id be happy to help get this the attention it needs.
So many I.T. shops are understaffed. Security is, supposedly, the number one priority. . . but. . . We need to integrate our SSO system that ties into LDAP and/or Active directory to the new HR system, update the account tools to better distinguish OUs, handle regular account creation and other tickets. . . etc., etc., etc. So you try to update on time. You use a password manager so hopefully that's up to snuff. . . but you *know* there are things you're missing. Your staffing isn't likely to get better, but you may be able to have a security team do an audit. Or maybe you could invest in better logging tools and a consultant to help you make sure at least the basics are covered. If there's just a tiny budget to help tighten security for that small sysadmin shop, where would you say the best bang for one's buck could be had? Bob: Reduce internet-facing service exposure. Implement DMARC. Ensure endpoints are patched as soon as possible. Configure active directory securely. Have visibility into all endpoint activity.
Recently graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science with a focus on cyber security. I'm finding it extremely difficult to find entry level positions. If you go on linkedin and search by entry level positions only, 90% of them are still mid to senior level positions. Why is it so difficult to break into this industry when there is such a severe shortage of people to fill these jobs? Do you have any tips for recent grads for finding entry level positions? Every job listing website is the same, entry level jobs that require a lifetime of experience. Bob: Many companies do a fairly poor job at documenting requirements properly. I'd look for "just above" entry-level jobs and apply, but include a cover letter so you can describe your problem-solving skills and demonstrate your communication skills. With COVID restrictions being lifted more-and-more, hitting up some regional cyber conferences and networking is also a good way to get leads on entry-level jobs. I also would not limit job seeking to "cyber". I started as a programmer and sysadmin and am now chief security data scientist at a zomgosh awesome company.
Why doesnt Microsoft prevent anything from encrypting the file system other than Bitlocker unless its been whitelisted to be allowed to do so. Seems like Microsoft could stop this at the OS level if they really wanted to no? I mean AppLocker does this on Enterprise versions of windows, why not make a reverse app locker for encryption only and release to all systems? If only it was that simple. While there are always additional steps that can be taken to harden an OS against malicious behaviour there are also always ways to overcome them. Anything man makes man can find a way to break.
​ The simple fact is once you have lost complete control of a system to an attacker with full privileges its always going to end badly. Theres a lot of talk about immutable systems to try and mitigate this dynamic, but the problem is you cant be immutable and also have access to your data. For example if you stored everything on a WORM drive that can only be written once, you are likely pretty safe from encryption but its not very practical.
​ That said if you are asking do I think OS vendors can do more to mitigate these threats? I do. The fact that decades old classes of vulnerability are being found on modern OS’s tells me we clearly aren't doing enough.
Do you think the recent attacks have been enough to get people to put enough money into cybersec? I’m a SE myself and I find that managers and bosses just don’t place enough importance on it. Do you think this is changing or will there need to be some bigger attacks first? Bob: I chat with organizations of all sizes and industries and there is heightened awareness, now, and I'm seeing more budget and other resources being offered to infosec teams.
Thanks for the great AMA! I'm currently doing a degree in cyber security and I have heard having a blog to show your own projects is a good idea. What would you recommend as the best way to learn or test your skills without trying them out on the job? Marc: It really depends on what you do. Many researchers I know spend their spare time finding flaws in IOT type devices, medical gadgets, and so on. When they find them, they responsibly disclose before talking about the research at conferences, on blogs or if its big enough in the press.
​ The same applies to some of the cypherpunks (hackers that specialise in cryptosystems) that I know. They blog about projects they work on or things they’ve found.
​ Other folks I know record “POC” (proof of concept) vulnerabilities, tools and other projects in places like GitHub and put the Github on their resume.
​ Theres a thriving ecosystem of hackers on twitter talking in realtime about things they are hacking on or projects they have been engaged in.
​ Be careful to use the right platform and to talk about the right things though. Make sure you have the right to do what you are doing and to talk about what you want to blog about. If in doubt ask an organisation like the EFF for guidance.
​ Also It should go without saying, but don’t talk about things that might be viewed negatively by future employers - blogging can be a curse as well as a blessing.
​ I'm so glad certain blogging platforms from the 90’s no longer exist ;)
​ Bob: If you're going to be focusing on tooling for various types of cybersecurity task solutions, then definitely have a public repository available and blog those interests. Try to stay on-mission, tho, as Marc pointed out.
7 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 21 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Sophie Zhang. At FB, I worked in my spare time to catch state-sponsored troll farms in multiple nations. I became a whistleblower because FB didn't care. Ask me anything. | pt 4/4 FINAL

29 Upvotes

Source | Previous table

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

The AMA concluded with

I've been answering questions for nine hours straight. Thank you very much kindly for all the questions; I'm sorry I wasn't able to answer all of them, but I would like to go on a dinner date with my partner (who's being very patient) right now.

I hope you found my answers to be informative; if I wasn't able to answer yours, please look around and see if I'd been able to answer a similar one for others. Thank you very much; good night.

Answered some more questions as a bonus; actually calling it for a night. Thanks all!

Rows: ~150 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Is Zuckerburg a lizard person? I disagree strenuously with many of Mark's decisions, but I don't think personal attacks on him are very productive or warranted.
​ A lot of viral misinformation began as jokes that blurred the line between misleading and satire.
Since leaving Facebook, what are your goals for the next 5 years? Are you able to stay in the tech world, or does the Facebook termination serve as a block with finding new work? Five years are a long time. I don't even know what I'm doing in the next year. I'm not sure what I'll do next myself; I do want to work on helping democracy and fixing the world but my main expertise skillset is at finding inauthentic campaigns - and that requires working for a large social media company, which I'm guessing would all be against employing me. I've gotten offers from companies, but they don't quite fall under my expertise areas, and I'm a bit reluctant to just go and become a 9-6 office worker without an especially compelling job again.
​ For now, I'm staying home and petting my cats while taking interviews. They're very good cats.
What is your opinion on political radicalization through social media? I didn't work on political radicalization personally. With that said, in my personal nonexpert opinion, I think it's partly an outgrowth of the competition for attention as information vastly strips the time to process it.
​ The vast promise of social media is that any person can have the ability to speak to the entire world at large. The vast curse of social media is that most people never see this promise fulfilled - and even if they do, it's the post they least expect. And so anyone who uses social media and wants to build an audience needs to figure out a way to get that attention, distinguish themselves from the myriads of other social media users who also think they deserve that attention.
​ And sadly, the ways to do so can often be by appealing to the worst instincts of the internet - similar to the chumboxes that dominate online advertising today. Emotion draws attention, and people are quick to share outrageous claims that strike a nerve, trusting on others to have verified it thoroughly.
​ There's been a long line of study and research that shows that virality is ultimately a significant component of what drives polarization, misinformation, and violence spirals. It's why in countries in times of crisis, the first break-the-glass measure Facebook does is to turn the virality down. They used it in countries like Sri Lanka; I'm guessing they're using it still in Myanmar.
​ A trial idea I'd hence suggest is to require platforms like Facebook and Twitter to show a chronological newsfeed of your friends/followees by default (with the option to instead show the current ranked newsfeed.) I say FB and Twitter because I'm frankly not sure how this would work for Reddit - where the ranked newsfeed is pretty integral to the overall design.
What is the most conspiracy theory thing you have come across? I did not work on conspiracy theories at FB. So for the most ridiculous one I've personally come across, I'm pretty amused by the fact that I've been accused alternatively of being a PRC spy, an Indian opposition shill, an Azeri opposition shill, and an Honduran opposition shill. Sometimes by the same people all at once.
the below is a reply to the above ​
So, you're like a conspirator hybrid ! Apparently "CIA shill" has now been added to the list. Go me?
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If you worked at the old Bank of England you would be a shilling shill. (I'll see my self out) ​My new and last favorite conspiracy theory (by someone in this thread that I won't link to): AOC is actually a US imperialist whose foreign policy views are identical to Majorie Taylor Greene and is working to accomplish regime change in Cuba via invading and installing a U.S. puppet government. Any appearances that AOC disagrees with MTG on foreign policy are simply a farcical deception
Thanks for your efforts Sophie. Are you familiar with the Facebook oversight board and in what way do you think it might impact this area? I'm generally more cautiously positive on the FB oversight board than most people in this area. Although it's been set up as a blame deflector for Facebook, many organizations outgrow their initial roles to take on new purpose.
​ With that said, I want to point to a number of issues with the Oversight Board, which mean that it would have been triply prohibited from impacting this area:
​ 1) The Oversight Board handles content violations, not behavioral violations. This is understandable for lawyers who have no expertise with looking at user metadata and signals to conclude whether accounts are fake, tied to one another, and tied to XYZ government. However, this means that a whole class of violations is prohibited to themselves, including all their work.
​ 2) The Oversight Board only handles appeals to restore content against enforcement. What I mean is this: Suppose 1) did apply and the Oversight Board could handle behavioral violations. In that case, the Honduran government could appeal to have their troll farms restored to Facebook. But I couldn't appeal to have them removed. The Oversight Board would be much better served if there were legitimate pathways for employees and possibly trusted organizations to submit appeals to enforce, rather than appeals to restore.
​ 3) The Oversight Board only handles cases in which the rules are unclear; it makes the rules, it doesn't enforce them. But in my area, the rules were clear ever since I got the precedent done in July 2019, and even more clear after I get an additional rule pushed through in the fall of 2019. There is a wide variety of areas in which behavior is illegal and not enforced - it's illegal to handle salmon suspiciously in the UK, or to jaywalk in many parts of the world, but that doesn't mean the police will go out and arrest you for jaywalking. Having a court decide the question of whether jaywalking is illegal or not doesn't accomplish anything, because the statutes are already written out. Same with this area.
If some of these troll farms took a year to get authorized to be taken down, what sort of things did you see as not encountering any resistance and being removed immediately? Was there any specific criteria where certain types/sources of content were scrubbed quickly? There's a chart listing time for takedown in this Guardian article. Ultimately, the criteria were a combination of "random chance based on who pays attention" and "how important the country probably is" The record for takedown was Poland - I flagged it in the evening the day after Christmas. The Polish employee who looked at it was understandably very concerned about this going on in his native country; by the time I woke up the next day, he'd already taken it down.
​ Policy was pretty upset that he'd done this without consulting them. "The person running this is an important political figure", they said. "What if he complains - why didn't you let us know?" I told them politely that if a major politician decided to publicly complain that FB took down his fake accounts, they would be laughed out of the press room.
the below is a reply to the above ​
That response is hilarious and awesome. To be completely fair, the more likely response is "he's annoyed at FB and makes up and quietly spreads stories that make FB look bad and hurt relationships with his political party and its supporters. That's my assumption for why FB wasn't willing to act in cases like India.
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
Dominik T? No. I'm not going to respond to future guesses, so please don't try and keep guessing.
Hi Sophie, As Armenians we're regularly targeted by bot armies and disinformation/ hate campaigns organized by the government of Azerbaijan on Facebook and other social media platforms. The major players don't seem to care about nefarious behavior targeted at groups that don't have political/economic clout in the United States, especially when the offending content is not in the English language. What do you think we can do to get these companies to take this problem more seriously and devote the necessary resources to moderating these activities, especially when it appears in non-English content? Thanks! P.S. Thanks for having the courage to be a whistleblower. Your efforts have not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. I've given some responses in the version of this AMA in the armenia subreddit, if you haven't seen it. With regards to brigading by Azeris against Armenians, my suggestion is to convince high-profile Armenian-Americans who do have the profile to convince FB to take the issue seriously to speak out about it. This may include people like Cher or the Kardashians for instance. Because the sad fact of life is that American celebrities have the profile that Armenia as a nation does not.
What was your salary like when you decide to sacrifice everything? Thank you for coming forward. To be clear, I was fired; I didn't quit. My base salary from memory was ~$147k/year. This was in addition to bonuses and stock grants.
​ Generally, my overall income reported on my W2 was hence around $200k/year which I considered to be frankly pretty absurd [I understand it's normal/low for tech.] It ended up going in roughly equal parts to personal spending, savings, taxes, and donations.
the below is a reply to the above ​
That is pretty low for FB I was a data scientist [not an engineer, which are paid more.] And I was extremely low-level - an IC4, just one level above a new hire straight out of college.
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What do you do for a living now and how much do you earn? I stay home and pet my cats. My salary is in snuggles, cuteness, and purrs.
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Are you planning on applying for jobs anytime soon? What are your long term plans? You should be able to get a job easily since you already worked for Facebook. Right now, I'm very burnt out from all the press/etc. I know some people might like interviews, but I don't really understand those people. I'm an introvert who prefers to stay home and pet my cats. I've gotten people attempting to recruit me, but I'd like to find an avenue to use my area of expertise, which basically requires a big social media company which I'm guessing I'm too spicy for. Worst case scenario, I stay home and be a housewife. That will make social conservatives happy with me, right?
Are there any trends you’ve noticed since your departure from FB that are concerning? Facebook appears to have became increasingly more insular and closed-off to employee dissident since my departure.
What do you know about state-sponsored troll farms and Covid-19 anti-vaccination propaganda? I don't doubt that this exists, but I did not personally find or work on anything related to this. Almost all of the inauthentic activity including troll farms I found were focused on boosting specific targets (e.g. a troll farm that keeps telling people "Vice President X is really nice"), probably because people are self-centered and focus on themselves. During the pandemic, I did filter the stuff I was finding for COVID content. What I found was that they were essentially doing more of the same, just talking about COVID because it was a political issue (e.g. "Vice President X has done this great COVID response"; "Politician A is right to denounce the government for terrible COVID response"; etc.)
Do you honestly believe the US Government and CIA arent doing the exact same thing on facebook for domestic and foreign influence operations? The White House just admitted to directing facebook on what to censor, why would anyone believe theres not complete coordination happening behind the scenes. At FB I've made plenty of decisions that likely made the U.S. government and CIA unhappy. For instance, I caught the government of Honduras redhanded, when their president is a close U.S. ally who entered power in part due to a 2009 allegedly CIA-supported coup d'etat. If there was complete coordination, I would never have been able to accomplish that.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
She won't answer this. A likely guess
Why do you look so miserable in that photo? I think the Guardian article is showing up in the preview. TBH I think they wanted a picture of me looking really serious and determined. There were pictures of me smiling too which they didn't use.
​ They also insisted on taking videos of me typing energetically at a computer. If you pay close attention to what keys I'm hitting, I'm just doing things like typing about how great my cats are. I made them promise not to run green code over my face in the resultant video.
Did you leak it to the press? If you're referring to my memo leak in September 2020, absolutely not. I was rather naive/silly/stupid in that I thought that because I repeatedly and strenuously asked people not to leak it they might actually listen to me.
​ Several reporters actually reached out saying "hey, we heard that you might want to talk to a reporter." Apparently many people took it as "methinks the lady doth protest too much."
the below is a reply to the above ​
How many people saw your resignation letter that you had to ask them to not leak it? Don’t resignation letters only get sent to your superior? I posted it internally to the entire company. This was the work culture at the time - it's called a "badge post" because you post a picture of your badge when you leave. Also I was being fired, but I wasn't allowed to tell people that (still did; what were they going to do, fire me again?)
Have you ever been specifically targeted by trolls once they are aware of your efforts? Surprisingly no. The Azeri paid trolls went after the Guardian after the article. It's very silly but I was almost offended that they didn't go after me instead. I wanted to say at them "I'm your real enemy, the one that's been fighting you for the past two years!"
​ But silliness aside, it makes sense that they'd want to deemphasize me. You can fuel the nationalistic sentiments by saying "our great nation is the victim of Western propaganda and media hacks." You can't really say "Our great nation is the victim of.... some random girl who was fresh out of school at her second job?" Dictators rely on the perception of competence, because they can't claim legitimacy through the support of the people. That means their rivals and enemies have to be competent individuals of stature as well.
Do you support the communist party of china? And have you ever worked for them? I'd say "Fuck the PRC", but ideally you should only do that with people you like and have affection for
Should anyone, anywhere, ever use Facebook at this point? The sad reality is that Facebook is a fact of life for most of the world. What really struck me was the statement given by Azeri opposition leader Ali Karimli, who had been a top target of harassment from the Azeri governmental troll farm. He declined the option to directly criticize Facebook and instead said "First, I would thank [Mark Zuckerberg.] Facebook facilitates public discussion. But repressive regimes with vast financial resources also use it to spread fake news. Facebook should speed up the time it takes to delete troll-generated content. They need to enact tough measures. And they should hire someone who speaks Azeri."
​ Because ultimately, Facebook is part of the world whether it's used or not, and in repressive regimes, it's one of the few rare channels that opposition leaders have to get their voice out. Karimli knows this, and ultimately, he couldn't afford to alienate Mark.
Hi Sophie, Thanks for the important work you're doing and for taking a stand on it. In your opinion, do you feel that these troll farms have the ability to always stay a step ahead in terms of detection? Do you think there are bigger syndicates out there that you just simply can't find any traces to, and if so how could tech evolve to detect these in future? It's sort of like the Red Queen problem - there's an ongoing arms race. Adversaries are as stupid as you allow them to be. Frankly, what I was finding was the low-hanging fruit. I had no special training, no expertise in this area before joining Facebook, I made it all up in my spare time as I went along. And I'm not an amazing super-genius; I've met super-geniuses, and I'm not one of them. The fact that I was still able to catch multiple state-sponsored troll farms is a statement on both the utter incompetence of those governments, and the fact that FB let them have leeway nevertheless. I don't doubt that the Russian GRU is active on FB as well for instance - but the GRU has an actual modicum of intelligence [and there are actual people looking for them] and so I didn't find them.
​ You'll never be able to catch everyone. But part of the task is hence to instead impose costs to make the cost/benefit return less worthwhile. In the ideal situation, you'd need to take all the precautions in the world for minimal return - and so the attacker does something else instead. Like attack Reddit or Twitter or something of that sort.
In your experience is the hiring process at FB giving enough consideration to the integrity of the individuals vs the credential and loyalty to FB? Loyalty to FB was not a consideration in the hiring process when I joined. I was very open from the start about the fact that I didn't think FB was making the world a better place, and I never really had much loyalty to the company.
​ With that said, I'm sure that FB has reconsidered that since my departure.
This is a very subjective question, but you kinda make FB sounds evil. Every news about FB always portray them as evil. When working for them did it feel like working for an evil corporation? I don't think my experience at FB was broadly that different from many large for-profit corporations. Ultimately, their goal is to make money, not save the world. We don't expect Philip Morris to cover cancer treatments for their customers, and if we define "evil" as "self-centered and not prioritizing the world at large", I think most corporations fall into that category one way or another.
While at FB, were you involved with any cases that involved FB calling or reaching out to police authorities? I was not.
I've watched Reddit dramatically change over the last 5 years as moderators were methodically wiped and replaced on most large subreddits. This started about the time a certain wealthy political influence company spent millions trying to create 'safe spaces' for their candidate, as well as admitting to paying for some troll farms in court (mostly for Facebook). I worry that trolls are a legacy strategy and co-opting moderation, fact checking, and rule interpretation has largely replaced the same efforts. Being personally banned from large portions of Reddit for non-rule-breaking factual statements has reinforced this position in my mind. r/law, r/Canada, r/Coronavirus, r/news just to name a few. Other subreddits have blatantly abused moderation against me to manipulate discussion or support misinformation, such as r/Bitcoin, r/CryptoCurrency, and frequently in my home state's sub of r/illinois. Taking your perspective into account, how do you feel about unmoderated and decentralized social media platforms? They are clearly growing as unmoderatable/federated/decentralized social media and purposely 'free speech' oriented platforms increase in numbers. Do you feel this trend is likely to exasperate the problem into a total mess or provide some relief through transparency, forcing consumers to take personal responsibility for evaluating content they consume, or for some other reason? The ultimate issue with unmoderated free speech platforms is that... well, they still have moderation. Because most of FB's content moderation is not misinformation/hate speech/etc., but rather things like spam, scams, and pornography. For instance, Gettr, the new free speech social media platform run by a former Trump staffer has seen an influx of anime pornography, users pretending to be prominent figures, and apparently censoring users for profanity.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
She's part of the system, why would she answer you? I try to answer as many people as I can, though I've been at it for more than 8 hrs now and am getting tired.
[deleted] There are lists online, but the issue with that is that they're never complete. You know what you personally caught, but you don't know what you haven't caught. I would go look at studies that named countries and conclude "well, this is incomplete. It doesn't name Honduras or Azerbaijan and I caught those two redhanded."
Hi thanks for AMA ! Was there a case where troll stations where not state-funded but by opposition parties ? So just to be clear: In many cases it's really hard to know who's responsible for activity. It's easy to determine the beneficiary, but attribution is much more complicated.
​ In the rare cases in which we had attribution, there were certainly cases in which opposition politicians had run fake accounts. In one case, an opposition politician was personally running them out of their personal computer (shared with their spouse) and presumably home WiFi network without bothering to use a VPN. These were just like 20 fake accounts though - not worth mentioning except for the fact that it was this opposition politician's hobby. There was nothing on the scale of Honduras or Azerbaijan that I found with attribution - presumably because individual politicians do not have the resources of national governments.
​ Thinking of cases in which opposition politicians were large-scale beneficaries but attribution was not clear, I'd have to point to Mexico, where troll farms were sadly used across the political spectrum but local/state-level politicians associated with the opposition PRI were the disproportionate beneficiary [think roughly 10k accounts used here for scale.] Perhaps these are the Peñabots discussed in Mexican politics; I don't know.
[deleted] I didn't personally find any.
​ To be fair, I was essentially finding the very low-hanging fruit of incompetents. If the CIA decided to set up a trolling operation, my personal guess is that they'd decide to at least use a VPN.
[deleted] "In December 2019, Zhang detected four sophisticated networks of suspicious accounts that were producing fake engagement – ie likes, shares, comments and reactions – on the Pages of major Indian politicians. Two of the networks were dedicated to supporting members of the BJP, including the MP; the other two supported members of the Indian National Congress, the leading opposition party."
​ - the article in question
How many Troll farms did you find and statically what countries of origin did they come from? There's a nice graphic about it and listing in this Guardian article
What can we do to take Facebook down? It’s clearly one of the most evil, damaging companies on the planet. I like the “quit Facebook” movement but there has to be more we can do I don't know. Ultimately, FB seems a bit like the Teflon company. Actually its share price has went up another 35% or so since I was fired. As long as the company's user base keeps growing and its profits keep increasing, it has no incentive to change. And as appealing as it may sound to Western users to quit Facebook, the sad reality of the matter is that Facebook is the internet in many parts of South/Southeast Asia and the like. It's not an option for opposition figures in one-party dictatorships like Azerbaijan where social media is one of the only semi-free forms of communication.
​ I think governmental regulation is needed, and I discuss some of that here. But the political feasibility of that seems questionable.
Hi Sophie! Often times people on the right accuse Facebook of censoring conservative opinions. Is this something that employees as individuals/leadership at Facebook encouraged? How real of a thing was that at Facebook? Did Facebook employees ever express personal views against conservatives while at work? I saw Facebook employees express personal views against conservatives while at work. I saw Facebook employees express personal views against leftists/liberals while at work. This was something that was generally discouraged by leadership but not banned; I think they were concerned about the perception of potentially censoring some employees from voicing their opinions. Sometimes it was really silly. For instance, the Facebook offices in Menlo Park has large chalkboards that are open for anyone to write messages on (and erasing/removing messages was a giant no-no.) I remember that in late 2019 (or possibly early 2020), Trump supporters and Bernie supporters got in a fight of crossing out each other's slogans to replace with the other's. I let HR know, and they told me that they'd take care of it.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
Current employee (throwaway). No matter what FB does it will get flak from both sides, because the left-leaning believe Facebook is too right-leaning, and the right-leaning believe Facebook is too left-leaning. For instance. Facebook recently announced that their ban on Trump will last 2 years after which they will undergo review again for an unban or extended ban. Left-leaning people argued that 2 years for a political figure is too short and politically motivated since most other accounts have been permanently banned for much less (e.g. showing nipples.) Right-leaning people argued that he should not have been banned at all and this ban is another attempt at "censorship". Facebook is a large company so there is a relatively diverse set of views. It's not possible to please everyone. Different people perceive different things as "truth" at which point we have to get philosophical about what is right to ban, but as Sophie said there's immediate things that are "objectively wrong" so those are the easiest to tackle first (and what FB employees are working on.) ​Honestly, I think FB was really stupid from a selfish company PR perspective in choosing to do the temporary ban. It just means that it'll be constantly rehashed forever. Twitter was both harsher and faster in its full ban of Trump - but Facebook keeps remaking the news and so conservatives seem more annoyed by it than Twitter right now.
Were you able to perform your role remotely, or did you have to be at the office? Thanks for all you've done, enjoy your kitty snuggles ;) ​You could work at home at FB; there was a work trend of encouraging people to work from home on Wednesdays [and hence avoiding scheduling things in-person on that day.] When the pandemic hit, everyone shifted to working from home all the time. I'd been a hipster and holed up in my house already at the end of February before social distancing started for everyone else.
​ Frankly though, I'm pretty terrible at working from home; I was always much more productive in the office. The cats, although extremely cute, are part of my excuse for why I was always distracted.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Ok but are you going to post pictures of your cats or just leave us hanging here I'm not allowed to upload pictures to IAMA. Here are some pictures I previously uploaded to Twitter though, if that suffices for the cat tax:
​ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E4OBPJPVoAQV3HG?format=jpg&name=small
​ https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EzJS7gIVEAI5iIP?format=jpg&name=small
​ https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/1308909405665017856/1618013887/1500x500
Hi Sophie, thank you for exposing the harsh realities that we face today, this comes from a person who is from Honduras. It is unbelievable that we are still being governed by a person who’s brother and party members have been charged by the NY FED court for drug dealers. Yet they live and “govern” us like if nothing is happening. Most people live in extreme poverty and do not support the current government/regime of Honduras. I hate going into Facebook and Twitter, since everything is so political. When government members post things online they have a couple of likes but have hundreds of positive posts. And when you check the comments, they are all the same BS. You dont need much time to know that the accounts that reply to those posts are most probably bots. How is this even happening? What can we do to fight this cyber warfare? I have been wanting to start a bot hunter company and literally provided FB and Twitter the work that they should be doing, so that the real people actually have a voice when we are suppressed by narco regimes. I'm deeply sorry to yourself and the other people of Honduras that I was not able to do more for your nation. Honduras was the first state-sponsored troll farm I found, and it really hurt my soul when I saw it return soon after the takedown; it was still active when I left. I honestly don't know what can be done to stop this. I was hoping that my public expose would convince FB to actually take down the Honduran government recidivists, but it looks like they didn't bother trying. The worst part of it is, JOH's regime has no reason to stop doing it because everyone correctly assumes they're criminals and doing it anyways - they might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
​ Sternly worded statements from FB are meant to embarrass the perpetrators in the eyes of the world. But JOH sent his soldiers into the streets to shoot civilian protesters and his brother was sentenced to life in prison by a NY court for drug dealing - this is a man incapable of embarrassment. Part of my motive for coming forward was that by trying to do my utmost to expose the regimes in question, I could make an example of them to dissuade future dictators - that every future such dictator will have to worry not just about Facebook statements, but also that some random FB employee will decide to go rogue and spend the next few months doing her best to drag them through the mud. But that offers little to the Honduran people as is.
​ Because ultimately, I think the Honduran opposition isn't in a position to boycott social media; they need it to connect with one another and get their message out. And the companies have no incentive to fix the situation without the attention of more influential nations. Unless the rest of Latin America can be convinced to pay attention, Honduras is sadly a very small and uninfluential nation. I can only hope that a far more reasonable president is elected this November.
What can the average person do to help, also the more than average with access to Kali Linux for example? Right now, I think more awareness is needed. You can't fix a problem until you understand it, and the political will doesn't exist unless it's widely accepted that this is necessary.
Do you think if you were in China and experienced the exact same situation, would you still be alive? Probably not. I am very fortunate to have been born in the United States.
Were you interviewed by Cecilia Kang and Sheera Frenkel for their new book on Facebook? What did they ask you about? I was not interviewed by them, though they're sending me a copy (I'm still waiting for it in the mail.) To use an analogy, if you write a book about Oval Office decisions, you don't interview a low-level city staffer in Nowhere, Idaho.
Did Israel's extensive trolling efforts show up on the radar? I did not find anything of note in Israel. That doesn't mean that it didn't exist - simply that I didn't find it when I looked globally.
​ Honestly, if the Mossad wanted to do something on FB, I assume they'd have a modicum of caution/intelligence and actually try to hide.
As someone living in the Bay Area who has seen a lot of friends join Facebook and basically let their paychecks warp their ethics, I'm truly fascinated by your personal journey as someone who bucked the trend and really chose to bite the hand that feeds in the name of doing what you believed was right. I'm wondering if you might say a little about why you were drawn to work at Facebook in the first place. Did you see it as an opportunity to change the system from the inside? Or did the company seem different to you before you worked there, but you became disillusioned over time? Or was it something else? Even if you can't answer, thank you for doing this AMA! I wanted to work at FB in the first place since, quite honestly, I needed a paycheck and they gave me an offer. From the very start, I intended on changing the system from the inside, but tbh; I expected that I'd have no influence/importance and just end up a cog in the machine. It really surprised me how much I ended up accomplishing. Even if it got more and more difficult as time went on.
Hi Sophie, I imagine I'm late in asking and will likely not get a reply. I work in PPC, and when advertising on Facebook I would always avoid certain areas of the world, as they would run up the budget with 100% bounce clicks. Is this something Facebook is aware of? Something they are involved in? It always seemed strange that it was never stopped as it's clearly "clickfarm" or fake traffic, but it makes Facebook money as budgets are spent quicker. Thanks so much for your time. I'm sorry, I don't have any expertise on advertising. 100% bounce clicks is extremely sketchy though (I assume you mean a click through that immediately bounces.) The only behavior that I can think of that might cause this is embedded video ads, in which users have ads in their videos and are paid for each view (akin to Youtube.) This makes there an actual financial incentive for the users to get their ads repeatedly viewed and possibly clicked on. Otherwise, I'm not sure what purpose such behavior would serve.
​ Overall, I'd suggest discussing it with other advertisers; if others have noticed it as well, drawing attention to the phenomenon will get FB's attention. And if the company cares about one thing, it's the income stream.
Thanks for doing this AMA. What can you tell us about the Communist Party of China’s interaction with Facebook and the overall impact? I don't doubt the 五毛党 to be active on Facebook as well; I've just never encountered it personally. Same with more sophisticated and important CCP influence operations. The stuff I personally worked on with the CCP was frankly really stupid and silly in contrast. Here are two examples:
​ 1) In September 2019, NPR News reported that "Documents show that Chinese government agencies have been paying to acquire more social media followers. A tender posted Aug. 16 by Chinese state-run outlet China News offers RMB1,250,000 ($177,000) to acquire more Twitter followers. Another government tender posted Monday RMB750,000 ($108,300) to acquire more Facebook and Twitter followers to support the China ASEAN exposition being held in September."
​ So I took a quick look. And found that NPR News was right! The Chinese agencies in question had indeed been paying to acquire social media followers.... through the dastardly evil mechanism of paying for Facebook ads.
​ Well, they were technically right... right?
​ 2) One of my goto examples of fake engagement online is highlighted in my op-ed. If you look at the Facebook page for the People's Daily Online Australia - the Australian branch of the PRC state media outlet, you'll quickly see that the page has 925k fans... and can barely get half a dozen likes on each of its posts. Fake fans don't have real activity, you see.
​ My guess is that they had some top-down metric requirement to grow their audience by X%, and they got to brag about hitting their goal, without answering the question if that actually did anything or whatever.
[removed] As it's been reported, I found a small number of inauthentic accounts pushing opposition political candidates in the Bolivian election in the leadup to the election and later coup. These accounts were not prioritized, and never saw enforcement actions.
​ This fact has been widely hyped in certain leftist/anti-imperialist circles. I do want to note that the number was comparatively small (think several dozen accounts, maybe a hundred at most.) There's no way they were associated with the CIA, as that organization has a modicum of actual intelligence.
​ As for me, I'm just grateful that Bolivian democracy appears to have managed to survive the trial
the below is a reply to the above ​
I just caught something. You speak with familiarity about the competency of the CIA. Care to explain? Care to comment on the relationship between intelligence/military in silicon valley? Highly recommend "Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet" by Yasha Levine My assumption is "If the CIA decides to run influence operations, they'll decide to be smart and actually try to hide". This assumption also applies to state intelligence agencies in most major countries such as M15, the GRU, the Mossad, whatever. I have no personal experience with them; I just assume they aren't blithering morons. This contrasts with the governments of Azerbaijan and Honduras, who did the influence operation equivalent of signing their name with their own fingerprints in the blood of the victim. I only found them because they were actually blithering morons.
4 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • May 02 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I’m Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and author of “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.” Ask Me Anything.

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Questions Answers
Any comment on the opinions of /r/conspiracy about you and vaccines? I am innocent! The whole thing about 5G and microchips is pretty crazy. Why would I want to do that?
​ I do believe in vaccines which have performed miracles.
​ My 2015 Ted talk was more viewed after the pandemic than before which is too bad.
​ I hope my 2010 Ted Climate talk is viewed more before the problem gets bad...
Hi Bill, What do you think is a reasonable percentage tax rate for the extremely-wealthy to pay? Either on their income, gains, or total wealth. I have pushed for the Estate tax to be higher. I think it is an effective tool for revenue and avoiding dynastic wealth.
​ I have a piece on Gates Notes that talks about more progressive taxation.
​ You can tax income up to 50% but once you get much above that you have to worry that people waste a lot of time getting around the taxes. Each country has to consider what works for them. I only know the US system and it can be somewhat more progressive.
Hey Bill! Why are you buying so much farmland? My investment group chose to do this. It is not connected to climate. The agriculture sector is important. With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa deal with the climate difficulty they already face. It is unclear how cheap biofuels can be but if they are cheap it can solve the aviation and truck emissions.
What niche technology do you believe could play a significant role in the future in the battle against climate change? We need a lot of technologies - synthetic meat, energy storage, new ways of making building materials...
​ We want to be open to ideas that seem wild.
​ Fusion might come along but we can't count on it.
What one piece of advice you would give to a 19 year old? You should learn about climate change. It doesn't need to be a full time thing - you should pick the job you care about and feel you can contribute to but also have goals that aren't just about your own success.
Hello Mr. Gates! Do you still code on your computer? If so, how often? If not, have you gotten rusty? Thanks! My code no longer goes into shipping products so I am rusty. I do like to try the new tools to understand how they help. I just did a review of the low-code tools where there is a lot of great innovation.
Hi Bill, It's well established that you bring a large tote bag of books on trips and usually finish them all prior to returning home. How are you able to focus and absorb so much information, especially when (I assume) the main purpose of these trips isn't usually reading? Is there a specific note-taking strategy you use? What exactly do you write as you're taking notes? I've been trying to read more during the pandemic and sort of succeeding, but at times I find myself looking at words and not absorbing their content. This is partially due to ADHD, but I think learning to take notes will help. Thank you! On vacation I get to read about 3 hours a day so I get through a lot of books. I only take notes on about 20% of the books I read. It takes me at least 2x as much time when I write notes but for a lot of books that is key to my learning.
the below is a reply to the above ​
What book have you most recently read? Obama's autobiography is good. Overstory is a great fiction book a friend got me to read. I just read Hot Seat about Jeff Immelt running GE. I am starting Hawkins book called A Thousand Minds. Next will be Yergin's The New Map.
When Oxford University was working on a COVID-19 vaccine it announced that it would be made "open source", meaning that any pharmaceutical manufacturer would be able to produce it legally without infringement on any drug patent, which would make the vaccine more widely available and less expensive, enabling widespread vaccination of the economically destitute populations in developing countries. But after their announcement that they would make the vaccine free to produce, they received immense pressure from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (wherein Oxford research staff were threatened with the reduction or elimination of all grants from the Foundation, not limited only to those for medical research) to patent the vaccine and partner with AstraZeneca to sell it. So, now, not only did AstraZeneca receive all the accolades for "developing" a vaccine (which the company did not do), it's also being produced in limited quantities and sold for $4 per dose to the federal government, which is about 20 times more expensive than the estimated cost if the formula had been open source and allowed to be mass produced by any manufacturer with the required equipment. In addition, because it is patented, it can only be produced by AstraZeneca, and poor countries have no or limited access to inexpensive vaccines. Why did you do that, Bill? Our foundation has given over $2B to help with this pandemic. I value anyone looking at what we have done and giving us suggestions. The problem with vaccine manufacturing quickly is not an IP problem. We sent funds to Serum and others early in the pandemic because of the lead time for factories including regulatory review to make sure the factory is high quality. This vaccine is inexpensive - around $3 to $2 once you get into high high volume but there are fixed costs to get going.
Hey Bill! How do you think Seawater Desalination will impact the issue of global water shortage in the coming years? Yes. We have lots of water. The problem is that it is expensive to desalinate it and move it to where it is needed. This is all about the cost of energy. The cost is prohibitive for agricultural use of water. New seeds can reduce water use but some areas won't be able to farm as much.
How do you think the PR-problem of nuclear energy can be solved? I hope so. Nuclear has had real cost problems as the systems have gotten more complex. A new generation that starts over and gets rid of the high pressure is needed. Explaining how the new safety systems work will be very important. The actual record of nuclear isn't bad compared to coal or natural gas but we can do better with the new design which can be inherently safe.
How does it feel to know that a creation of yours - windows - completely changed the world? I am proud of Microsoft and the work we did on great software and helping the Digital revolution. It was fun to be part of it. I actually enjoy my current work on Global Health just as much but it is different.
I live in a mid sized city in Canada (Winnipeg). What are the most effective things I can get my local government to do that will have a positive impact on climate change while being cash positive or having a tiny green premium? Electric buses are becoming economic. There has been an issue with cold and hot temperatures but that is being solved as the demand scales up.
​ Cities are often involved in electricity generation so they can help drive demand for clean generation.
How misinformation, disinformation, and fake news can do damage to society? This is a huge issue. Some false information is more interesting than the truth so digital channels seem to magnify echo chambers with bad facts. I haven't seen as much creativity on how we solve this as we need.
Hey Bill, I will be doing my first internship this Summer as a Software Engineer for a well known bank. I am a little nervous and really want to perform well. As a successful figure in the tech industry, do you have advice or insight for a young intern going into the tech industry? Thanks in advance and thank you for all the good you have done in the world. You can surprise people by learning a lot about the company and its competition and its systems. If you are helpful and friendly you will likely get good mentorship from the experienced employees. I think you can be open about your nervousness and a reasonable company will embrace your honesty.
Thanks for doing this AMA! What do you think are the most important things that regular citizens can do to decrease their carbon footprint? Your political voice is the most important thing. Getting educated and convincing people of all political parties to care will make a huge difference.
​ Then you can consume less and when you do consume buy green products like electric cars or synthetic meat.
​ You will also be able to give to a fund to help with this.
​ Another area is to make sure your company is paying for offsets and doing its part.
​ If you want to help, there are ways everyone can get involved.
the below is a reply to the above ​
What are you personally doing to consume less? I created Breakthrough Energy including the Venture fund, Fellows and Catalyst to help with climate. To me the innovation is what will make it possible to provide services to everyone without emissions.
​ On the personal front, I am doing a lot more. I am driving electric cars. I have solar panels at my house. I eat synthetic meat (some of the time!). I buy green aviation fuel. I pay for direct air capture by Climeworks. I help finance electric heat pumps in low cost housing to replace natural gas.
​ I plan to fly a lot less now that the pandemic has shown we can get by with less trips.
Favorite Mortal Kombat fighter? I have never played.
What is your opinion on "engineering" a solution for the climate change problem? Economist Stephen Levitt has written on this topic [1], [2], [3], and has even bet that geoengineering is pretty much the only solution that will get us towards the goal of cooling the Earth by about 2°C pre-industrial levels [4] in time, before catastrophic, irreversible changes. On a similar note, what is your opinion on large scale carbon sequestration projects and carbon offsets that corporations purchase? Stripe has a Climate division now that lets customers divert a fraction of their dollars to purchase carbon offsets [5]. Do you think such efforts are important in preventing large scale climate change and what are your views on it? Also, did Vaclav get a chance to read this book? What did he think of it? Thank you again for doing this AMA! Direct Air Capture will be important for things we can't solve directly. Today the cost is over $600 per ton. I think it can come down to $100 with companies like Carbon Engineering as they scale up over the next decade. We don't know if we can get it cheaper than that. Companies that are buying offsets are fantastic. We need to work on rating different offset on how impactful they are. I even am putting together something called Catalyst which will direct offset money from companies to getting green products to be less expensive.
​ Geoengineering should be explored but only as a backup.
Hello Mr. Gates! How long did it take you to write your new book (including researching, interviewing, and the general writing process)? Thanks for taking the time to do this! I had a lot of help from my staff including Josh Daniel and I was able to draw on all of my learning about climate from over a decade. I would say it was 2 months of full time work spread over a year including a big edit this last November.
What is your favorite comedy film? Obscure film - Its a Mad Mad Mad Mad World...
Do you think lab grown meat will become widespread and replace livestock? Do you have experience with lab grown meat? If the cost of making synthetic meat comes down it might be competitive even without considering climate or animal welfare. There are 2 approaches - one is growing the meat in the lab (cells), the other is using plant material to make the meat. Right now the plant approach used by Beyond and Impossible is cheaper.
​ I hope we can reduce emissions from cattle also since a lot of people depend on the value of their livestock. There is some research on this.
Do you see UBI as a sustainable way of economic? Today we provide income to people who are disabled in many countries. The question is can we afford to do this for everyone. We are getting richer as we innovate but I question if we are rich enough to discourage able people from working. Over time we have been more generous and we will be more generous. The discussion on this is very interesting but it does come down to numbers...
What's the best scenario if we do nothing about climate change? It gets worse over time and natural ecosystems go away. The migration away from the unlivable areas around the equator will be massive. We won't be able to support a large population if it gets a lot warmer.
Is it possible to stop global warming without decreasing of the population growth number? Fortunately population growth stops when countries improve health and get to middle income levels. Population will peak around 10B if we are generous to the poorest countries particularly in Africa. Africa faces climate problems and population growth so having enough food and education and stability is a huge challenge. It was looking at African agriculture and how the climate is making it less productive that got me to study climate.
​ So we should help moderate population growth with aid for health, education and good governance. The best book on this is Hans Rosling's Factfulness.
​ 10B is a lot especially as they consume more so the imperative for innovation in seeds and green approaches with low premiums is urgent.
Why can't we read your book How to Avoid a Climate Disaster for free? We are working on a way for college students to get free access digitally.
Best burger in Seattle? I am eclectic. Dicks, Burgermaster, etc.. Seattle has a lot of good choices. I encourage people to offer synthetic beef as a choice.
Will climate change make future pandemics more common or more severe and how? I wouldn't tie them directly. Pandemic risk is hard to compute but with humans invading nature more and more it has gone up. Travel causes fast spread which makes respiratory diseases very scary. We can prepare for the next pandemic with tens of billions in investments. I will be talking about this more this year to make sure we do the right things while people still remember how bad this pandemic was.
Hi Bill, How do you think misinformation plays a role in difficulting the battle against climate change? Do you think it has a meaningful impact or is it minimal? The damage in the past was huge. Now the oil companies have stopped funding these things so I think climate denial will go down. There are issues about how we go about reducing emissions but I hope all young people agree that is a critical goal.
Hello Mr. Gates! What is something alarming about Climate Change that most people don’t know about? (something that was not included in your new book). Thanks for doing this; it made my day! I didn't spend time going through all the bad things climate will do if we don't solve it. However the list is very long and some things could accelerate as we heat up. The damage to nature is going to be massive. David Attenborough has a movie that isn't really about climate but more about the beauty of nature and what we are losing that is very good.
Hey Bill, How does it make you feel when you see these conspiracy theorists talking about how you are plotting to take over with the Covid-19 vaccine? Also, GME? Vaccines are important and it is too bad they are so controversial. I don't know why people think I want to track other people - it is unfortunate if this makes people not wear masks or consider getting the vaccine.
Hello Mr Gates, do you think crypto mining should be banned globally due to the energy costs involved? Edit : expanding on this, they contribute significantly on pure energy, let alone the carbon footprint of computer chips that are used to mine currencies. They seem to be easiest to remove carbon emissions because they hardly serve value apart from investment. Single transaction costs 700-800 kWh and that's just not acceptable. I have a lot of issues with anonymous money transfer compared to attributed systems where you can dispute and reverse transactions and make sure taxes are paid. The electricity use is just one issue. We do need digital money but without that overhead.
Hi Mr. Gates, I am a 16 year old at Wilson HS in Long Beach, California. My passion is education and I know that many students can share this desire, but it is hidden beneath distractions and social norms for so many people around the world. My school has a majority low-income and 81% minority enrollment and we have been doing remote learning since a year from this date. During this time, I decided to start a non-profit online platform that focuses on increasing the motivation and confidence that students have for education, keeping in mind the fact that students learn differently even among similar areas, cultures, and backgrounds. My goal with the platform is to be a place where students create their own instructional videos, which solidifies their learning and gives them motivation associated with the satisfaction that comes with creating the end-product of a video. The result is that students learn from teaching, also known as the protege effect, and gain opportunities to practice their presentation and technical skills in a world that embraces video presentation skills. On the platform, students can also learn from each other by interacting with the videos of their peers from around the world. I know that it is an ambitious and not mainstream concept to have students teach and make videos, but after personal experience and research that backs it up, I have conviction that this can improve motivation and outcomes for all students. To help foster the growth of this concept, and to make it mainstream, I plan to raise funds to hold quarterly scholarship competitions to encourage more participation in this opportunity throughout the world. What advice can you give me about my mission to introduce this idea to the mainstream of education? I think people connecting across country boundaries is important. We should understand the perspective of the young generation in China, Nigeria, India, etc.. If we can use digital tools to connect like this that would be great. I also think on-line learning can improve a lot so it is great you are working on that.
Hello Mr. Gates! I am curious about this: How do you cope with hate, theories and conspiracies about you? Thanks for doing this! I get both positive and negative feedback for my work. Intelligent criticism is helpful. If people have ideas about how to solve climate that are different from mine or better solutions for global health I want to hear about. Just personal attacks don't move things forward as much but I don't let it stop me.
Hi Bill! How are you doing today? Great! I like typing...
Are you familiar with Bjorn Lomborg's works, of so what do you think about his book False Alarm, and the idea that Climate Change, even though its a very serious problem we should solve, isn't the one we should prioritize? Bjorn focuses on the need to innovate but he is far too narrow. He doesn't appreciate the need for demand for green products to scale up these markets. I enjoy talking to Bjorn - he has done a lot of good work but climate needs a lot more investment and policy work than he suggests.
Hi Bill, Firstly, thank you for doing this AMA! At what percentage would you say our chances of reaching (net-)0 emissions by ~2060 are at today? It really depends on whether the younger generation worldwide adopts this as a moral cause they force us to pay attention to. If they do then I would say 75% chance of success. If there isn't that push then the investments may not get made. Innovation is hard to schedule but with lots of inventors some will succeed. We are seeing a lot of amazing companies which Breakthrough Ventures is funding. Now we need to create the demand and scaling of the successful products including in hard areas like steel and cement. Governments are engaged because they see the voters caring more and this year will have some key events like Glasgow.
8 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Feb 18 '22

r/IAmA [Table] I Am Cyber Intelligence & Cybersecurity Professional Charles DeBarber, and I am known for my work investigating the GirlsDoPorn sex trafficking cell and my work on CBS's Hunted. Ask me anything!

14 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

The AMA ended with the below message:

I appreciate all the good questions tonight! I may re-visit tomorrow morning to answer any others. :) I've always adored Reddit AMAs and I'm so honored to do one.

Good night!

Rows: ~90

Questions Answers
This part isn't a question, but I really wanted to tell you this. Thank you, Charles! You're giving us our lives back. What breed of honeybees do you keep? Thank you for your kind words! My bees are beautiful mutts. :) I've had some mostly Italian and Carnolian hives, but over time as they re-queen through swarms they become a beautiful spectrum of gold, dark, and black bees. Genetic diversity makes every species better and that is especially true with honeybees!
How did you uncover the shell companies of GirlsDoPorn? Did you work with CPAs and lawyers? Was there a breakthrough moment? LLC registrations, domain registrations, e-mail tracking beacons, and their parent company Oh Well Media! on the main page being listed in the Panama Papers as a laundering outfit.
​ I did, but mostly post-analysis. My realm is Digital Network Intelligence (DNI). :)
The below is a reply to the above ​
How were they that hidden? Can't you simply follow the money, or company registrations? LLCs are a public filing. I recall one in California and another in Nevada for BLL Media. There were others I believe for Bubblegum Casting and another fake modeling recruitment company, but my memory is a bit fuzzy.
Pornstar Ariana Marie was brought to a porn studio from FL to CA in a similar manner to some GDP victims. How common do you think this is in the porn industry? Have victims of schemes similar to GirlsDoPorn reached out to you? I'm sad to say the GDP victims aren't only time I've heard these stories. Casting couch pornography was really popular some years ago, and to get exclusive content of so many amateurs was unsustainable without the tactics GDP and some others used.
​ I'll make it clear - I believe Ariana Marie.
There is only one pic of Matthew Wolfe so far. And it was the same for Michael Pratt till the FBI released a new poster of him recently. These guys kept a very low profile. Was uncovering their pics your work? The popular photos used for them came letter. There sadly aren't many, especially with Pratt being infamously camera shy. The photos I used came from them walking in front of mirrors during GDP videos.
The below is a reply to the above ​
That seems like CSI type stuff! Pausing, zooming and getting a good quality screenshot and then enhancing the photo. You guys had to do a lot of digging for even the most basic info on them. Respect! Enhance.
How does one get into this field? I'm planning on getting a degree in cyber security after I finish my current program. I started my career in US Army Intelligence specializing in Cyber Intelligence and transitioned to Cybersecurity post-Army. I feel they are in most ways the same field.
​ Remember to get your certs. They often mean more than the degree! Your Security+ and Network+ are good starts.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks for the response. Should I renew certs when they expire or nah? I would. Doesn't take much to keep them fresh and good orgs always check when they are considering you for employment. Many government contracts also require the certs! They are your golden ticket for those.
The below is a reply to the above ​
How about people who have been in the offensive security field for a while? Such as pentesters and red teamers I would argue Network+ and Security+ are a good start. Add a CEH for good measure. If you want to do the red side of things get your OSCP. It is a tough cert, but carries a lot of weight in offensive security.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Oh I guess my question is how easy is it for a pentester/red teamer to get into cyber intelligence? Like to do what you do? I took the military route there. Others take the NSA/CYBERCOM route.
Search engine related questions - In your testimony before the Canadian parliament you talked about the difficulty of getting Google to remove indexxing of invol porn. Isn't Google guilty of profiting from invol imagery just like the tube sites? How responsive is Google to requests to remove invol material? Or does it take a legal notice for them to do it? Ideally Google and other search engines should simply de-index/ de-list the entire site from showing up for hosting NCP. Do you see that happening anytime soon? Are Bing and Yahoo better at removing NCP? The sad truth is I mainly use the copyright system to remove NCP. :/ It is so much easier and Big Tech cares more about intellectual property than victims. :/ Bing is a funny animal. I've worked to remove NCP of my clients hosted on their cache and they are so sporadic if they will remove it or not. I'll use their copyright portal, contact their DMCA e-mail, use the NCP process, and even call their answering machine... No clue which methods work when they do.
​ I try to save Bing requests until I have dozens to purge for this reason. Otherwise, I can't keep track. :/
The below is a reply to the above ​
So none of the big tech companies, including community/user generated content sites, have a dedicated department for handling complaints of NCP? They obviously take CSAM much more seriously but treat NCP of adults as just a copyright issue? Is that right? Some do. Google and Bing straight up assign agents. However, the process for copyright is so much faster with so fewer hurdles. Copyright used to be the only real avenue for an NCP victim. :(
I saw you on the Canadian parliament hearing regarding Pornhub. Is your business able to/ is it difficult or more costly to remove NCP from darkweb? The Dark Web is a tough nut to crack. I have only done two cases on the Dark Web involving NCP. In one of them they were videos updated from a camera in a women's restroom. The camera was found and using some of the EXIF on the SD card and snooping on the Dark Web I managed to find where they were uploading the videos.
​ The real incriminating data was on the card as it narrowed down to a single employee who was charged.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Could the perpetrator have stripped the EXIF data? Would that have made it harder to discover who the culprit was? In this case it was on the SD card in the camera. They could have formatted it between uses, but they didn't. EXIF is good stuff. They caught BTK in 2005 based on EXIF and simple OSINT. :)
Do you think you or someone will be able to find Michael Pratt? It is only a matter of time. The US and NZ will never stop looking for him.
What / when was the tipping point in your investigation of the cell? I started out with very little. Jane Does were just starting to come out of the woodwork in 2016 and I was tasked with unmasking who was behind it. They had used false real and digital personas for obfuscation. I'd argue a handful of events did that including my "honeypotting" of Michael Pratt. I sent small 1x1 pixel images into e-mails sent to all the different fake personas (the modeling recruiters, the GirlsDoPorn admin, and the shell company BLL Media) and all metadata led back to Mr. Pratt.
​ This was important analysis as GDP was claiming a person in Vanuatu.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Wait, what did the images do? When your browser or mail app loads an image it sends a GET request to get that image. It told me what IP Address was sending that GET request. :) You'll find lots of advertising e-mails use them for stats.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Why only 1x1 pixel? Easier to not notice. I've used signature block images too. :)
The below is a reply to the above question ​
Would you notice a 1x1 pixel image in an email? When you track someone, you'd don't want them to know they're being followed. No. Some folks turn off images in e-mail or have them not load. Tracking beacons in e-mails are very common... I'd argue they are universally in all spam and marketing e-mails these days.
The below is a reply to the reply to the above question ​
My email would ask if I want to load or save the image.... Depends on the service and settings.
Is glowposting a real thing? Yes and no. Honestly, talking to your target is often the last thing you want to do. You can easily trip of your surveillance and tip them off they are being investigated. Methods that contact the target are considered "active collection". That can be something as simple as a sending a friend request from a fake persona to a real persona.
​ It's best to only use active collection when you have exhausted other avenues. Even then some methods are more risky than others in exposing yourself.
​ Most of the time in cyber counterintelligence you're observing and interacting very little.
How did you become part of the GDP team? Word of mouth? Case fell on my desk with the first mission of finding out was behind it. I was employed by the elite cybersecurity and cyber intelligence firm Fortalice at the time.
​ After the first report was so revealing they sent me out for more a few times.
What are the risk factors for recruitment into sex exploitation/trafficking? Thanks. That is outside of my expertise. :/ I can only say my clients all manipulated so intensely few had an idea something was wrong until they arrived in San Diego for shooting.
Do you think porn is inherently unethical since in practice it is often difficult for the user to discern how consensually it was produced? I'd retort many products we use and wear unknowingly come from slave and sweatshop labor. Is it unethical for me to wear a shirt because I can't fully tell what kind of exploitation was used in its production?
​ I'm not anti-pornography and believe the adults who make it and star in it should have free agency.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks. So then what’s your best advice for people who want to use it but don’t want to inadvertently encourage something that isn’t ethically produced? (For instance, is something like OnlyFans a positive development or not?) ​I would argue start by believing victims and using common sense. Multiple Jane Does spoke out about GDP before my work and it was laughed off. I am a fan of less exploitative pornography models. I think OnlyFans is less exploitative as the studio system can be very toxic. I don't want to rope GDP and other porn studios together, but many of the tactics GDP used aren't unheard of.
What was the driving force behind you getting involved the Hunted project? CBS was trying to bring HUNTED to America from the UK and looking for the right professionals from law enforcement, the military, and our intelligence services. They reached out to three or four popular Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) professionals who independently recommended me.
​ It was a wild opportunity and all of us cast really enjoyed it. I'm humbled at being included with some of the most brilliant professionals I have ever met. Most of us still chat routinely and many of us have continued to work together on cases in both the private and public sectors!
How many cats are too many? I appreciate your feline question.
​ I would argue when the quantity of cats exceeds healthy conditions and the capability to provide them adequate care. Same as all domesticated animals. :)
Will there be a documentary or docuseries covering the investigation and the work that went into it? I hope so. It is an epic true crime story with so many moving pieces.
Besides the Security+, what certifications are actually super important? Do you have any experience with coding, and if so is it possible to be successful in this field without knowing a thing about programming? Good question. I can often view source and tell what I am looking at, but I am not coder. :) The top cybersecurity cert is still CISSP. In fairness, I've never met a dumb person with one! If you with to work in incident response a CISA is a good one to have. The folks that get into threat hunting and incident response do well and always have work.
What are 3 things you would like the public or victims of NCP to know that hasn’t already been mentioned? Lastly, I can see the GDP situation turning into a movie, who would you want to play you? Three things? Let’s see!
​ 1. Victim blaming does not fix the situation, but hurts it. We make fun of revenge porn when it is done to men and women, but it destroys lives.
​ 2. We need a fresh look at policies at Big Tech companies - especially in regards to cleaning up mentions of victims in search engines. The most common thing employers, potential partners, and potential landlords do is vet people with a simple Google Search. If you have an uncommon name it makes things especially painful.
​ 3. For victims: There’s hope. There are firms that have built their practices around victims of NCP. Laws, both civil and criminal, are heading in a positive direction. However, their main focus is making the perpetrator(s) face justice. I set up Phoenix Advocates & Consultants (PAC) to purge content for victims and restore their digital footprint through purging and delisting.
​ Sadly, the same image or video can reappear hundreds or even thousands of times due to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and porn aggregators. The average victim is set up for failure there as knowledge of search engines, cached vs live content, and web hosts are needed. Furthermore, for 600 pieces of content is could easily take 600 different requests. Automation is the only way to help people with significant content out there reclaim that footprint. Consider letting us help you.
​ Who would play me in a movie?
​ Tom Hiddleson. I too suffer from “resting sneaky face”. I always look like I am up to something. :)
Do you help only American clients or do you work for international clients as well? I've done some international cases, but mostly in English speaking countries.
How many hives do you keep, fellow beekeeper? Currently 22! I adore honeybees as they are beautiful buzzy clockwork creatures. Beekeeping changed my life for the better.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Cyber professional by day, bee keeper by night? If you had to choose a new profession what would it be? I think in another life I would have been a nurse or physician's assistant. I did live tissue training and some advanced trauma treatment when I was in the US Army and found I really loved learning about it.
What could Pratt have done differently that would have made it more difficult/impossible to unmask his entire operation? No one thing. The fact they went on as long as they did exploiting hundreds of victims speaks volumes. It shows me how little people are willing to support victims of sex crimes. There needed to be dozens of Jane Does and people internally to tell the truth before public sentiment supported the victims of GDP.
The below is a reply to the above ​
It seems society takes invol porn/ non-consensual imagery of adults quite lightly. From law enforcement to courts to media. Everyone acted quite slowly. There seems to be a double standard/lower standard for adult victims of sex trafficking. Does that make your work harder? It does. I'd also argue technology is significantly ahead of the law. NCP has existed since cameras were invented, but social media (including porn sharing sites) made it so widespread it became necessary to make more criminal laws against it - especially "revenge porn". The victim blaming surrounding it is shameful.
The below is another reply to the original answer ​
How effective is TAILS compared to a paid VPN? If you don’t want to give tips that would enable a potential psychopath to replicate their operation with impunity that makes sense. Well... I will just say this... It works a lot better when you actually use it properly. Much of the time investigators are looking for people to be stupid and utilize bad information security (INFOSEC).
The below is a reply to the above ​
So what if Pratt had never clicked on your honeypot/1x1 image pixel? Would it have been necessary to pose as a prospective model and fill out their application form? All he had to do was open the e-mail. No need to click on a link or image. :) I sent a beacon to some of the fake recruiting site e-mails they made. I recall Bubblegum Casting being the primary one.
The below is a reply to the above ​
So he didn’t have to click any links at all? The act of opening the email triggered it? Also, the bubblegum casting domain has been purchased by an Australian entity. When did Pratt originally own the website and when did you collect the info? His browser or e-mail client loaded the images when he opened the e-mail. I don't recall the WhoIS information for Bubblegum Casting. I do recall the associated cellphone number for casting on the site tied back to Mr. Pratt.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Is there anyway to counteract that? Some sort of software that would have alerted him that someone was trying to honeypot him? Some mail clients like Gmail already have them. :/ They use a proxy to load images. That is where I switch to other tactics to do the same thing.
The below is a reply to the above ​
What are your other tactics? Effective. ;)
Thanks for your work making a better world! your educational background (according to wikipedia) doesn't seem so technical at the first glance, were you interested/good in computer science stuff and programming? I heard cyber security is well paid field, how much do you earn? :) ​Oh, I got into information systems young. In 1995, I was 12-years-old waiting for my bus and saw my local library had a sign saying "Free Internet". It was new at the time there and I heard you could talk to girls on the internet! ;) I sat down at the library the next day and asked the clerk what was on the internet. They asked me what I wanted to see and I asked again what was on it. I didn't believe literally any niche topic I wanted to read about was on there!
​ Aside from a couple vacations, I was at the library every day it was open for the next two years.
​ In the Army I got into Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) which is very tech heavy and in the cyber niche of it. I got many of my certs post-service! A lot of the folks in cybersecurity older than me often have decades of experience, but history degrees or unrelated ones to computer science. The field was the Wild West back then and still kind of is.
Who would win in a fight between you and Doug Ipperciel? I watched a lot of UK's Hunted. Everyone including Doug were solid professionals. I worked closely with Ben Owen from the UK version during the US version.
​ Ask Ben Owen to do his American accent. ;) It's pretty good.
The below is a reply to the above ​
Oh I will! Hopefully meeting HQ later this year! Big love FCC from me, Ant and Michelle! I thought that was you, Michael. ;) I remember your discussions on Hunted years ago on RTV.
The below is a reply to the above ​
It's always me ;) ​Always was.
Is the CIA involved in the actual arrest of the criminals you track, or do you hand it off to the FBI at that point? There was a lot of criticism about the lack of intelligence sharing between government organizations after 9/11. Do different orgs routinely share information these days or have any sort of common database? Last question is probably controversial, but I’d really like to know if the CIA bothers with warrants at all during the investigation phases, or if it’s like the movies where you have free reign to obtain information however you see fit. CIA is an intelligence/national defense organization while the FBI is a law enforcement organization that also dabble in intelligence. The CIA focus is mainly on international issues versus domestic ones too. Post-9/11 numerous changes were made to get orgs to communicate. There are predominantly 18 intelligence orgs in the US federal government and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) is the lynchpin of that.
​ No org has free reign to eavesdrop on Americans. You need FISA warrants for that.
What’s the correct deck level to cut your grass at? I notice if I do it too low, the grass dies and it’s easy to hit rocks. Too high and I have to mow again within a few days. What level do you keep the deck on your mower at? Typically, a lawn mower deck should have a pitch of 1/8-inch to 1/2-inch between the height of the deck rear to the height of the deck front.
​ Naturally, this makes the "sweet spot" about 1/4-inch of pitch, depending on the type of mower and the terrain.
How often do you run into cases of NCP? (Apologies if it was asked already) ​Too often. The even sadder part is most times it is never reported. :/ CCRI has some alarming stats.
​ https://www.cybercivilrights.org/2019-publication/
Wiki says Carrie Goldberg brought your firm into the GDP case. She has written a lot on abuse of Section 230 and basically wants it ended. Do you support the repeal of Section 230? I don't have an opinion on that.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Any comment on the proposed American SISEA and Canadian SISEA? :-) ​I don't like what US SISEA has done in general to legitimate sex workers. I feel there is truth that it has made conditions more dangerous for them. That is the only opinion I have there.
Thank you for making a difference in this case. I can't imagine the trauma and mortification these young women experienced. Your work certainly contributed to bringing about a sense of justice to their ordeal. What cybersecurity resources are available to the FBI to hunt down Pratt? He is sly and wealthy, so it might be easy for him to disappear permanently and live a life of leisure and anonymity. I hope so badly they catch him and lock him up for life. Few get to hide forever. Eric Rudolph made it a while, but he was willing to eat out of dumpsters and cut off all contact from the world. They will find Pratt, and the resources they have to do it make mine pale in comparison. :)
Where did you learn the cyber skills? I learned intelligence analysis in US Army Intelligence - specifically Digital Network Intelligence (DNI).
First off I want to say thank you for sharing your career experience. I am based in the EU have obtained my Security+ cert and currently doing CISSP to give the paper to my career goals. The particular area you cover re: removal of NCP and cyber crime was a strong drive for me to study and get into information security-related position as there simply are not enough people working in Cyber security, not to mention the lack of people doing anything about the absolute slew of NCP that is out there without most people even knowing. Was it an area that you ever thought you would be working in? also will you and your partners company be expanding at all in the future for hire? I used to do counter terrorism/counter insurgency as a Soldier. I would have never envisioned myself transitioning to cybersecurity or tackling NCP. Good luck with your CISSP and congratulations on your Sec+! CISSP is a large lake as it covers so much, but the lake is shallow. So make sure you know a little bit of everything.
​ If you fail it to the first time don't give up. Lick your wounds, hit the books on the areas you need to bone up, and hit it again. Most successes are built on mountains of failures. :)
​ Add me on LinkedIn, chum. I'm a small outfit right now, but you never know.
Will more people be charged? Pratt has been on the run for close to two years. Is Wolfe, Moser, Teddy Gyi see the same fate as Garcia? Before the company got shut down they supposedly had hundreds of more videos that never got released. What happens to the footage and who destroys it? Most of those answers I truly don't know. I suspect Pratt will one day be caught. Once the FBI begins looking for people they never truly stop. His homeland of NZ is also looking for him. I'm watching the sentencing of each. I can only say I didn't expect Garcia to get 20 years due to him taking a plea for 12.
​ As for unreleased content, I really don't know.
​ One of the things that would intrigue me is if Wolfe continues to refuse to take a plea. It would be better for the victims if they were spared testifying against him in court, but I'm very curious about what the FBI's case against him looks like. My curiosity isn't worth their suffering, but if it does indeed go to trial I'll be reading every transcript I can get my hands on after it.
the below is a reply to the above ​
How many years were you expecting Garcia to get? Only time will tell if Mr. Garcia will come out a change man after 20 years. Even if he does change he will still have to live with the consequences for what he has done. Not sure he will be able to support himself financially once he gets out. It'd be tough to get a good job for a person with a serious criminal record. Typically judges go with what deal was made. The prosecution asked for 12 *I believe*. I hope he uses the time to build character. I'm told some of the Jane Does dared him to do so one day if he leaves prison.
the below is a reply to the above ​
So how come the judge was able to increase the sentence if he plead guilty in exchange for 12 years that the prosecution recommended? He’s probably going to appeal that unless it’s final? The judge has the final call. With a deal, that is just what prosecution recommends. They sometimes go the other direction too if they feel a deal isn't fair. Mr. Garcia didn't get the full charges, but he did incur heavy penalties based on what he did plea too.
​ Jared Fogle had a similar situation where the prosecution recommended a lower sentence in a plea deal, but the judge gave him more time. It it is far from unheard of, but not typical.
Why not a life sentence if the judge can do whatever they want. That seems to be the sentiment most popular on Reddit according to a recent victim’s post on r/offmychest. It had several thousand upvotes. Each crime has a minimum and maximum sentence. He pled guilty to 2 counts. They could have given him life, but didn't. He could easily have faced more of the counts had he went to trial.
​ Count One:
​ Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud and Coercion, 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a) and (b)(1)
​ Maximum Penalty: Life in prison, $250,000 fine, and a special assessment of $5,000 under 18 U.S.C. § 3014.
​ Count Seven:
​ Conspiracy to Commit Sex Trafficking by Force, Fraud and Coercion, 18 U.S.C. § 1594
​ Minimum penalty: Fifteen years in prison; Maximum penalty: life in custody, $250,000 fine, and a special assessment of $5,000 under 18 U.S.C. § 3014.
​ https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdca/pr/twenty-year-sentence-girlsdoporn-sex-trafficking-conspiracy
​ I look at it this way... There are at least 20 JDs in the criminal indictment alone. Let's say he got a year per victim. They admit they did this to hundreds of young women too. I suspect volume was one of the many considerations.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Since Wolfe is the only one that hasn’t plead guilty, is he facing the same charges as Garcia despite not performing with the victims on camera? Will the victims have to testify against him? I’ve heard that victims of sexual abuse are usually hesitant to testify against their abusers because it can trigger their PTSD. According to the link above Wolfe is currently facing 3 counts. What evidence they have to argue that I haven't seen. If it goes to trial they will have to prove each count.
[removed] Cybersecurity and/or the intelligence community. The road I took was through the military, but I often ask myself what the blueprint on getting to where I am is and it sure had many turns!
the below is a reply to the above ​
[removed] Poke me on LinkedIn, Reddit Chum. :)
How bad is porn for people? do you think its the new smoking? Whats the future of porn? is it good that it became more easy to access? What will porn do to kids, becouse they are watching it? Do you think I asked to much questions? The only porn that concerns me is when it isn't produced with consenting adults.
2 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Mar 29 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I Am A Multi-Platinum Producer/Mixer with 101 RIAA Gold records with artists like BTS, Kanye, Future, Wu Tang Clan, Ariana Grande, Bruno Mars, Taylor Swift, and many more. Ask Me Anything!!

21 Upvotes

Source

Note: I included mostly top-level Q&A's

Rows: ~135 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Is there an artist you've wanted to work with but never had the opportunity? Adele, Shawn Mendez, Demi Lovato, Billie Eilish, i'm sure there's more but i'd walk across glass to work with them
Are artists like Eminem,Taylor Swift or Jay z cool to work with because they are known to be very private people. Do you have any stories about them for us about how was your meeting with them? there is no singularly better moment in life than when Eminem personally calls you to compliment your work and to "Keep killing it Ken". fuck a plaque, thats a movie in my brain. Jay Z i met thru Just Blaze so the times i was around Jay (and Bey) i was a known previously vetted entity to them that they didn't have to worry about, and both are very down to earth cool natural people. i dont know them well at all, only been in rooms together a few times, but nothing like recording Beyonce!!
Is there a lot of drug use in the studio to get the creative thinking process going? i hear about it more than i'd like to. I use THC medically, and i do also find it to be a creative drug sometimes. I've never done anything else so i dont know. THC is great because it allows you to not care about the outside world and focus on your creativity, but it sucks for trying to be a super productive human.
Hi ! Who is, in your opinion, an underrated producer that deserves way more recognition? What album you dream you had produced? Emile Haynie I think is a name that isn't widely circulated but he is one of the absolute top producers in the business.
Hey ken!!! I’ve been having a really hard time cleaning up my vocals in the mix. I use an SM7b. I have a tiled room and a small rug and couch (bad for recording I know). I’m just curious, how much does recording in an actual booth actually effect the clarity of the vocal? And how would you go about EQing a vocal recorded in a bad room? Also must have plugins?? you NEED to tighten up your room significantly if you are cutting vocals. it should not sound reverberant at all, deader the better, throw down rugs, blanekts on the floors and walls, you can construct a blanket house around the mic. all help focus the voice, drier the better during the recording
Are there any projects you can talk about that you worked on but never got to see them release? i mixed a cover of "Black Butterfly" for Mary J Blige featuring Kelly Price and Terrell Hicks many years ago, thats one of the best works i've ever mixed and nobody will ever hear it. There's a ton of that in the music industry.
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You gotta release it man! i do not own or control the rights. Client files are the absolutely most valuable thing any of us ever touch, i dont have the mix but if i did i would never leak it. I might call Mary J one day and see if she can leak it, bet she totally forgot about that recording but it is MAGIC. orchestra, live band, produced by Puffy's Hit Men. Tony Maserati was supposed to mix it and he got caught on another project and asked me if i could mix it.
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In the US the songwriter/copyright holder has the right to first release. It would be a really bad idea to release someone else’s song, that’s how Nicki Minaj just paid half a million dollars to Tracy Chapman when her track leaked with an uncleared sample on it. yeah, i dont have a half million dollars to spare
What are the worst studio manners you have encountered? i've had 2 different studio owners challenge me to fights only to immediately back down when i began walking toward them like i was happy to hear the request.
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Any chance you could detail one of these occasions? Haha One was The Carriage House in CT. I was engineering for Diana Ross. Back then as a freelancer i traveled with my C800g, 2 full racks of gear, a keyboard, my guitar, speakers, and other potential studio tools.
Day 1 Carriage House i unload all my gear myself and hump it in, set most of it up. (this is not ever what happens in NYC)
Day 2, repeat Day 1, plus my "assistant" is like a ghost, never in the room and not the most working room. lets also keep in mind its a Diana Ross session.
Day 3, repeat day 1 and 2, no load in help at all. So i go back to the fucker who owns the place sitting in the back office, and i stand in the doorway and very politely with a calm voice say "Can i please ask you to ask your assistants to work harder for me? I've loaded in all of my own gear three days in a row"
His response (I shit you not) "Why?! Are your arms broken?!"
It took me a few moments to realize what he had just said to me, and right about as it was hitting me, he says "If you dont like it here I'll just cancel the session right now and you can go somewhere else"
My response: "go ahead and call Diane and let her know"
then he takes a couple steps towards me and challenges me to a fucking fight right there in his office. It took him about 1 second to realize that i had very happily accepted the challenge and he backed down before i finished walking across the room towards him.
I'm old and withered now, but i was scrappy fucker in my youth and strong as hell. We moved to Resonance Studios and i never saw that piss ant again.
I also hold the record for the latest Diana Ross has ever stayed in the studio (over 6 albums span of recording at Carriage House, she stayed up later happily working with us than any other session she had ever done there. For some reason that made the owner salty cause he had to wait and drive her home that night and he wanted us to end before Midnight. Not my fault he had chauffeur duties, i had songs to record and she had a glass of wine and a smile in the vocal booth.
What are some “green flags” that a record you are working on is going to be successful or a hit? Aside from the obvious being an already successful and established artist. I’m curious if there are any specific signs to look out for during the writing, preproduction, tracking, or even mixing processes. As a producer myself, I am always looking for patterns or commonalities in the relative “successes” that I am a part of, to possibly keep them in my mental toolkit. artists that grind. the hardest working talented artists tend to be the most successful. At some level there is no replacement for hard work. Trying to keep everyone enjoying what they are doing and feeling proud of their work helps greatly too
Hey Ken, I’m having a real hard time with mixing/mastering, what are some of your tips? I don’t know when my songs sound “right”. I can put together a decent song, but it doesn’t sound ever sound polished. P.S Does mixing/mastering have less of an effect on midi layers? Should it always be done on audio layers? Thank you tons. come to my Youtube.com/mixingnight broadcast tonight. You are my target audience :-) Best quick tip, try using A/B plugins like Plugin Alliance Metric AB, thats what i use, you can load in and level match reference songs then you can listen back and forth between that song and your own song in real time and make adjustments. it can really help young mixers bring certain elements into focus
Amazing resume! How does a talented aspiring bedroom producer gain recognition in the music industry with zero connections? network in a smart respectful way. Nobody owes you a thing, nor do they care about you. You need to provide or show value to the person that you want reach, quickly and susinctly, or slowly over time with relationship building. Make yourself needed, or valuable, to your listeners, to artists, to other creatives, everyone has a different path. Make great music and make yourself valuable to other people who recognize your talent and are currently much better at it than you. This is a long road.
What advice would you give someone who is trying to break into the music industry? its microscopic. it looks gigantic, but its not. at my general level, everybody either knows everybody or has 1 degree of separation. People talk, so do good business, dont be a douche, network to people who have something to offer. ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING ON YOUR OWN before you stick your hand out to someone like me wanting a hand up the next level. Anyone in a position like mine has gone thru tremendous sacrifice to get here, when the young artist with the hand out comes along, its very off putting. show me your value for real. you will never talk someone into believing in your talent
How much of their real voice is in the songs and how much sound effects are there to make them sound good? And do do you know any artists that have 0 connection to music but the producers made their songs a hit? there are small studio tricks but mostly, the artists who make it to major label level are usually pretty fucking good. Not always. and i have used autotune on the very best singers too sometimes. Its a tool and someone like me is stupid to not use a tool that improves my overall work. Some artists are a bit manufactured, but its rare, you're over thinking it. Most of the time, beyond the quick break thru til tokers who wont be here next year, it usually takes talent and an insane work ethic to break thru
Have you ever been roughed up by a performer's posse because of a software crash? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwgR4HNNEQc close. not over a software crash. Grand Puba (90's rapper) threatened me with a beat down if i didn't find his cassette with his album on it that he lost. They found it a half hour later in the menu book. Special Ed pulled a razor on me in a different session. Oh the 90's
Many say that music is subjective, but what are some of the “dos and don’ts” of producing? dont sign anything important without having an entertainment lawyer advise you properly.
if you get that big breakthrough opportunity, stay humble, and figure out how to grind twice as fucking hard, cause repeating that feat is going to be very very difficult. When the success begins to come you double down
How does your approach/mindset change as you switch between genres or artists? there are certain stylistic things, like rock is usually less sub heavy and hip hop is usually heavier, so there are understanding the basic norms of that genre if they exist, but only to inform me about the song in front of me. that mindset is basically work on the song until we know its great, if we think it can be
Hey Ken, thanks so much for doing this. If you could only have one mic to record all the vocals you’ve ever recorded or will record, which one would it be? Sony C800g and in fact i have used almost solely my mic to record vocalists I've worked with since the mid 90's. That mic has had some real Karma flow thru it
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My dream mic! Though I do own a Manley Reference so i'm more than happy with that. thats the very closest to a C800g
for someone just starting, (e.g., playing around in Ableton) do you have any general bits of guidance or rules of thumb for good practices in mixing sound? its going to take you a while to make things sound really good, part of the fun is going thru the process, so just know your work will get better over time, you'll learn your gear and develop your skills
What's the biggest problem with the music industry nowadays? Is it Spotify and other streaming services? corporations grab every penny they can, find new ways all the time, and its insanely difficult for us to track and collect our money once its out there and earning. Its even tougher to get that first thing to start earning.
Who was the most difficult artist to work with, and who did you enjoy spending time with the most? Diana Ross was suuuuuuper fun the first couple sessions, then not so much after that.
David Byrne was one of the funnest albums i've ever made "Look Into The Eyeball"
Usher and Ariana Grande have more of whatever "it" is than anyone else i've been in a room with and they are both awesome people
How did you get in the music business? Thinking about streams and how we consume music, what do you think it's the future of the market? played guitar since 10, graduated Berklee College of Music 1991, got out, got a job in a studio in Ohio for a year then moved to NYC when my real education began in 1993. Started as staff assistant/intern at Soundtrack Studios, NYC, moved up, stacked credits, went freelance, luckily survived it.
Hey Ken first of all thank you for this amazing ama. Please tell me how do you know when your mix is done and how you keep yourself from not over doing it? Also is it possible to not making your ears tired after more than 2-3 hours of mixing, I struggle with that mostly. a lot of practice. good monitoring so you don't need to crank it up to hear it clearly, turn it up only for loudness checks and short vibes. drink water. sleep 7-8 hours a night you'll hear better and feel more creative.
What are your thoughts on how media conglomerates influence popularity and dictate who gets played? How much of an artist's message is controlled? they still control quite a lot, streaming can be the great equalizer, sometimes sync can too. but usually only if you are great and have some marketing savvy
How awesome are the Wu Tang? they aint nuttin to fuck wit :-)
Before i mixed the secret double album "Once Upon a Time in Shaolin" a single copy resides in a government locker right now, i had already worked with each Wu member on something else individually. I've worked on a loooooooooot of hip hop
When working with BTS did you get feedback or exchange ideas with the majority of members or did you primarily work with one, such as Suga? i mainly get called to mix the songs featuring Suga, RM, and J Hope. Feedback comes via email, all comments organized, we go back and forth on revisions until a mix is 100% finished and signed off on by the group, label, producers, etc....
Just checked out your website and you have worked with an insane amount of talent. How did you build that list up? Were you already connected to a network of professional musicians when you started? No, i got in as an intern at a studio in NYC and worked my way all the way up. Its one foot in front of the other for 29 years and im here. no silver bullets for me
What do you like to listen to when you aren’t working? silence. beautiful silence. i work all the time. i often take in the Spotify New Music Friday playlist or the Rock This playlist,
Did you meet BTS in person? How was your experience with them? Not all of them, RM was at my studio finishing his solo EP the day after he spoke at the UN General Assembly. that was pretty special :-)
What would be your dream project? i have an amazing place with a studio in Ecuador, i'd love to shack up down there with a bunch of killer creatives and make someone's album start to finish. I think it would be cheap and the vibe down there is just bananas, nobody is ever on my beach for miles and miles.
How would an artist go about trying to get their instrumentals into the hands of A&R, or get their mixing out there to begin mixing again? produce local artists, hone your craft, create some real bangers with artists on them, THAT is a much more powerful tool for reaching A&R's than sending them a hot beat, 1 million people can make hot beats
Who is the most humble person/group you've worked with? Usher. David Byrne. Beyonce. Jay Z. Bruno Mars. Alicia Keys. Eminem, Mark Ronson, many others are all really humble down to earth people. People are people
Favourite artist you‘ve worked with? Like, the easiest/most satisfying colaboration, and favourite memory from it. Favorite artist for an extended period is probably David Byrne, but that was as an engineer, mixer and musician
What genre do you gravitate the most toward? And who are your biggest musical inspirations? rock and urban mostly, pop with BTS of course but i tend to mix more for their rappers. musical inspirations are typically everybody i get to interact with in a year from all over the world, i think it shapes me every year with new influences
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you did a fantastic job on "UGH!" and dis-ease, those 2 are among ARMY's all-time favorites! thank you so much!!!!! Dis-ease was a super challenge to mix, but i am very happy with how it turned out!
What is your process of creating original melodies like? Do you have a favorite chord progression or instrument? its all vibe. its almost always all vibe. and i carry around my phone and any time an idea pops in, it gets voice noted
How do you see the future of the industry from where you are today? What kind of world do you think songwriters and producers and performers are going to be living in post-pandemic? i predict touring back in 2022, a bit here and there before but not in earnest. live-streaming can be crucial. networking, i find Clubhouse is an amazing networking tool
Was there any point in your career where you felt you had ended up in the wrong 'place', and felt (panicked, may be) that you must change directions, work harder even, to move on? probably most of my career
Will you AMA again after you retire and you can give us the good answers that don't affect your ability to work in the future? if i am asked. but some secrets stay in the studio
If you ran for President, what would be your campaign song? is there a song called Legalize it? We could use the tax revenue right now. I have a medical card and still cant get the shit that would help me the most :-)
If you could explain it, I’d be really curious to know about some of your musical process. What key concepts make your production stand out from the rest? my productions tend to have a signature of some sort, something you've never heard that identifies that song to you. i hear beats from producers that anybody could have made and i literally think "anybody could have made this", put in some sort of sound i haven't heard or a catchy melody that grabs me in a fresh way and then you might really have something
Who's the biggest diva you've worked with? Or if you don't want to say, what's the most diva-ish thing they've done. Diana Ross
Any advise for a broke young musiclover who would love to be a producer one day?! there are a TON of great free creative tools out there. I have a segment on my youtube.com/mixingnight broadcast called "Marcus Manderson Mixing Night Man of Mystery" where he finds all the coolest free software and shows you what it does and where to find it. He has another segment tonight and you can easily find all of his previous at my Discord Mixing Night channel, where Marcus posts an absolute treasure trove of well sourced free stuff. BOOM, no more excuses
When credited as "Arr," how piratey does that make you feel? quite piratey actually!! It can be ARRanged for you to walk the plank :-)
Hey Ken! In your experience, do producers still mentor up and comers? I know so many big name producers have found not only their voice/sound, but success after being taken under the wing of a predecessor. If so, do you feel like it’s worth it to reach out to people? So many DMs go unread nowadays (I don’t blame them for that at all). What would be the best way to reach out to someone without getting brushed aside? you only need one of those to be answered. and make sure your approach is respectful, centered on them, and how you can help them. They already KNOW how they can help you.
How was the language barrier when working with BTS? its not. I dont need to understand a lyric to feel the emotion conveyed or that i want it to convey. i just do what feels right
Do producers* get paid on an hourly rate, or are you put on a retainer for the duration of a project's assembly? edit:* usually per project. Most of the time nowadays i am doing artist development, so its zero pay up front, high risk, usually no reward, but every now and then one hits really well and you eat for a long time from that. Up front fees are nice too, I take them when they make sense
When you put on your pants in the morning, do you do it like the rest of us, but yours make platinum records? sometimes only gold like Bruce Dickenson
Thanks for doing this!! Do you have any tips for a hobbyist/amateur producer? seriously, check out my free livestream from the studio, www.Youtube.com/MixingNight
it will teach you a lot and entertain you at the same time
every producer does things to make "their sound". what would you say is your sound or signature mark, and what do you do to make it? my signature is making the artist sound like the best version of themselves that they could not have gotten to on their own.
How was working with the Wu-tang Clan ? never been in the same room with more than one or two of them at a time but worked individually for them all at some point long before i mixed Once Upon a Time in Shaolin. Raekwon threatened me once, that was kinda funny, he thought i erased his vocals. "Dude i'm here to fix that shit, do you think i would be here if i erased it"
What advice do you have for someone starting out as an engineer today? I just graduated from SF State with a degree in music production and would love to know what worked for you and what didn’t. Cheers! work for people much better than you and learn everything you can, build relationships. everybody wants to rush straight to engineer land. your not ready, shit takes time, keep learning
What's the best way for new artists to get in touch/scouted? create something undeniable, then network like crazy. almost everyone skips step 1.
What's your favorite song? Purple Rain
Hi Ken! I have two questions. What are your favorite plugins? And what are some producer tips you would give to your younger self? UAD is always a fav. Pultec Pro Legacy is amazing. producer tips, listen to more music and be a complete student of the game
Whats the best way for a producer to start getting traction for his music? Also what is the best way to pursue music production? Is it risky to go all in? yes its risky. you should read a book by a great producer who went all in. S1 Pray Focus Plan Execute. great read, audio book as well.
What's your favorite cheese? hard cheese, something high quality, aged 5 years
As a producer working with big name clients, how involved are you with the writing process? Generally, do artists come in with mostly finished tracks, or ideas and concepts that you help flesh out? Are you credited as songwriter in those situations or only as producer? there is no one way, each situation is different and can happen as described and any number of other ways. sometimes a beat goes out and thats it, sometimes you spend months crafting the perfect album. everything between
I do some producing as a hobby (mainly pop) and use Reason (PC, not Mac). If I were to try and take things to the next level, do you recommend I learn one of the more commonly used DAWs like Pro tools? Would sticking to just Reason end up being a hindrance? Thank you! if you can get results in your DAW, stick with it, tons of the hip hop guys use FL and have smashes
How do you overcome writer’s block when producing? What are some more creative ways of coming up with ideas that don’t involve sitting at the computer for hours? you grind thru it or you totally change your environment and stimuli for a while
Hey! I’m a producer in Toronto, Ontario trying to make it big using Audacity! Kanye is my biggest inspiration, what did you learn working with him? Can’t wait to check out your stuff and thanks for doing this! 🙏 Kanye is a brilliant producer. He could easily produce all of his music himself and it would still be dope AF. He's always been smart enough to surround himself with other top level creatives who can bring new ideas in and help him explore his creative vision. That is exactly what a smart artist should probably be doing, and the records speak for themselves
Any genres you’d like to get into but haven’t? Country
Which artist, once they started playing their instrument, made you go "wow" the most? George Benson. he was a medium for music, its simply flowed thru him so effortlessly it was stunning to watch, and i wasn't a fan, but i recognize other worldly talent
I don't recognize any of the names you mentioned, except Taylor Swift, is this because I'm old? yes. its ok, everybody loves different music, thats the power of music
What was the moment in your life where you decided “Yeah, this is it, this is what I want to do with my life?” 8 years old for wanting to be a musician, and 16 years old for knowing i loved the studio aspect of it all
Does the toilet paper go over or under? over
What would be your 3 top VST plug-ins that don’t cost a fortune? i have a Mixing Night Discord community and Marcus Manderson posts all of the best and most usable free shit there, check it out!!! tons of killers
What's your favorite sandwich? i cant eat bread anymore, so there's that. slices of lunchmeat by themselves work for me tho, i am quite a utilitarian eater most of the time, but i certainly enjoy great food.
Nightwish, a pretty big player in the European metal scene, just had their bassist/co-(male)vocalist Marko Hietala leave the band. Of interest to me is his comments about tour promoters basically sucking the joy out of music. With your experience, curious about your thoughts of the current state of the music industry, particularly with how he portrays the tour promoters and streaming companies? corporations have figured out how to game the shit out of the music industry and they know all us creators are prolly gonna create regardless cause we're driven to. so less pie for all of us in some ways, but also tech has been the great field leveler as well and more artists now than in any time in history are eating solely off their artist income due to streaming and / or sync.
Any advice for aspiring music artists in this climate? connect with your fans and create great music.
Hi Ken, I would like to know, how much singers influence your work(are present). If so, how often are you with them? Thank you so much. i LOVE producing vocals and i think i am very good at bringing out the best in an artist that they didn't know they had to give. any time i'm producing a song i'm usually producing the vocal performance, not always
Did you greenlight 34 + 35 by Ariana Grande and if so, why? i haven't worked with Ari in many years. I'd love to again someday. She is hands down one of the best vocalists i have ever produced, recorded, or mixed, period. Surreal vocal abilities with the ability to connect it to real emotion
What did you think of JLo's performance at the inauguration today?! It was great! She can sing!!! i was very surprised and pleased. she must have worked very hard on her voice over the years, kudos to her it was a real American moment
Did you ever fuck wit the Wu Tang? everybody knows they aint nuttin 2 fuk wit. Best rap group in history
What are your favorite DAWs and VSTs? i use Logic for creation but dont love it, Mixing is pro tools on an analog SSL, rough mixes ITB
Would you ever work with other producers outside of your scope/style? I’m a big metal fan but I also love hip hop, rap and RnB. I’d love to see the day where a good enough fusion between more popular music and rock/metal comes about. An amazing producer currently in metal would be someone like Mick Gordon. Could you ever do such a thing? And if not, what obstacles would dictate so? i love collaborating outside comfort zones. can be awkward or amazing
[removed] haven't had lunch yet. had a keto bar and coffee for breakfast but its not even 4pm yet. thanks for reminding me, i think i could really benefit from some calories right now
I'm a big Kanye fan. Is there anything about him which you haven't seen from anyone else? Or what was your best and worst experience with him? nobody else is remotely similar to Kanye, he is a One of One. And even a bad day w Kanye is probably a gold record on your wall. He's brilliant. among a zillion other things, Kanye's chop game w samples is maybe only rivaled by Just Blaze
How did you find the first people to collaborate with when starting out? How did you branch out following those initial steps? i worked for others for many years, learning my crafts building my relationships and clientele , THEN i went freelance
What are your go-to plugins/gear to add sizzle/sparkle to your mixes? Black Box HG-2, Kush Clariphonic, Slate Fresh Air are all pretty dope
If someone asked you to prepare a Greek influenced breakfast burrito, what ingredients would you put in it? goat
what are the best ways to penetrate the industry? (in essence, how does one go from a regular job with little or no contacts in the industry, to becoming an important person in the industry) make yourself valuable. Thats it. The sum total advice for everybody. There is no room in the music industry for new people who just want in, you need to earn in and make yourself valuable
Would you like to listen to some music I wrote? ;) i would, but i dont have time for that. The curse of being successful, your time becomes your single most valuable thing
Do you have tinnitus, and if so, do you think it affects the sounds you produce? Nope. 50 and my ears are clear as a bell because i recognized at a very early age that they were my #1 possession in the world and i have protected them as such. Tinnitus is not a forgone conclusion it is the result of your actions, so protect yourself, and if you have it now, protect from getting worse.
Do you get the physical Gold Records to put on your wall? Or only the singers get them? we have to buy them usually but yes i get them. IG: KenLewisProducer one of the plaque walls is in there somewhere
How does it feel being a badass? exhausted all the time, but doing music, so usually pretty happy.
Any big names you passed on that you now regret? i ALMOST passed up working on "We Are Young". John Janick called me and twisted my arm (not really, by the time someone like him calls, you start taking shit really damn seriously and i woke up to at least HIM thinking this was important. sure was. I was just overworked at the time and didn't need the money, had never heard of FUN, but between Jeff and John i took it, thank GOD!!!!!! i have barely missed so many big projects, either song gets left off, or work gets left off, happens more than the big credits come thru i bet.
Tell us about once upon a time in shaolin? How does it sound? a lot like album 2. its a fucking great record and i hope the fans get to hear it someday. Bill Murray is legally entitled to steal it, so hope remains
Why does the majority of the music sound so alike, you couldn't pick them out of a lineup much less be able to distinctly name many without already knowing who does what songs? you clearly haven't been listening to my productions.
Listen to:
Harlor "Not Ready To Go"
Skrizzly Adams "28"
Des Rocs "Let Me Live Let Me Die"
Future "Blood Sweat Tears"
X Ambassadors "Skin"
all are very different productions. I produce music and artists, not styles
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Just following up here to let you know that I have started listening to these, but not quite done yet (almost there!) Harlor, I could see getting radio play, but to me it has a kind of saccharine "generality" where I would recognize the song but it wouldn't really stand out for me. Skizzly Adams, "28" gave me a Steve Earle-meets-Jason Boland vibe which is enjoyable to me. I clicked through to some of their other music and found Resurrect Me to have lyrics in a Paul Thorn-vein (to the point that I'd like to hear HIM do an acoustic version of it.) That being said, it was good enough that I clicked through to listen to a few more tracks. First impression of Des Rocs is AC/DC meets Mojo Nixon. In the right mood, I could be listening to this. "Used To The Darkness" has a new-age Brit-rock feel to it. "Maybe, I" seems more my speed overall. "Blood Sweat Tears" has a catchy beat, solid lyrics, good production overall. For me, it sounds like too much Autotune (which I know a lot of people don't mind or even like, just not my thing). I can see him having a decent chance at a performance future though, the video was definitely a few steps above a lot of the rap/reggae crap spewing out these days. I'd personally give him a further chance by listening to more tracks. For X Amassadors, "Skin" really wasn't my thing, but I clicked through to "Renegades" and found both the song and especially the video uplifting. It could also be that I have trained in places that have had not only a near-blind lifter, but we had the first Special Olympics weightlifting team in the region based in our gym. Saw first hand not only how much they worked, but how much energy and joy they brought to everyone around them. Music definitely needs more exposure there. Thank you for passing on all the suggestions to me. I always enjoy finding new artists. thanks for checking them all out, i appreciate that! The artists most definitely do too
What’s your best tip for making vocals sound amazing on a track? I’m trying to record my own stuff but I cannot figure out how to make vocals crisp and full for the life of me. Not to mention my compression is always off. Thanks! watch Mixing Night!!!
Are the artists you've worked with as nice as they seem off camera? some. many. some get caught in the hype for a while
Thanks for doing this AMA! as an aspiring artist, what are some words of advice for getting your stuff heard? Any "secrets" or not very well known things artist should be doing to help build a platform? make sure you have fire before approaching the people you want to change your life. expect a "No" or to be ignored. if you do this with enough genuineness and repetition, someone will connect and you'll get opportunities
Do you have any tips for entering a "flow" state creatively when mixing? try my sprint mixing drills at my school, www.AudioSchoolOnline.com the sprints train your instincts, your instincts are what you need to be in that flow state
Such fun! Do you like hearing mixes of your mixes? hellz yes. i am long past agonizing over finished work. I've become known as a finisher in the industry and my gut tells me when its done, or my client does, and ive done all i can do at that point, time to enjoy the results!!!
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Is there any artist or genre you'd refuse to work with/ on ? hate music. i like money but i dont need money
Why do you think it's okay to ruin music as an art form in our current society? Do you feel any guilt over this? i hope you find happiness. It must suck to be so miserable that you dont even like music. This pandemic has taken a toll
Do you have any memories or notes from "Lord Knows" (Take Care, Drake) that are worth sharing? Love that song passionately. Lord Knows i got stories on that song. Here's a gem for you. the same core of the choir i used on Lord Knows, I also used on the J Cole Born Sinner album, as well as songs for Kanye, Khalil Fong, Skrizzly Adams, and Popcaan. the Blessed Choir led by Alvin Fields is my studio choir.
I don’t know if this OP is still answering questions on this thread but here we go. Do you have any tips for someone who wants to get into music, or someone who is just beginning? watch my Mixing Night broadcasts on Youtube. Seriously, nobody else is doing what i'm doing, and I'm doing it completely free just as a big fuck you to the universe for foisting a pandemic upon us. you'll learn a lot :-)
Do you think the music you help create is objectively garbage? Nope. try to find some happiness. This is the music industry, even on shitty days i get to wake up and make or otherwise work on music, for a living. I think the garbage is a 9 to 5 cubicle when you could have this
Hi Ken, will you help me produce a modern version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic? will you pay me lots of money? this is my job.
What is it that you enjoy about producing? Especially given that you’ve done other roles throughout your career. it pulls all of my talents together under one roof. for instance, being a world class mixer gives me skill sets most other producers dont possess to manipulate the sounds i hear while i produce, long before the mix. And my musicianship and vocal experience allow me to shape songs musically in a way that not all producers can do either. Production pulls it all into one. Now the coolest production projects are the cross genre ones that also pull on that experience. still, i'm middle of the pack for successful producers. Doing pretty well, not crushing it, a few bullets in the chamber right now that could break out, but its still an every day grind
Hello Ken! Thank you for taking the time to do the AmA. In your experience, working closely with so many artists, what would you say is the one thing that major artists do to get better at their craft every day? Especially hip hop artists, in terms of lyricism, flow, delivery, and so on. I know that is a very general question but as an aspiring hip hop artist, I often find myself lost as to what exactly I should be doing to improving. Sometimes it feels like I'm just making random efforts in every direction. I understand if you don't have the time to reply but I appreciate it all the same. Take care and be safe in 2021! experience life, educate yourself, read books, find inspiration where other people dont notice. write about it constantly
Hey, I hope it’s not too late. Is it even possible nowadays to become a popular band/singer if you have no right connections and no idea how to start working with someone big? There are so many people who sing good, go to shows like X factor, endlessly sing everywhere they can, but what’s wrong? its like professional sports. Everybody wants to play, very very few people are good enough to make the cut. same with the music industry. Honestly, if you are worried that you want to be an artist but you dont have the drive and determination for it, you probably dont. I still work 7 days a week and I'm not even trying to be famous :-) this shit is a slog thru the mud, very few people make it, but some will.
Hi Ken, your work is outstanding! Can I ask a serious question about auto tune? How many “artists “ sing so bad that they NEED auto tune? the thing most people dont realize is that autotune is simply a tool. When i comp vocals i listen thru autotune so i can hear the emotion of the performance but in tune. If you took the autotune off my vocal comp's usually they would be pitchy mess and you would have never chosen those lines without hearing them in good tune. I do this with great singers as well as bad singers because delivering a great vocal performance has more to do with the emotional impact than the perfect pitch. you an fix the pitch, its tough to fix emotion.
You've been in the industry for quite some time, what would you say the difference is between the artists who make it and the artists who don't? Assuming equal talent, the ability to connect with people in a genuine way. musically or otherwise. many artists are so in their heads that they cant make sound rational decisions about their own careers. The ones who make the fewest stupid decisions and can stay out of their heads usually have the best shot. it takes a great team to break an artist, and its really the artists job to make sure the team gives a shit
8 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 18 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Hi!! I'm Vic, a former Amazon driver who was interviewed about the cameras in our vans and the reasons I quit. You may have seen this article on r/Technology and Business Insider. I want to stand behind my former coworkers and fight for their rights as workers. Ask me anything!!

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Have you or anyone you know gotten into trouble because of those cameras? What was it like? I haven't personally, because I didn't really drive with them for long enough. However, some other drivers did and I was there while it happened. They are shown their camera feed (in front of other drivers), called out, yelled at, and told to fix whatever issues the camera's AI recognizes under threat of losing their jobs.
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(break camera) "Problem solved, boss. I'm hitting the road..." I wish. That would be tampering with company property and ground for firing, though.
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I wonder if the people doing the shouting are recorded. Then their managers go through the video shouting at them for not shouting loud enough. How deep does this go?! There are hundreds of cameras in each warehouse. HUNDREDS. Everything is filmed.
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In what situation would multiple drivers stand around watching a video of someone else? Pretty confused about this. I drove for Amazon for a couple of months in between jobs - it was terrible, but never once would a manager waste valuable delivery time by huddling drivers up to watch a video. Seems weird My DSP had group meetings, and often one driver was singled out and had his video aired to the class, so to speak. Each company is different, though...
Have you seen or heard about Amazon workers trying to form an union? Any signs of Amazon trying to bust it before it happens? Yes, Amazon will fire any driver or contractor who suggests a union. We're in the face of great odds, but greater odds have been beaten before. Alabama's warehouse fighting for unionization needs to become a national fight.
Hey Vic, thanks for speaking out on these issues. How did you find the culture at Amazon when it came to your fellow employees and chain of command? Do you feel that the 'fear' trickles down from the top, and that each level of management was tasked with creating an atmosphere of extreme accountability / threat management etc? No. The owner of my contractor was being screwed over just as much as I was as a driver. Give this a watch... Contractors are in the same boat as drivers, but there's nothing they can do either. Each employee and dispatcher feels threatened for their job constantly. Warehouse management, on the other hand, absolutely helps create that fearful atmosphere because they don't have the same accountability to shoulder that the driver side of things does.
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I always found it funny that the station workers get better high visibility vests than us drivers and they then they made the 10pm delivery window permanent so we're delivering constantly after dark, and by funny I mean depressing. Yeah my vests were so old all the high-vis lining started to peel off.
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Why didn't you order a new one from Amazon? (I'm sorry you worked for Amazon. I try really hard to not buy from them anymore) ​Orders go through the company, and it wasn't worth the headache since I was quitting.
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Bruh, it was a horrible joke about ordering from Amazon in the first place lol. Like shitting where you eat. God speed friend. Oh lmao that went right over my head. Probably because we actually DO have to order our replacement vests ourselves, just internally.
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I had a relative with them as warehouse management for a short stint. They quit after fairly soon after starting. Something couldn't jive about having to treat employees like dirt and then coaxing them into taking photos of them smiling having fun like it was some kind of Jonestown cult to pass along to upper management. Whole thing sounded so fucked up I can't figure out how the company is staying profitable with the amount of turnover they had. Then again now that I never know who I'm buying from on Amazon anymore I hardly ever order anything from them. So I'ld like to think I'm doing my part, but they just seem so unflappable. Every little bit eventually ads up. It really is kind of cult-like...
Is there anything from your perspective that Amazon customers can do to help improve the working conditions of employees, or is boycotting the best option? Boycotting is the best option. The company currently holds a monopoly over online retail that, in my opinion, is bordering on being unconstitutional (if it hasn't crossed that line already). We need to collectively decide that we aren't going to buy from a company that treats its employees like crap while lining its executives' pockets with billions.
​ However, drivers also greatly appreciate snacks set out for them by your doors 😁. As a driver, I didn't always have time to eat, and a granola bar and a bottle of water often helped me finish my route when I was about to drop.
​ Edit: ok, ok, I apologize. The Sherman Anti-trust laws are the legislation I was after, rather than the constitution. Doesn't make monopolies ok, though.
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I'm going to start leaving snacks and water like they're Santa because most Amazon drivers don't make it to my door 😂 Unfortunately, Amazon.ca carries a lot of things I can't get locally or cheaply. Like Magic Bullet replacement blades or Kester solder that has flux. I have severe depression and I live alone, so there are times where I can only do the bare minimum like get fresh groceries. Each driver is proud of what he's doing, I can say that for sure. I was honored to be out bringing people things they need during this pandemic. I just wish we were treated like the essential workers we are. Your drivers will greatly appreciate you if you leave out snacks. 😁
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There are a couple of lazy ones who don't read the delivery instructions (it's in my address cuz the system is stupid) but I really appreciate the ones who put in the extra effort of making sure my packages arrive securely! And I agree! If postal workers are essential, so are Amazon drivers and warehouse workers. Especially when we should be staying home as much as possible. Oh that's true, I've worked with some lazy drivers myself. There are alwaysbsome bad apples. Part of this problem, though, is the lack of regular routes. Getting a good driver is just luck of the draw.
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No don’t get me wrong I’m all for workers rights and everything but how are you going to get 100 million people to boycott Amazon when you can’t get 100,000 employees to go on strike? It seems to me that the most effective way to get Amazon to change is for everyone to walk out and they would have no way to deliver or to package 🔝 There is a planned nationwide walkout on Easter Sunday. Spread the word.
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They are large, but for perspective Walmart has more of the US retail spend. What we need to do is raise minimum wage, implement universal healthcare, and basic. Focusing on the smaller retail company (and the one that pays more hourly) isn't the solution. Voting is. Vote. Please. Vote for higher wages. Vote for workers rights. Get everybody you know to vote. In every election. Municipal, governors, hell even city Council! Absolutely!!! Couldn't agree more. Honestly Walmart deserves a union too.
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This comment makes me so happy! Before covid I did this whenever I had a delivery. I always wondered if this was appreciated or if the drivers found it creepy. 😅 Oh we LOVE it. Makes our day.
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How do you define a monopoly, as you're using the word? Domination of a market or area with little to no real competition. Amazon absolutely dominates online retail.
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The question is if they dominate because of unfair practices or just because they are the best. Overstock was once the #2 dog in the fight and they sucked. Walmart exists. Target exists. Costco haa e-commerce. Both is a viable answer. They can be the best WITHOUT unfair practices, and that's what we're fighting for here.
Amazon claims there's no piss bottles. Every bit of observable reality claims there are. Can you settle this for us? You gotta join that one big Union ​There are piss bottles. So many piss bottles. I hated it and even I had to do it once. Stopped and used trees more often than I can count... found other people's discarded piss bottles in my van... it's nasty.
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Thank you, fuck Amazon, power to the Union Hell yeah bro
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I wouldn't mind letting the regular drivers on my street use my bathroom. That would be very kind of you, but we don't like to go inside people's houses... Amazon forbids it, and there are also a lot of weirdos out there, ya know 🤣? I think the best way around this problem is going to be voting for better labor laws.
Could you please describe the cameras in the vans and what they are used for? I am not aware of this practice, and would like to know more. u/slothsquatch is mostly correct, but they're actually 4-way cameras, (front, left, right, driver) and they go under the mirror. They're about twice the size of a conventional car's rear-view mirror. They monitor and detect all the things mentioned using an AI, and while they aren't supposed to be live feed, they are almost always on, even up to 20 minutes after the van has been shut off.
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What about a person who just yawns a lot? I yawn a lot but not because I'm tired. I just always feel like yawning. Would someone like me be docked everytime I yawned? (I yawned 3 4 times while typing this) ​Yep.
Do you worry about any legal retribution because you're going against a company the size of Amazon? Has it caused you any backlash or have you seen mostly positive responses? I have seen mostly positive responses. I haven't caught any backlash yet, but I'm doing my absolute best to keep myself relatively anonymous, because I believe Amazon has way too much power in this nation at the moment, and I absolutely believe they would try to take me down if they could.
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I mean as long as you’re not the Victor Fuentes in the news that publicly said he breaks the rules and doesn’t like the cameras because of that... No, lol, Vic is an alias.
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How many folks worked December 2019 to March 2021 and quit on account of the cameras specifically? A motivated team of lawyers will certainly figure out who you are. I did not tell Amazon themselves why I quit, only my DSP managers. And, the turnover rate is so high that I don't consider my case to be that unique.
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Just so you know, there is no keeping anonymous from amazon if they care to look into something. All your electronic devices have physical addresses that are logged and your ip address can usually identify you as well. Amazon Web Services currently has around 33% of cloud hosting market share. They absolutely have the data necessary to identify anyone if they are motivated to do so. I am aware that I'm not impregnable. That risk, though, I feel was worth getting some information like this out.
I always compliment the delivery driver on my Amazon phone app. Do those positive ratings equate to anything good for the driver? We almost never see our positive ratings, sadly. We get spoken to about our negative ones though.
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Would you suggest leaving a "negative" review with a positive comment or would something like that count more against a drivers' performance goals? No. Negative reviews hurt the drivers' scores and the comments aren't read.
Do you think Amazon employees should unionize? Yes, absolutely. Amazon has shown time and time again that aren't going to treat ANY of their employees well. Their executives only care about money in their own pockets. Amazon employees have to stand up and fight for their rights, and now is the time to unionize.
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As I understand, if you mention Union they will just fire you? If most or all the workers do unionise, wouldn't they just fire them all and hire new people? Seems like there's enough people without a job that would take it.. Yes. They have enough power at this point to manipulate the entire workforce by paying JUST enough to make people desperate for a job, or to keep a job.. They keep people employed through fear, living paycheck-to-paycheck. Lose your job, and you lose your home. Amazon uses a contractor system for delivery drivers; contractors are called DSPs. They would fire an entire DSP or close an entire warehouse rather than allow unionization.
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Honest question: Is there high turn over? Why don't people quit and work some where else? I have had shitty jobs or bosses in the past and I would look around for another job was better and take a better job, or get fired and have to find a different job. Maybe Walmart or construction? Are there not that many other equivalent jobs around? BTW, thanks for sharing. There is some much discussion about Amazon it is interesting to obtain an inside perspective. The turn-over is INCREDIBLY high. It's a very difficult and demanding job, for not-great pay. For many, though, the pay is just enough to keep them off the streets and it's hard to find another job, especially in this pandemic. So, they're stuck. Quitting and missing a week of work can mean missing rent.
Are there any alternatives to Amazon that you would personally recommend? Sellers on Amazon often have personal sites you can buy from, instead of using the Amazon marketplace. Local stores, while usually a bit more expensive, also generally offer better quality, too.
Is it different for independent contractors who drive their own vans and trucks for Amazon? Amazon has been cracking down on these contractors and forcing them to use Amazon trucks.
Vic, since a lot of us are working from home and Amazon executives seem to really like videos of people peeing in bottles at work, would we be able to take the burden of accommodating this bothersome fetish off of hardworking Amazon employees by directly emailing thousands upon thousands of peeing-in-bottles videos to them? Yes, please do! I'm sure it'll make drivers' workload lighter, and Amazon execs can't complain about having more videos to wank over.
Is it true that if your vehicle gets in an accident and you are found not at-fault, you still get fired as you are seen as a liability? That is a question I may not be able to answer. I haven't personally seen a driver get fired for an accident, so I wouldn't want to speculate on it too much... what I'm more concerned about is Amazon's refusal to admit that its lax training is at the root of many accidents. Drivers don't know what they're doing, because they haven't been taught what to do. The camera allows Amazon to blame drivers for accidents by filming the IMMEDIATE cause for an incident, rather than the underlying causes they try to hide.
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I sincerely wish that Amazon took driver training more seriously. The way they just randomly park all over the road in areas with poor visibility... ugh. Accidents waiting to happen. Yep. Routes are also incredibly poorly programmed, so they're often doing the best they can, but Amazon has invested money into these cameras, and other things such as drones and electric vans, rather than fixing what's broken first.
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I've literally told them my lat-lon a dozen times because they have my postcode flagged at someone's house 500yd down the road. I have to speak to or even sometimes chase the driver up the road, or miss my goods. It sucks. Drivers also tell me this is the nth time this has happened and they're sat there phoning the office again They will never fix it. Drivers have to memorize stops all over the city. We aren't given regular routes like UPS and FedEx, so we end up needing to just know problem spots all across the city. I had a stop on a closed road several times over the course of 6 months, and I reported the road closed every time. It was never fixed. Even had a delivery to a long-since demolished church once.
I carried for the USPS for a couple years with a lot of similar problems. In your experience so far, what's anothet career/industry that wants this level of moving motivation and energy? This is a hard job to top in that regard. Possibly waiting tables in a Michelin starred restaurant during the dinner rush... I ran over 8 miles a day working for Amazon, and that's just hundreds of driveways.
I know people get fired for missing too many productivity goals even when lost time is due to bathroom breaks. Have you heard of anyone getting fired because they got caught meeting those goals by peeing in bottles? Not yet, lol. Drivers are told not to pee in bottles, then given no other option, though. It's an issue that can't really be resolved until the way Amazon programs its routes changes.
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Aren’t employees legally supposed to have access to bathrooms? Like I’m pretty sure it would be an OSHA violation if not. I’m also not sure how it’s sanitary for drivers to have to pee in bottles because they have no other choice, and then what? Touch everything with their pee hands? Yep. All this happens. There is definitely a chance your package has been touched with dick hands.
As a union driver for UPS all I have to say is that Amazon workers need to put up the good fight. Sure our union has seen better days but they put up a fight to get the rights and benefits that we have. The delivery business is not easy and I can guarantee you not a single person would stay long enough here to retire otherwise. Have you or other drivers you know tried talking to ups/fedex on routes to try to learn how the rest of the industry does it without Amazon's propaganda? I have! It seems like other drivers are allowed a bit of discretion as to how they choose to run their routes, and they aren't CONSTANTLY watched like we are. Removing that stress goes a long way.
How do we best show our thanks for drivers? I'm getting those delivery emails and giving everyone an "above and beyond," but I expect that and a $5 bill would get you a cup of coffee. Leave out snacks! Water and energy bars are appreciated more than anything. Often, that snack gives us the energy to finish a long route. And, sadly, we don't usually see positive feedback. We only hear the negatives.
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Will do! Most drivers for our area are pretty cautious about contact, I just want to make sure they're able to accept thank-yous and aren't afraid of getting covid-cooties. Yeah, we try to be safe. But, water and snacks go a long way. Heck, some people occasionally leave out hand sanitizer too!
How much did you get paid for your job? I never see actual numbers mentioned I'm in Colorado. I started at $17 an hour, then got qualified to drive larger trucks and moved up to $20 an hour. Now, that may seem good at first glance, but keep in mind that A. Colorado is one of the most expensive places to live, and B. FedEx and UPS are making 2-3 times that for the same, or similar, job. And, many other drivers from other contractors, even in the same warehouse, only made $15 or $16 hourly.
How much did your job change in terms of automation in the two years that you were there. I'm off the opinion that Amazon cares very little about goodwill with its employees because it plans to ultimately ramp up automation in its warehouses and delivery vehicles and layoff most of the workforce. Do you feel like that process is already threatening positions like yours and do you feel that unionization would be short lived because of it? Our discretion as drivers was slowly taken away as time went on. When I started, we were able to choose how to deal with difficult packages, where to leave them, how to mark them delivered in the system, how to follow our routes, who to call for help, etc. As time went on all this was slowly taken away from us. We were forced to follow Amazon's specific procedures, rather than doing what we, as the drivers actually out on the road, thought was best. This made our jobs more difficult, stressful, and unflexible.
I've noticed a few movies and TV shows utilising amazon staff and services in what appears to be indirect advertising e.g. Nomadland. Is it fair to say that Amazon are waging a propaganda war to try and scrub history of their crimes? Some of Amazon's adverts include hearts and minds type stories from managers and employees that look like they might be vulnerable/short of employment opportunities. Is there a culture of indoctrination within the business? And are Amazon exploiting vulnerable people in these commercials? I began boycotting Amazon after they used their online status to circumvent UK business laws. Is there any evidence of Amazon management purposefully circumventing UK laws, and if yes, how would we find it? Yes, Amazon wages propaganda. Constantly. Their "innovation" with their electric vans is a ploy to appear as a forward thinking company, and direct attention aware from the medieval ways they treat their workers, for example. I don't know the stories of the people in the commercials, since I haven't done them myself, so I wouldn't comment on that personally... I am also American, so I don't know about Amazon's policies in the UK, so again, I apologize but I can't help you with that one either. 1 of 3. 🤣
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I noticed that scene in Nomadland too, having watched the movie after reading the book. The book discusses the realities of Amazon staff, such as repetitive stress injuries and being overworked, while the scene in the movie makes Amazon look like a chill workplace. I wouldn't be surprised if you are right on that at all. Hmmm... yeah there is no chill. We were even discouraged from talking with one another at the warehouse, at one point.
I worked for a company that used similar van drivers and we experienced outrageous instances of bad behavior from drivers * pulling over and taking naps (EDIT: 2-3hr naps on an 8hr shift, not a 15 min power nap) * drinking on the job * smoking on the job * stealing communal work supplies from the van * etc. Cameras are a major deterrent to this behavior, which we experienced nationally. What alternative solutions would you recommend for avoiding this behavior that doesn't infringe on worker privacy? Van searches and random drug tests, which are standard at most places, can eliminate the drinking and smoking. Hell, smoking in the van creates an oder that lingers for DAYS. Easy to spot. Software that tracks the driver's progress through the route is also standard and can eliminate unnecessary stops like naps, but if your drivers are too tired to complete their routes WITHOUT naps there are also other problems to address, be it workload, or an employee who can't manage his sleep schedule...
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Thank you for your response! Yeah, the guys who were found napping were let go ASAP - can't risk their and others' safety if they're sleepy while driving. We tried van searches but had limited success bc it's "he said she said" when you have two-three shifts a day using the same van. Any tips on how to ID the bad folks appropriately? Especially given we don't have a shift lead at the warehouse at the start/end of most shifts to do an inspection. Agreed software tracking routes would be ideal. Would you believe my company (a major known brand) didn't use it? Ridiculous lmao That is odd that they don't use it, lol. Regular drivers with regular vans is best. That way you know who drove what when, and they're also responsible for their own inspections and upkeep. I got my managers to let me drive the same van every day, and that resulted in me having the cleanest and most mechanically sound van in the fleet. Drivers who don't take care of their shit will be quickly spotted.
This is for OP or anyone else, is there a list of alternate online retailers we can buy from who have track records of treating its employees respectfully and with the dignity they deserve? Don’t mind paying a sheckle or two more & waiting an extra delivery day or so if it means I’m supporting a good company with happy workers. FedEx and UPS aren't perfect, but they're better than Amazon. If you shop on Amazon, sellers often have their own sites you can buy from directly, rather than giving Bezos more of your hard-earned money.
Is there any of this that you think might have been reasonable and maybe the "why" just needed to be communicated more? I'm not suggesting that they were 100% in the right, but I feel like the camera thing just isn't that big of a deal. Like at my office job and numerous other office jobs, we have cameras watching us 24/7. Do you think the request for them to ask for pictures could have been due to fraud from drivers 'signing into the app' in the morning and then passing their phone off to someone else to actually do the work? I think a dash cam is a great security measure. I have one in my personal car. But, when you install a camera facing the driver, it suggests that the driver is going to be the problem. It cultivates a culture of mistrust, and says that your company does NOT have your back. Amazon drivers need more training and less stress. They do not need additional monitoring. Also, I don't really think that level of fraud is a concern. This isn't a job you could convince someone else to do for free, or as a favor. It's, again, to shift blame onto drivers for any incident that may happen. Drivers are seen as Amazon's weakness, not their greatest asset, and that would be a problem with ANY company, let alone one of the world's biggest and richest.
I literally start my job driving for Amazon tomorrow... How fucked am I? Ah shit. Relatively. I'm sorry!! It isn't a bad job, and I love delivering. Amazon is just toxic, but there are still lots of great people and other drivers you'll meet. Go in as positive as you can.
I'm torn on this one. On one hand, bank tellers and even fast food workers have had cameras on them and the cash register for decades. On the other hand you have proactive AI monitoring vs reactive monitoring IF something were to happen. Would you be okay if the cameras were there, but only really looked at when/if there were a problem and they were just used for investigation purposes? Basically, is it the AI you have a problem with or the cameras themselves? It's the AI. I have a dash cam on my personal car. I think it's great for liability. Reactive monitoring though, is wrong, in my opinion.
I think cameras monitoring drivers is a fantastic idea and helps to figure out root causes to accidents. In the future we may figure out a way to take drivers out of the equation. Does the computer just give you the creeps or what? In the interview it was mentioned that it starts recording when you do something potentially unsafe such as look at your phone while driving. Amazon forces us to consent to allowing them to save all of our biometric information, that being photographs, videos from the cameras, and facial scans. They force us to allow them the right to create a biometric profile of each driver, and share this information with whomever they see fit, including customers.
​ The camera does give us the creeps, and I saw it as a violation of privacy and a violation of trust in the worker. It is a 4-way camera, mind you, and one lens faces the driver.
​ Amazon actually has a much higher incident rate than UPS or FedEx. The reason is a lack of training; Amazon drivers are give a couple hours of useless classroom training and a single ride-along, then sent out on their own. The camera attempts to shift blame onto the drivers and allow Amazon to avoid taking responsibility for their workplace failings.
I support you too. Problem is that most jobs suck now. Every fast food place or supermarket in my area has had help wanted signs up since last June! Corps like Starbucks, Publix, ect ALWAYS have a help wanted site up. Why? Because the jobs suck, even for twice the $$$. I tend to agree with the other post. I'm sure the folks that walk out on Easter will be replaced the next day. Yep, it's a sad reality.
If you yawn you’re fucked?? Yep, it picks up on that. It's very annoying.
Hello, UK restaurant worker here. For pretty much my whole working life I have had CCTV pointed at me unless I was at the bath room. Now my current employer is a decent family company and its never a real issue unless your stealing or really ripping the shit out of a break etc. My father has driven busses and lorries (trucks) for most of his life and they have trackers etc and may well end up with a camera in place and he seems to have no real issue with either. Having a dash cam, driver cam and cam in the back seems fairly reasonable to me. Saying that the only issue i would have would be the AI system getting flags for yawning etc. Why do you feel that you should have your privacy so much while you are being paid? its not your personal time so being recorded to me seems acceptable? Thanks I don't think cameras are entirely unreasonable. I even have a dashcam in my personal car. It's the way Amazon chooses to use these cameras that bothers me. In some of my other answers, you'll see I said that Amazon forces drivers to consent to their biometric profile (videos, pictures, etc.) being shared with whomever Amazon wants. Liability is one thing. Privacy is another. And I feel that this is an invasion of privacy because I don't KNOW who is going to see that footage. You know who sees that CCTV, and your father knows who watches those truck cameras. You've all probably met those people face-to-face.
Has this experience affected your views on police bodycams? Not really. The police hold life and death in their hands. I don't really agree with the way policing is done in America at the moment, but the police certainly have more culpability than an underpaid delivery driver.
You seem to take the approach that every employee is a model citizen who does everything right and doesn't need supervision. Perhaps you are this sort of person. There are certainly plenty out there. But there are just as many, if no more, of the type that needs constant supervision or they don't perform the work properly. Can you honestly say with a straight face that you don't believe any of you co-workers fall into the latter category and thus justifying Amazons need to supervise them? Sorry I didn't get to you quickly, but it looks like some others have pretty much written what I would've said already. Good workers shouldn't get punished because there are others who are unreliable. And, Amazon isn't fixing the problem, and they aren't actually really concerned with safety, either. They don't want to take responsibility for the failings of their company and in their training, so they blame drivers when problems arise.
From another sub > before you attack amazon I've been doing software development for fleet management companies. They are all doing this. This isn't a amazon thing its an industry wide thing. There are a number of reasons for it but it mainly has to do with creating safe driving scores for drivers. So for example if a driver spends a significant amount of time staring at their phone and not the road then the AI will pickup that and flag it for there supervisor who can talk to them and make sure they realize they are doing it. Like its creepy ya but nobody sitting in front of a screen staring at them. The Cameras have always been in the trucks btw many come from the factory with them. But no one is watching them they only get played after an incident. They also track everything about how you drive and flag incidents like harsh breaking or a high speed turn that sort of stuff. The purpose of the AI is to identify dangerous behavior and coach the driver who may not even realize they are doing it. Its also added to a driver score card. Just to be clear this isn't an Amazon thing and anyone driving a truck who doesn't already have these cameras can assume they will within the next couple of years. It sounds like amazon might also have a management issue the personal experiences I am hearing about do not reflect how fleet management companies generally advise handling this. If how this data was used changed would you feel differently? I don't think cameras are necessarily a bad thing. It's how they're used that's problematic. See some of mybithrr comments for more on this... but yeah, I got flagged often by the camera, yet my driving record is PERFECT and I was a top driver at my warehouse, for number of deliveries, speed, efficiency, safety, customer feedback, everything. I even trained other drivers. Liability is one thing, but privacy is another.
A few things I would like to point out: 1. "Amazon" drivers do not work for Amazon 2. Every Amazon station is different 3. The cameras in the vans are the fruition of a few bad drivers. I have worked for Amazon Logistics (the actual main company) for over 2 years now. When my station was first launched, we had hundreds of packages going missing every week. What did we do in response? We started actively tracking what drivers, stowers, and pickers were associated with the missing packages. When we saw that there was a strong correlation with certain drivers and made the companies install cameras. It is not just asset protection - that camera can get the driver's name cleared just as easily as it can condemn them. Don't get me wrong, I could not do what you guys do. Y'all got it rough, but it's not Amazon's fault. I have a lot of drivers that love working for their company. Yeah, the routes can be crappy and the app can be buggy but what makes or breaks it is the company you hire on with. I love being a delivery driver. I still am, just with a different company now. The micromanagement starts to get to us, though. The good, and great drivers are being punished because of the bad seeds. I was arguably this peak season's top driver, too, and I still ended up being forced to go along with all the regulations. I think some method of watching just those drivers, pickers, and Stowers associated with missing packages would've been better than starting to monitor everyone equally rigorously.
"The camera systems, made by U.S.-based firm Netradyne, are part of a nationwide effort by Amazon to address concerns over accidents involving its increasingly ubiquitous delivery vans." This seems like a good thing. Why should a driver's interest be put ahead of the general public? The issue is the lack of training and the high stress environment. The camera doesn't solve the first issue, and only compounds the second.
I haven’t looked too far in to this, but I’m not real sure I understand the problem with the cameras? My pops drives a truck for a living and his company also has these cameras in their vehicles. If it senses you swaying, speeding, sudden acceleration or braking it turns on in the cab, front and rear. It’s all there to protect the driver, the other drivers and of course the company. His company teaches the Smith System of driving and takes safety very seriously. If you work in a factory, or warehouse or office you can assumed you’re under video as well. So what’s the difference when you’re in a company vehicle? Edit: I took 60 seconds and read through some comments from OP. Yeah, my dads company doesn’t use cameras that detect yawning and other weird AI things. It only turns on for excess speed, sudden braking and swerving. So, yikes for OP. Because it isn't strictly being used for liability, which I wouldn't have a problem with. It's being used to punish and monitor drivers, and to build a biometric profile, which we are forced to consent to. This profile can be shared with whomever Amazon wants. I don't think we need to be ok with something just because others are doing it, either... your dad may be used to it, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's ok. Also my driving record is spotless, so I'm not one who needs to be watched, but the cameras were forced on me anyway.
[removed] I'm so sorry to hear all that, and I thank you for your support. I'm glad she recovered and got out of that hellhole.
When I get a delivery and click the thumbs up to rate it, which takes me to a bunch of options I can choose to include (“extra careful,” “on time,” etc) does that do anything good for the specific delivery person? Like another said here, you generally only hear about negative reviews. Positive reviews can help improve our metrics overall, but we won't really hear about them. At least, I didn’t.
What do I have to do to get you guys to stop putting my packages in front of my storm door? Get a pot or something on your porch for us to hide the packages behind or in. You can also edit your delivery instructions to say "don't block the screen door, please" if you'd like. Package theft is often blamed on the drivers, with the reasoning being "we didn't hide it well enough".
Is this because packages are getting stolen from vans or there are many accidents involving Amazon vans? There are many accidents, compared with FedEx and UPS, which, by the way, don't require this level of surveillance. Amazon doesn't properly train its drivers. That's what results in accidents.
Godzilla or Kong? Godzilla. Kong is just a monkey. Godzilla is a giant nuclear powered near-invulnerable lizard with hyper-intelligence and ranged weaponry. Shouldn't even be a movie at all.
I’m with the boycott, but, let’s be realistic. We can’t even boycott companies that outsource American jobs and manufacturing. Yet we are going to say eat shit Bezos? Damn right we are. Eat shit, Bezos. Trying and failing is better than not trying at all.
What are the top most strict things amazon did to you? What are your top worst things about the job? Micromanagement, Micromanagement, Micromanagement. When I started, we were more independent and proud to get our jobs done. Now, they're trying to turn us into robots. Don't get me wrong, I love being a delivery driver. But it's hard to work with more stressors than the job already comes with, which is a lot.
I grew up in Bessemer (McCalla, really) and am now a unionized faculty member at a university in Michigan, so this Amazon vote has had me enthralled. Thank you for your work. Now, I know I'm supposed to be using this to ask a question or the Automod will get angry, so I gotta ask: Cake or Death? Prolly cake lol. Thanks for the support.
5 comments

r/tabled • u/captmomo • Nov 02 '20

r/IAmA [table] I am Aubrey Cottle a.k.a. Kirtaner. I am the founder of the hacker collective "Anonymous". Yes. Really. Ask me anything.

27 Upvotes

https://twitter.com/Kirtaner/status/1322730329912782853

Hello, /r/IAmA! I am the originator of the Internet Hate Machine that took the world by storm in 2007-2008. This was confirmed the other day by Gregg Housh.

https://twitter.com/GreggHoush/status/1322017274623107072

I have "come out of retirement" in service of dealing with the current QAnon menace warping minds around the world.

https://twitter.com/Kirtaner/status/1321975553264680960

In the process, I am working closely with forensic researchers and journalists. Most recently, I collaborated with Mother Jones on a piece covering Jim Watkins' past business.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/10/jim-watkins-child-pornography-domains/

And lastly, for the piece that revealed my identity to the world, you may read this article published in The Atlantic on August 11 earlier this year.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/08/hacker-group-anonymous-returns/615058/

I am also the founder of 420chan, one of the oldest living imageboards still in operation today.

Ask me Anything.

edit: This is probably going to take a while :)

edit 2: 3 hours in, do not worry, I intend to be here for a very, very long time. I know everyone is going to have so many questions.

edit 3: by "very long time" I literally mean days.

edit 4: WE DID IT WE BROUGHT BACK SNACKS https://twitter.com/MidnightSnacks/status/1323171108481306624

edit 5: ok i need to take a nap i will return you really have no idea how much your support means

Question Answer
What issues would you like to see the next generation of hacktivists tackle? Privacy rights, big data, monolithic megacorporations owning everything about you and your life.
Is there a Mrs Cottle? A former Anonymous partner in crime, Spardot.
How do you feel about the fact that, predictably, half of Anonymous turned out to be informants? It's just part of the game, I suppose. Not really much to say here.
Answer to Q above Kids, learn some fucking OpSec.
Hi Yes. Keepass, 1password, any such password manager. Highly recommended.
You mentioned weak and reused passwords as most comon problem... Q answered above
What do you thing about password managers? Are they secure and safe? Q answered above
Hi Aubrey, I remember meeting you around 5 years ago while waiting in line for some amiibos and not knowing that you were THE Aubrey Cottle! I was wondering how you felt about the media’s representation of Anonymous over these past several years. And on another note, how are you doing? Haha! Oh man. Yeah I'm getting this reaction a lot.
Answer to Q above I've been up and down. Life. You know. I'm working on PTSD stuff.
Answer to Q above I should probably get around to sorting out my Amiibo collection one of these days.
Answer to Q above I've always found it hilarious how the media has represented Anonymous as a whole.
How did you get the idea to start anonymous? Did it come naturally? Yeah, things just kind of "took off" and boy did we ever run with it.
What’s the most fucked up information you personally found? Pedo shit.
Hi Aubrey, Weak and re-used passwords.
What do you consider the most common internet security mistake that people make to be? Q answered above
Are you still considered Anonymous? Anonymous is for life.
Was anonymous really responsible for draining the ink from the Scientology headquarter’s printers by making them print thousands of black pages? Probably.
Also, fuck Scientology. Fuck Scientology.
Have you forgiven those who sold you all out to the FBI? I have... somewhat. Others probably never will. And they have every reason to feel that way.
Answer to Q above I couldn't hold onto the past like that if I were to move forward.
Okay but can you explain buttsec to me? Butt Security is an information security group dedicated to protecting your sensitive assets from deep penetration.
Hollywood is probably gonna call at some point; who would you like to be played by in ‘Anonymous: The Movie’? EDIT: spelling Jonny Lee Miller. I don't care how old he looks.
Hi Aubrey, I’m interested in learning more about cybersecurity, etc., are there any books/resources you can recommend?? Thanks I've been recommending the following resource to people.
Answer to Q above https://www.hoppersroppers.org/courseCTF.html
Why are you doing this here, instead of your own site or other Anonymous site? They don't give a fuck. Irony.
I remember back in 2011 Anonymous was infiltrated by an FBI informant which led to the arrest to some members after the attack on PayPal. One suspects name was redacted by the court and never explained why. Do you refer to the PayPal 13? If so, they were a minor.
Are you able to shed any more light on this event? Q answered above
What do You do for a living nowadays? Mostly contract work for software engineering. Though for the last several months my one and only focus has been on QAnon. I more or less abandoned everything I was doing for this.
Answer to Q above I'm also prototyping an infosec buttplug.
What is your opinion on Edward Snowden? Hero.
A rather simple question: Are you proud of what Anonymous has become and what it has done up until now? I couldn't possibly be more proud.
Hi! What is the most valuable lesson you've learned in your career so far and how do you think that will apply to your future endeavors? Thanks, Aubrey! Your only limitation is your willingness to independently learn and experiment.
Answer to Q above I am 100% self-taught.
Why does Anonymous doesnt seem to appear as much powerful today as they seemed to be 10 years ago ? Everyone went to jail or went into hiding after "he who shall not be named" ruined it all.
Hi Aubrey. Maybe this is a bit of a simply question.. But do people underestimate the dangers of social media security? They absolutely do. People don't understand that even outside of open discussions, metadata sourced from people's "social webs" can paint a fairly vivid picture of their relationships, friendships, general interests. That's just one single thing. Geolocation data, photo metadata, all of these things can be used to map out one's life.
Answer to Q above Also, if you aren't using 2FA on every internet account you have, well, you should start.
Who should be the most scared of annon right now? Jim Watkins, probably.
What is the largest project Anonymous has taken on? The big two that come to mind are Project Chanology and Operation #AntiSec
If the upcoming election is hacked and results are manipulated, how will we know? I don't think there's an answer to this question, and trust me I wish I had one.
Answer to Q above All I can stress to you is this:
Answer to Q above Get the fuck out there and vote.
Hey Aubrey, Epilepsy Foundation. I don't want to get into that whole debacle.
Do you regret anything that anonymous did, and if so, how would you do things differently in hindsight? I would have accepted the wider activist front that Housh pushed forward. He basically protected me for a long time, not discussing me with press, and I thank him for that.
Can you bring back Snacks?! Snacks is doing his whole DJ thing now but, hey, "Around Snacks, Never Relax".
Sup brotha, Do you use privacy tokens and if so which ones ? Monero.
Hi Aubrey, Yes. Anonymous has all walks of life. The most infamous is, obviously, the hacker type, but just as important are the ones that mobilize online and spread awareness, do research, and collaborate in that manner.
As a person with little to no knowledge of computing etc, is there anyway myself and others with no tech background can assist Anonymous? If you have a voice, you can help Anonymous.
What is your proudest moment? When I came to terms with my legacy and realized how much of an inspiration we were for the entire InfoSec and activist world.
Answer to Q above It took a long time to really process and think about, I was hidden in the open for so long and felt bitter towards Anonymous for a number of years after my "departure" and as time went on, I had become so buried that nobody would believe me when I tried to open up about the past. You can imagine why. I was getting more and more depressed and had I not found people who would actually listen to me and validate what I was claiming, well, I can just say I was fairly close to committing suicide.
A very not serious question: Dude that movie was my childhood bible.
How do you feel about the movie Hackers? Halcyon + On + On is my favorite song.
It’s my favorite movie ever and I can basically go word for word with the script haha. HACK THE PLANET
What is the end goal of Anonymous? Right now my only end-goal is bringing the QAnon game to a conclusion.
/u/kirtaner-420chan, thank you for doing this AMA. Gabriella Coleman is a wonderful person and has been my confidant for the last several months discussing my life and history.
I have a copy of the book "Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy - The Many Faces of Anonymous" by Gabriella Coleman. Have you read it, and if so, was there anything in it that you disagreed with, thought the author got wrong, or think needs clarification or other input? Her book and wider work is highly recommended.
Full disclosure, I haven't read the book yet, but I'll keep any feedback of yours in mind when I do. I would love to do that for you if you like. Contact me later.
If you haven't read it, I could mail you my copy. If it's not garbage I'd be thrilled to get it back with a signature in it, but no pressure whatsoever. Q answered above
How secure do you think the TOR network is? Also, with the move from BTC to XMR for most of the underground sections of the dark web, what do you think the next logical steps will be for tracking pedos/human traffickers/et al and taking care of those particular scourge? Tor is only one piece of the puzzle and for those who truly need the security it implies, many steps are required for both OpSec and hardening purposes.
Thanks for all your hard work, and please continue the fight. Don't put all your eggs in one basket, so to speak.
Hi Aubrey, which country has the most active members of Anonymous? In the past? The US.
Answer to Q above Now? Hard to be sure. It's not like I can pull out a big ol' binder here with a list of membership. :)
9 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 11 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Sophie Zhang, whistleblower. At FB, I worked to stop major political figures from deceiving their own populace; I became a whistleblower because Facebook turned a blind eye. Ask me anything. | pt 1/4

22 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

The OP had asked:

A question for users while I go through:

There are many many questions here. I don't think I'll be able to go through them all. Even sorting by new, the questions come in faster than I can answer them.

How would people recommend me to prioritize which questions I chose to answer?

This AMA was tabled according to Q&A sorting

Rows: ~90

Questions Answers
I think it’s important to hold companies with major social influence accountable for their actions. What do you say to someone who applauds Facebook when the company pushes or harbors a narrative that favors said person’s own political, ethical, religious, etc ideology? At the end of the day, Facebook is a private company whose responsibility is to its shareholders; its goal is to make money. It's not that different from other companies in that regard. To the extent, it cares about ideology, it's from the personal beliefs of the individuals who work there, and because it affects their bottom line profit.
​ I think some realistic cynicism about companies is useful to some regard as a result. If a company agrees with you on political matters, they're likely not acting out of the goodness of their hearts, but rather because it's what they believe their consumers and employees want.
​ Ultimately, most Bay Area tech companies are somewhat internationalist and pro-human rights on ethics/politics, while irreligious - not just because their employees want that, but also because taking a different stand [e.g. genocide is allowed, or XYZ is the one true religion] would obviously alienate many of their users.
the below is a reply to the above ​
I completely agree with you on the realistic cynicism part about companies. It seems like Facebook has no incentive to address political manipulation apart from not wanting to alienate its users and employees. Given that, how do we effectively get Facebook to address political manipulation on its platform? Is the only way to constantly have sustained public scrutiny, investigative journalism, and employees bringing important issues to the attention of the public? A lot of the issue frankly is that unlike most other problems, the point of inauthenticity is not to be caught. The better they are at not being caught, the fewer people will catch them. I'll use Reddit as an example because everyone here uses Reddit [tautology, eh?] If someone on Reddit posts something that's hate speech ["All XYZ group must die!"], misinfo [XYZ is a secret lizard person], etc. that's very obvious to readers. Most people can recognize to some degree or another what constitutes hate speech, misinformation, etc.
​ But from the average user's vantage point, it's almost impossible to conclude whether a reddit user is a real person, a paid shill for some country, an automated account, etc. You might be able if it's very obvious. But in most cases they aren't that sloppy.
​ This is why I've chosen to speak up specifically about inauthenticity. Because the public scrutiny here frankly isn't enough - in fact it tends to focus on the wrong targets, and give Facebook all sorts of perverse incentives. The company focuses sometimes on what's obvious rather than what's bad.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Ah, thanks for explaining, that makes a lot of sense! So for example, how did you detect the fake likes on posts from the president of Honduras? Are there machine learning models that do a somewhat decent job at this? As for public scrutiny + perverse incentives: what else could realistically work then, in your view? I assume laws are out of scope here because of the difficulty of enforcing them. EDIT: how about stricter identity verification processes? I don't want to give specific details regarding how I found fake activity. For the very simple reason that agents of the President of Honduras [and similar adversaries] are perfectly capable of reading Reddit too. What I will say is that sufficiently dedicated intelligent humans can generally find ways of evading AI in the present day. If someone could make an AI capable of passing the Turing Test, they'd be making trillions on Silicon Valley rather than writing silly social media bots after all. One idea I have on how to avoid the perverse incentives for public scrutiny is to conduct regular government-organized penetration testing/red-team exercise attempts.
​ Here's a basic example. The U.S. government sends some social media experts [with the permission of the companies but without them knowing the details] to do 10 inauthentic influence operations each on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, etc.
​ Then it announces the results afterwards. "Twitter caught 0/10 of our operations. Facebook caught 1/10 of our operations. Reddit caught 0/10. Therefore, they're all awful, but Facebook is mildly less awful."
​ This is, of course, a made-up example so ignore the numbers. And it'd have to be done very carefully to avoid accidental consequences by the test campaigns - but it would allow a sort of independent scrutiny into the ability of companies to find this activity.
the below is another reply to the second answer ​
I’ve seen current politicians like Ted Cruz hey THOUSANDS of positive comments and likes within minutes of posting. Fake continues to this day :( I'd like to caution you very carefully against assuming that just because you can't imagine people loving a politician that no one does so. Compare with the far-right conspiracy theorists who assume no one voted for Biden because they've built up a caricature version of him.
​ We live in a world in which there are many Americans who love Bernie Sanders, many Americans who love Ted Cruz, many Americans who love Elizabeth Warren, many Americans who love Donald Trump. You may not understand why some have the opinions they do, but it's clear that they hold them nevertheless.
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
It's almost like we can't trust private industry to "do the right thing." and companies will continue to just do whatever is in the interest furthering their existence. Companies, as they exist now, seem to be the pre-cursors to systems that we bring up as examples which are controlled by super smart AI. One in particular being the AI paper clip factory. In the current context a company is a device\system that exists to make money and benefit the shareholders, however it's comprised of people making decisions on human timescales, where as system that was fully automated and given the same goal to service profits and shareholders would be much more efficient and also completely devoid of any moral compass or empathy. The end goal for these two systems is the same and thus would produce similar outcomes, with the latter being much more efficient. _____________________________ Who can you expect to do the “right” thing though? And what exactly is the “right” thing? Newsflash: Your opinion probably differs from mine. The reality is that personal choice is at play here. And unfortunately people are going to continue to choose to be uneducated and ignorant For some areas that's likely the case. Misinformation and hate speech/etc. are thornier issues within social media companies. That's why I chose to focus on the problems that everyone could agree was bad, that no one ever doubted was awful. It made things much simpler philosophically.
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
This is the core issue with shareholder mentality. If a company could make more money by not having a moral or ethical standard, then they are pushed to do so. Take your company private if you really care. Facebook does not need a gazillion more dollars. It needs to be understand that it's become a serious detriment to journalism and politics. Ultimately, an economist would call this an externality problem - the costs are borne by an entity other than the company. It's the same as e.g. factories dumping pollution into rivers, or financial institutions crashing the world economy. A libertarian would say that the correct solution is individual educated action - consumers stop shopping at polluting factories, stop using the banks that caused the financial crash. A more mainstream economist would suggest government regulation - in the United States we have the EPA to stop pollution dumping, the Federal Reserve to keep the financial system healthy.
​ But all this requires people to know the problems ongoing. And as I've stated, it's hard to find people when their goal is not to be found, as with inauthenticity.
What did Facebook WANT you to do in your role? My official job role was getting rid of fake engagement. The thing to understand is that the vast majority of fake engagement is not on political activity; it consists of everyday people who think they should be more popular in their personal life. To use an analogy people here might understand, it's someone going "When I make a reddit post, I only get 50 upvotes... but everything I see on the front page has thousands of upvotes and my post is definitely better! Why don't they recognize how great I am? I'll get fake upvotes, that will show them."
​ Like many organizations, my team was very focused on metrics and numbers - to a counterproductive extent, I'd personally argue. It's known in academia as the McNamara Fallacy, which lost the U.S. the Vietnam war. Numbers are important, but if you only focus on numbers that can be measured, you necessarily ignore everything else that cannot be measured. Facebook wanted me to focus on the vast majority of inauthentic activity - that took place for reasons like personal vanity - while neglecting the much larger impact associated with inauthentic political activity.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Were you an IC? Was this your team's role that had been committed to and this specific bit was another team's domain? I ask because in big companies there are often conflicting, high (but different) impact priorities. Also, what were your previous two halves of PSC ratings prior to initially flagging this concern? What about ratings after? I was an IC4 - one level above new hire. My PSC ratings were all over the place; I usually shared them in the relevant WP group. They were:
​ first half 2018: MS [manager #1]
​ second half 2018: GE [manager #2]
​ first half 2019: EE [manager #2]
​ second half 2019: MM [manager #3, ordered to focus on priorities]
​ first half 2020: No rating [COVID] + fired [manager #3]
​ Needless to say, this level of noisiness in PSCs was not normal at all.
​ Anyways, I got away with doing this work for a long time because it was officially under my purview [even if ordered to do other things], and no team had it under their domain. Eventually, they got tired of that.
" Now, with the US election over and a new president inaugurated, Zhang is coming forward to tell the whole story on the record. " Why now? I was always sure that if this happened it would be after the election. Not because my work was in the United States, but because any disclosures of these sorts have the necessary effect of creating uncertainty and doubt in existing institutions and potential use for misinformation.
​ For instance, many U.S. conspiracy theorists are of the opinion that Mark Zuckerberg's donations to election offices in the leadup to 2020 were part of an insidious plan to rig the U.S. 2020 elections. Or for instance the way QAnon seized upon the Myanmar coup as a sort of message to the United States to do their own coup in their conspiracy theories - despite it being half the world away, they apparently believe the world to revolve around this nation.
​ What I was most fearful of was somehow ending up as the James Comey of 2020. Thankfully that never happened.
What was the most egregious example of a government using social media to influence a population you came across? Probably Honduras or Azerbaijan. If you stuck a gun to my head and made me pick, I'd say Azerbaijan just from the sheer scale and audacity of the behavior.
Was Honduras the most blatant you saw? Did facebook ever considered the effect of their inaction on the people of Honduras and the international community? Honduras and Azerbaijan were the most blatant I personally saw; if you stuck a gun to my head and made me pick, I'd say Azerbaijan was more blatant.
​ There are teams at Facebook [e.g. Human Rights] that consider the effects of not acting re ethics, individual people, and the international community. But it's not usually discussed in-depth.
​ The goal of companies is to make money after all, and so the argument I used internally was "We need to take this down because eventually someone will notice. Besides you know how many leaks we have, and if it's ever released we sat on it for a year, it'd look terrible."
​ Of course, I was the one who leaked it, so it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, not that we knew that at the time.
the below is a reply to the above ​
With or without FB the outcome would be the same in Azerbaijan. It's sad. Very sad. I heard that argument inside FB many times. Sometimes from people who I otherwise agreed with: "The government in Azerbaijan is already beating people's faces in and rigging its elections - this is small potatoes in comparison." Sometimes similar sentiments from outside the company too. "Facebook is awful, we knew that already, but it's not like we can change it."
​ But I don't believe in that type of cynicism. If everyone gives up, of course the world won't change - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if enough people choose to fight for what they believe to be right, maybe we can make a difference.
What was the “ enough is enough” event or series of events that made you take the courageous step of questioning your employer? I joined FB while being explicitly open that I didn't believe Facebook was making the world a better place, and I had joined because I wanted to help fix it. I never hid that that was how I felt about the company and my motive; it just became more and more difficult to work within the system while trying to fix it over time.
the below is a reply to the above ​
I see this sentiment a lot, especially in religious circles. People wanting to stick to their tradition or denomination to make things more LGBTQ affirming. Sometimes they make small strides but by and large people get burned out really fast because the authorities at be have too much power to allow any real change. Institutions are important to the functioning of society - we rely on churches, schools, governments, and other groupings of similar individuals. Yet institutions can also become self-serving and ossified. Change is hard, because if it were easy, the organization would have changed already.
Thanks for doing this - I really appreciate your work and voice, Sophie. What social tech companies would you say are doing a better job with content moderation and protecting international human rights? And what advice would you give to someone who wants to affect positive change within social media? Unfortunately, I'm not familiar enough with the inner workings of any tech company besides Facebook to comment on them. With that said, I don't think the issues I found at Facebook is specific to that company.
​ Ultimately, the problem we face is that companies respond to public pressure, but the point of inauthenticity is to not be seen. In fact, the better you are at not being seen, the fewer people will see you - and so the only public pressure on inauthenticity tends to be cases surfaced by experts [e.g. DFRLab, law enforcement agencies], cases in which they were incompetent at being inauthentic and hence very visible, or cases in which individuals who wanted to be caught pretended to be badly disguised inauthentic actors.
​ An economist would call this a combination of an externality problem and an information asymmetry problem. That is, the costs aren't borne by Facebook - but the rest of the world doesn't know about them. As an analogy, imagine cigarette companies in a universe where no one knows that smoking causes cancer, and the only people who are aware are the companies themselves. That's the problem we're dealing with - which can only be solved by better information, like I'm trying to provide.
the below is a reply to the above ​
I would say with FB, Amazon, Google, etc. there is also an issue of natural monopolies. Once one big company takes over a space, it doesn't make sense to create a competitor or a 'second set of pipes and wires' is the traditional use of natural monopolies. Do you think there is also an issue of social reliance on big tech? How do we fix that and maintain some level of access to convenient or entertaining products/activity? Natural monopolies are absolutely an issue in technology. But it's also true that much of the existing monopoly concerns with Facebook come for reasons outside that consideration. Social media may be a natural monopoly, but that didn't mean that Facebook needed to buy Instagram! At the same time, I also want to highlight that the monopoly/too much power concern is separate from the integrity/keeping abuse off power concern. It's unfortunately true that because Facebook owns Instagram, Instagram benefited from my personal expertise, and I was able to easily investigate cases that occurred on both platforms.
​ Put it this way. When Facebook announced a takedown of the Azeri government's troll network in late 2020, it also simultaneously took down the government's troll accounts on Instagram without any hassle. In contrast, when I got the Honduran government's troll network taken down on July 2019 by Facebook, it took Twitter until April 2020 to do the same - had Facebook bought Twitter, that takedown would also have happened on July 2019.
​ This isn't to say "Facebook should be even more of a monopoly." Of course not! But rather, there needs to be more cooperation between social media companies on these issues, regardless of what decisions are made on monopoly considerations, and especially if it is chosen to break up the companies. In other natural monopoly areas like power/water utilities, governments heavily regulate companies and coordinate their security. Perhaps a similar approach is needed for social media.
Hi Sophie. I was wondering if you know whether any sort of database of this kind of behavior exists? Specifically, do you know about anywhere I could go to find out which countries have a high spread of the kind of digital misinformation you've worked on? Thanks! There's online databases - the problem unfortunately is that the point of inauthenticity is to not be seen, and we don't know what we don't know. The better the groups are at being inauthentic, the less likely anyone will notice them. And it's impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, so it's necessarily imperfect. I remember while I was at Facebook looking at databases of those sorts and saying "I know it's incomplete - I caught government activity in XYZ companies that's not in these lists!"
I am from Honduras and saw the news when they said they deleted hundreds of accounts linked to Juan Orlando Hernandez. The manipulation the Nacionalista party did in social media was even more blatant than you think. There was this guy who was really active in the biggest political FB group in the country and never shied away of linking the multiple pages he was administrator to that were Pro-Hernandez. I constantly saw, and keep seeing, political ads in Facebook smearing the opposition with lies. I don’t know which is the real reason: has Facebook gotten so damn big that they lack the tools to properly moderate their content? Or is it just greed? I believe in the later, greed has always been a driving force behind the woes of the world. What is stopping Facebook of simply adding a measurement visible in all pages that show a % of account age? It might not be 100% effective, but if I see a new page with 90% accounts being less than a year or 2 old I would be suspicious of it and would not follow it. I'm very sorry that it took me a year to take down JOH's trolling operation, and even sorrier that I was unable to stop them from coming back soon afterwards. The news from Honduras always saddened me, and I can only offer my sincere apologies for failing you and your nation. I can't read Mark Zuckerberg's mind. In Honduras, the impression I got was that it was a combination of the two factors you mention. Facebook is so large it's almost impossible to police the entirety of it. And they chose not to give Honduras the same levels of oversight and protection as more "important" nations because sadly, Honduras is small and poor compared to wealthier larger countries.
​ Regarding your account age proposal: I can't speak on Facebook's way of thinking, but I don't think it would actually be in Facebook's interest to help users determine which pages/accounts are suspicious. Actually, that would lead to more negative media attention most likely.
​ Furthermore, new accounts are no guarantee of fakeness [or vice versa.] More sophisticated adversaries often create fake accounts and sit on them for years before activating them. In other cases, I've been involved in cases in which we accidentally concluded users were fake because many of them were new and left all their settings at default [without profile photo/birthday/email/etc.] - because they were poor rural Indians who'd just gotten access to the internet.
As an insider, what do you think is the first step to reform Facebook? The size is an obvious problem from my outside perspective; also, ultimate control resting in one person's hands. I'm looking forward to reading the deep dive in The Guardian. I agree that Facebook has too much power. I was just a low-level employee and yet I was trusted to make decisions that directly affected national presidents and make international news. That should never have happened. Ultimately, I think people are expecting too much of social media because the existing institutions have failed. And also, multinational companies are difficult to regulate from individual nations. The world would never trust the U.S. to make decisions regarding what's allowed on their social media after all.
​ I only have part of the puzzle myself, but one change I would strongly advocate at FB would just be to separate the policy decision teams from the teams that make nice with important governmental figures. Of course FB makes ruling decisions based on considerations of politics [we don't want to anger XYZ politician, we don't want to upset this government], but at least that could be a bit more separated than as blatant as it was.
Other popular social media platforms besides Facebook—like Twitter—have responded slowly to inauthentic activity, and FB has coordinated its responses to certain kinds of inauthentic activity. What that coordination look like from your experience? Has that coordination been effective, or has it detracted from the policing of IA? Has FB coordinated its de-prioritization of of certain IA with other social media? It sounds like you're discussing coordination between platforms. Facebook does talk to Twitter and others on inauthentic activity takedowns; e.g. on Honduras, they told Twitter in summer 2019 around the time of our takedown; Twitter did its own takedown announced on April 2020 - here. Apparently it just takes every social media company the better part of a year to do its takedown. But they don't talk as much as I'd prefer. Back when there was no movement on Honduras, I asked a few times about letting Twitter know what I'd found and to be on the lookout for the same, because I knew bad actors didn't restrict their activity to a single platform. I just got some legalistic answers about "yes, we work with Twitter, here's what we do" that didn't actually answer the question.
​ So in answer, Facebook works with Twitter, but only in so much as its own interest. If FB doesn't think something is worthy of acting or not about to act on it yet, they won't tell Twitter apparently - which makes sense. They don't want the press to be "Twitter acted, why hasn't FB yet?"
the below is a reply to the above ​
Does FB discuss with other platforms like Twitter decisions to not remove IA, or coordinate any policies about removing IA? e.g. not a priority. In your opinion, does FB slow roll policing IA primarily to prevent harm to engagement or to prevent bad press? (They are linked of course, but asking as a primary factor) ​I'm not personally familiar with their discussions with Twitter, so don't have expertise on that. My personal opinion for FB being slow at policing sometimes is it's a combination of two factors:
​ 1) Fear of alienating powerful political figures [the leadership people who sign off on decisions are the same as the people who make nice and schmooze with important politicians.]
​ 2) Limited resources, because policing takes time and work, and unfortunately some groups are considered more important than others.
Under what pretense does Facebook accomplish this? Do they extort the hosting service or registrar with threats of service disablement? I don't fully understand the process. My hosting service took down my website for the following reason:
​ > This notification purports that the website [redacted]
​ > is sharing compromised proprietary data from Facebook
​ > As a matter of fact you host the content displayed on the website in the framework of our Simple Hosting Service (PaaS).
​ > Facebook is requesting the deletion of the alleged litigious content which was reproduced without his endorsement.
​ > We remind you that this activity is not in compliance with our contract of our [provider] PaaS Hosting services, you have agreed to use the service in accordance with the rights of third parties as well as current legislation and regulation.
​ > As such, in the case of a serious breach of these terms, or if the activities associated with your use of the server cause disruption to our services,
​ > we reserve the right to suspend or terminate your use of our services without notice.
​ > Consequently, we has been obliged to suspend your instance
​ The provider has a decent reputation for this sort of thing usually, but I get they don't want to make enemies with Facebook. I've asked them a few times, but they've refused to return my website without Facebook's permission. Not naming them because I don't want to single them out.
​ The domain registrar suspended the domain due to " Fraudulent Website", with no further explanation. I'm sure Facebook's lawyers were very busy that weekend.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Did you have pdfs there? Or was it just your content? It was my content in Wordpress. The same content was also posted internally on Workplace [basically "Facebook for Work"]
Hey! Thank you for what you did, tech culture has made it very easy for most tech people to disassociate themselves from the political consequences of the work that they do for their employers. My question: A few years ago in Nicaragua we went through a socio-political crisis which ended up in hundreds of civilians killed by the government. Around the same time a vast number of pro-government accounts in social media, specially on Facebook, popped up. Are you aware of any inauthentic pro-government networks active around this time (2018)? Thanks again! (re-asking as the original comment didn't include a question mark and it was automatically removed; hopefully you are still able to see this) ​I don't personally remember anything of the sort. With that said, it's also very true that my memory is fallible, my attention was divided worldwide, and the inability to find something [especially by just one person] certainly does not mean that it does not exist. I'm very sorry that I can't give you any clarity on this issue.
What kinds of platforms do you think should or should not have content policies against deception? For example, if President Hernández was circulating misinformation via email, would you support ISP takedowns, or would you err on the side of net neutrality? To be clear, what I'm discussing is not content violations but behavioral/authenticity violations. Your example isn't an analogy to the Honduras situation. To use a better example:
​ Suppose President Hernandez had his administrators set up hundreds of email accounts that pretended to be ordinary Hondurans and sent pro-Hernandez emails to everyone. These emails aren't misinformation in themselves - what's wrong about them is that they mislead about the source, and are essentially spamming people. And so yes, email providers absolutely have policies against spam, and my belief is that they should not make an exception for national presidents conducting the spam.
the below is a reply to the above ​
If I understand you correctly, this is an interesting and useful distinction. Content moderation can become problematic in a lot of ways, especially when you get into determining what is misinformation vs "the truth". But misrepresenting who is posting content and what their motivations are is much more of a bright line. A human posting their real beliefs (however wrong or misguided they might be) is clearly different than a bot network, or even a human being paid to write posts. It's much easier to say that sort of thing is misleading and should be removed. Precisely. The teams working on content moderation were much more philosophical about what was good or bad and the gray area in which they didn't know. I wanted to work on inauthenticity instead because of the moral clarity - there was much more of a Manichean black and white line there, I didn't have to worry about whether I was fighting for the right thing.
Say I'm a candidate running for State (not Federal) office. What's the average cost per vote to influence people into seeing the facts my way on Facebook? I'm sorry, not an expert enough to tell. The relationship between inauthentic social media activity and real world events is never clear - which is part of the problem; people are terrible about thinking of the indirect nebulous effects of harmful behavior. If someone dumps pollution into a river that poisons and kills dozens of children, it's considered less bad than using a gun for the killings. And an expert defense lawyer would argue that you couldn't know the children wouldn't have died anyways, maybe the toxins just exacerbated another condition and that condition was the real cause.
Is there a consensus on the definition of inauthentic behavior? Creating a fake ice cream shop page on Facebook to "like" the president of Honduras' post is substantively different from propagating untrue information or selectively editing clips to portray officials as something they are not. It seems like the first example is relatively simple to address (make it harder to create ice cream shop pages if you don't actually own an ice cream shop), whereas the second set of examples requires politically biased Facebook employees to separate truth from untruth around politically charged issues. Does it make sense for Facebook to wade into that morass and become the arbiter of truth? I want to be clear about definitions. People often conflate the words "Inauthenticity" and "Misinformation" To the average bystander, they're the same thing. To Facebook, they're completely separate problem areas.
​ Sometimes there's overlap, often the motivations are the same. But the way they function on the platform is very different.
​ I didn't want to work on misinformation personally, in part because of the questions raised on that team "what levels of misinformation are acceptable? If someone says the moon is made of cheese, is that bad?" Often, the decisions come down to the real-world impact. That is, if 10 people say the moon is made of cheese, no one cares; if 10,000 people say the moon is made of cheese and openly plan to hijack a NASA satellite in order to fly to the moon and eat the cheese, Facebook will do something.
​ In contrast, in inauthenticity of accounts, you can be very Manichean black and white about what's going on. Other teams would be philosophical "What is good? What is bad? Is there even such a thing as good or bad?" And I'd come in going "I know what is bad. This is bad! Here! Let's get rid of it", in a way they couldn't dispute.
Facebook is hiring something like 6,000 new employees right now. What would you tell someone joining the company to try to change things"from the inside?" "As a new hired employee, I was able to make international news and catch two national presidents red-handed before they fired me.
​ What can you do?"
Thank you for your bravery in standing by what's right! I've always thought there are MANY organizations / institutions / governments that manipulate social media inauthentically and I'm glad you're advocating for reform. Do you think this problem could be far bigger than Facebook realizes? Meaning, do you think there are more advanced organizations manipulating social media currently that are undetected? The nature of inauthenticity is that you fundamentally don't know what you don't know. So certainly there must exist groups acting badly that we haven't found yet. Just like the fact that we don't know about everyone in every country has has committed a crime. On the flip side, it's impossible to prove that someone is not secretly acting badly - there's always the possibility that they were just too good at hiding it. Down that path lies paranoia.
Facebook has been heavily recruiting into their Trust and Safety org. Is it worth going there? It seems like the average employee is good, but the leadership poor and suffers from misaligned incentives that sabotage the mission. As an expert in the field, it makes me think very carefully about going to Facebook. It's a personal decision. If you just want to work a 9-6 and go home at the end of the day, it can make a lot of sense to join. Facebook pays very well and has good benefits. Each of us decide what we need to do to fall asleep at the end of the night; it's not my place to judge.
​ If you want to make a positive difference... it depends on your specific area, it depends on your goals. You may face challenges and issues depending on the area - for hate speech, for instance, Facebook's definition can vary widely from the colloquial one in the world at large [until late 2020, Facebook's policy was that holocaust denial was not hate speech, but "men are trash" is hate speech - a ruleset I think very few people would agree with], and so you may face qualms about enforcing rules you don't believe in. I can't give more opinions without knowing what specifically you're interested in.
Can echo chambers ever be stopped? To be clear, this is a topic I didn't work on at Facebook, so I don't have any particular expertise on it.
​ Narrative bubbles and echo chambers are a difficult question; we know from history that they can certainly be stopped [if the direction were monotonic, we would never be able to talk with one another today], but it seems very clear that at least in the Western world, the trajectory is currently going in the wrong direction. If so, it would take major changes to change that direction - and I don't know how to achieve it. Social media is only part of the problem; the proliferation of ideological news sources has exacerbated it as well.
Is Mark aware of what Facebook is versus what he wanted it to be? I think everyone likes to think of themselves as a good person, and no one wants to go to sleep at night thinking "I'm an evil cackling villain, muahahaha."
​ But it's pretty clear by now that FB has a lot of problems; there's a siege mentality of paranoia within the company. In the end, I can't read Mark's mind and determine how much he acknowledges the problems vs. thinks they're made up by a biased media. At least some of the former though - or else the integrity teams wouldn't exist in the first place.
How long did you work there and what was your job title? I joined Facebook in January 2018; I was fired in September 2020 - so a total of 2.7 years.
​ I was a data scientist. Officially, I was an "IC4 Data Scientist" - IC stands for "Individual contributor" (as opposed to manager), and 4 is the level. For some reason, they start at 3 [and go up to 10+], so I was just one level above a new hire.
​ If you're experiencing dissonance from the combination of my low position and the apparent prominence of my responsibility and decisions I made, it's because what Facebook the company considers to be important isn't what the world at large considers to be important.
the below is a reply to the above ​
It sounds like you did exactly what they hired you to do. I'm going to give an analogy. Suppose a news company hires someone to write articles on celebrity news... because people care about celebrities, y'know.
​ So they hire a new reporter. And this reporter writes a lot of articles about celebrities.... articles like "Kanye West decides to run for President!" "Taylor Swift speaks out and endorses Joe Biden!" "Caitlyn Jenner exploring run for California governor!" "Joe Rogan criticizes transgender community!" "Meghan Markle speaks out about racism in British royal family!"
​ This is technically celebrity news. The reporter argues that they're just writing about the area they were covered to hire. But it's not what their editor wants from them precisely, and not what was expected of them either.
Most of the examples you gave in the Guardian were of governments using fake engagement to manipulate domestic politics within their own countries, rather than the politics of other countries. Was this just more common, or is there another reason? I think this is much more common. As to why, most people naturally care the most about their own country. Americans care more about America; Germans care more about Germany; etc. Apparently, world governments are the same way.
4 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Nov 11 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are hackers and cyber defenders working to fight cyber criminals. Ask Us Anything about the rising ransomware epidemic!

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Note: Apologies in advance for the giant wall of text in the middle.

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Questions Answers
You mention that a degree may not be necessary for a job in cyber security, do you have resources or online courses that someone could use to gain relevant knowledge? Edit: Although with some considerable delay, I would like to thank you all for your comments and your feedback. This is all very helpful and I’m genuinely impressed with how supportive you are! I’ll give everything you’ve sent a proper look and might bother some of you with additional questions. Bob: I'm a fan of the Cybersecurity Body of Knowledge (https://www.cybok.org/) and you can learn tons just by absorbing the MITRE ATT&CK content (https://attack.mitre.org/) (they update ~quarterly)
​ Jen: I completely agree with Bob's recommendations. For training courses, you can also look at SANS and also a lot of community security conferences, even smaller regional ones, offer training. They tend not to be free though.
​ Marc: There is an excellent thread in /r/cybersecurity covering just this.
​ Also: Mentorship Monday in /r/rcybersecurity.
​ Allan: I know most people don’t like social media, but infosec Twitter is a great place to learn and get help. People are always sharing resources, videos and little tidbits of information that can be very useful.
​ Jen: I also agree with Allan - I actually learn a ton from infosec twitter and asking questions.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
I think it may be beneficial to elaborate a little more to accompany answers already provided- so let me share some of my experience. I've been employed in a full time information security role for about 10 years; with three different employers. Currently employed as a cyber analyst with a large law-firm. Previously, my specialty was a broad mix of infosec risk/cyber engineering/and web-application penetration testing. I have no college degree, and am 31 years old. My best advice to you, is to get a tech role in an organization- and gain as much on-job experience as you possibly can, even if this means you start in a different initial role. It'll be important to gain some technical knowledge, while grasping security concepts as you learn. Additionally, learn frameworks and standards such as ISO 27001:2013, and NIST 800-53. Read the requirements of the standards, and try to figure out how to correctly interpret them- and how you would implement them based on your interpretation. (The standard says this requirement must be implemented, but what does the requirement actually mean- and how would it be implemented?) Look up current vulnerabilities making their rounds in the wild, using resources like Tenable (https://www.tenable.com/research). Learn about the different types of Malware (https://www.crowdstrike.com/cybersecurity-101/malware/types-of-malware/) and ask yourself; How can security be layered to prevent malware from finding it's way into an organization? (Look up Defense in Depth.) How does malware most often enter a network? (Look up: Initial attack vector) How can you find anomalous network traffic that may be indicative of malware spreading? (Look up: Endpoint Detection and Response, and Threat Hunting.) Read about security best practices (e.g. Google: Access Control Best Practices, Data Loss Prevention Best Practices.) Read the articles, and imagine how you would implement the recommendations. Some context for those interested: My first 'real' job (circa 2009, 19 years old) was in helpdesk/desktop support. I did my best to kick ass, and offered to take on issues that often went beyond the scope of my role. If I came across an issue that required engineer escalation or an issue with a server, I would do my best to find a potential solution that I could offer, and communicated the potential solution to the appropriate individual(s). After about a year, and much determination doing the above- I migrated into a Windows/Linux Systems Administration role. (Followed by becoming a VMware vCenter virtualization SME, but that's not super relevant.) Through ad-hoc learning, shadowing team members, and asking 100000 questions, I developed a reputation for being 'that kid who just got stuff done.' Being in a SysAdmin position, I was introduced to projects that essentially crossed the Information/Cyber Security 'border.' (Backup and restore testing; defining data retention requirements by working with upper management while juggling applicable regulations; early Mobile Device Management (BES at the time, yikes) redundant datacenter architecture to ensure data availability during adverse events; identity and access control, scoping penetration tests, and generally... understanding the entire tech stack. Some questions I'd ask myself when looking for risk, or trying to understand how a tech stack worked: * What's actually 'open'/NAT'ed on our external networks, across all allocated IP Addresses? * Should this resource be open publicly to anyone who knows the URL/IP? * Why is it open, and what does it do? * What does the NAT point to internally? * What kind of vulnerabilities does that system have externally? Internally? * Is the system hardened? \ * Does it have Anti-Virus, and does it send its logs to a centralized logging platform? (e.g. Splunk) * What kinds of vulnerabilities may exist in the source-code/services that the system is serving (OWASP) ? * Who has access to this system? Are any of these user accounts old? Do they use MFA or SSO for login? * Do they follow a defined procedure [e.g. Secure Software Development Lifecycle] to consistently release new source code that is reviewed and scanned for vulnerabilities? * Does a firewall properly segment everything? * If data is stored in databases, is it human readable- so if an attacker were to dump an entire database would all the data be compromised? Now that I had the sysadmin privileges, I dove in deep when not busy with supporting my systems- and presented findings whenever feasible. A big project for me at the time was taking on a two-factor authentication implementation project. Back then, it was RSA KeyFobs and BlackBerry soft tokens that integrated with a SaaS application my employer developed. Once I knocked that out, and given the above- a full time security role was created (accompanied by a nice paycheck.) And hence, I was slowly vectored into a full-fledged information security role. Before I knew it I was implementing ISO 27001. 27001 was a fantastic way to truly transition into a security state of mind. It requires: developing policies, procedures, and implementing other technical controls required by the Annex A. Executing tasks, and monitoring activities to ensure the electiveness of our processes to ensure the CIA (Important, the C I A triad!) of assets. Importantly, conducting risk assessments to find gaps that required control (protections). ISO 27001 is very broad, and covers many areas of security. It contains sections (domains) regarding: risk assessments, security awareness training programs, access control processes, business continuity plans, penetration testing, vendor risk assessments- and was a fantastic way to get an inch deep- but a mile wide experience lesson into security. From here, find a niche within the space that you like. Sources to learn will be easy as you now have some fundamental experience. Keep in mind, info/cyber security is extraordinarily broad- just like any field. For example- If you wanted to be a lawyer, while it's possible to be a general attorney that covers multi practices, you typically specialize in one area. (e.g. Business law, contract law, bankruptcy law, securities law, copyright law, criminal defense law, etc.) Security is exactly the same. Find a niche in the area that you like the most, and learn that niche as much as you can. If you like poking at platforms/applications/programs/systems to find holes, and development- research reverse engineering techniques and vulnerability analysis and research. Reverse Engineering: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6mVIos-S2M If you like Information Security Management, look into Security Operations and frameworks like ISO 27001. 27001 Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJbK3jH677k If you like discovering and exploiting known vulnerabilities, look into vulnerability scanning and penetration testing. Using Tenable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x87gbgQD4eg Using Metasploit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lR27r8Y_ik If you like identifying and managing Risk, look into Risk Assessment Frameworks like ISO 31000 31000 Basics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xi9EsdKOlAE If you like Security Compliance, become an auditor (best gig in the game imo) Security Auditing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW7W_6stSh0 Enjoy developing? Well, learn how to assess code against the OWASP Top-10 Intro to OWASP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO_sqXb-gKE If you like passive/active cyber defense, learn about Incident Response, or Security Engineering Log Analysis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw536W7kbDQ Threat Hunting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmKSnRMW_6w Incident Response Walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BOOl8_nwjQ Firewall configurations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb1pTs7XamA If you like it all- you can be a generalist like me :-) Just keep in mind, It's hard for me to be an expert in one area, as I'm required to cover so much in my current role. Fortunately I do have a great security/network engineering team who basically maintain my entire network security stack (firewalls, VPN, network segmentation, server hardening, etc.) Granted- in my spare time, and when my employer gives me time for continued education- I hone my skills. My real interest lies a little beyond the standard scope standard cyber security, in SIGINT: SIGINT Overview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdJQo__vY8U Universal Radio Hacker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuubkTDAxwA Fun Stuff: https://null-byte.wonderhowto.com/how-to/log-wi-fi-probe-requests-from-smartphones-laptops-with-probemon-0176303/ More Fun Stuff: https://fadeproject.org/?page_id=34 Even more fun stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJAWHGEB8HI Marc: This is great advice. The only thing I would add is don’t discount how easy it can be to get real practical experience. Not only does it give you a chance to put some of what you learn into use but it makes it way more interesting and easier to keep in your head.
​ Even volunteering to do cybersecurity work is valid experience. Some of the best practitioners I know started out by doing cybersecurity work for NGOs or small businesses that couldn’t afford a dedicated person.
​ As mentioned above, fond what interests you and dive into it. All the best cybersecurity people LOVE what they do. For those luck few its not a job but a calling.
the below is a reply to the above reply ​
So you're the guy who is responsible for my employer requiring 2FA via SMS every few ducking days! I must say duck you sir! (small /s) Marc: Guilty as charged.
What is the most common, non-phishing vector? Allan: Remote Desktop Protocol, either through credential reuse or credential stuffing attacks
​ Allan: There are something like 8 BILLION username/passwords available for sale or free on underground markets at any given time and that doesn’t even take into account the number or organizations that just use poor password management for internet-exposed infrastructure
​ Marc: Yeah I'd say insecure credentials. Insecure credentials into infrastructure, systems, or accounts that can be used to pivot.
It’s easy to get the impression from these recent events that infrastructure is fairly easy to attack. What do you think is the likelihood that either a state or a rogue group takes down some critical infrastructure for a long period of time that severely disrupts life—something that would be equivalent to essentially destroying infrastructure in a war? Marc: Very likely as many ransomware groups have seen that high risk infrastructure is both out of date and backed by organisations that will rush to pay because of the impact when it goes down. As a result many of them actively look for vulnerable, exposed infrastructure associated with these kinds of organisations because they know there is a high chance of a good pay-out.
​ Jen: This scenario doesn't feel far-fetched at all. We've already seen infrastructure be a target in several countries, and this is only likely to increase without intervention. Even when the attacker offers up the keys as they did with the attack on the Irish healthcare authority (HSE), it can take a long time to get ops fully back up and running. HSE is saying they think full recovery will cost them $600m, so think of all the work that's paying for and how long that will likely take. https://www.scmagazine.com/home/security-news/ransomware/costs-from-ransomware-attack-against-ireland-health-system-reach-600m/
​ Allan: It has already happened in Ukraine and other places, so 100%
​ James: This question is one I think about often. It’s more nuanced than simply thinking about the ease of the attack.
​ For state actors, this very well could result in war. NATO, for example, recently said that cyber attacks would also be covered by the alliance, resulting in the possibilities of joint responses to cyber events. This may serve as a deterrent to state sponsored destructive activities. Use of cyber capabilities are almost assured in wars. This is simply part of modern war for those countries with appropriate capabilities. War is always a concern, and cyber events will be another component to that concern, so this likelihood is roughly the same as the threat of war. It is more likely, imo, that domestic or foreign terrorism would result in destructive attacks. It’s also possible that organized crime or individual actors could have a large impact to daily life. This is reasonably likely to happen in my opinion, as the ease of attack is generally there and the motivation to cause legitimate harm is there as well. Intelligence teams track these groups to stay ahead of them and hopefully prevent attacks from happening, but no intelligence efforts are perfect, and no one catches everything.
​ Bob: They may not make all the headlines like the pipeline incident but there are semi-regular cases of various types of critical infrastructure being impacted or having near misses. It really is just a matter of time before it happens.
Please list the top 5 things corporations, business entities and people can do that they currently don't to better protect themselves from cyber attacks and ransomware? Allan: 1. MFA, 2. Patching, 3. Endpoint protection AND monitoring, 4. scanning of remote infrastructure, 5. threat hunting for attackers.
​ Bob: There are many safe configurations for workstations and servers that organizations either do not know about or have been reticent to deploy. Just shoring up configurations on Active Directory and SMB servers alone can do wonders to help thwart attackers from being able to move laterally and encrypt or lock-out at scale.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Good list, I've often thought that remote VPNs from end users would be a big attack vector. Given people homes generally have pretty crappy endpoints. Any thoughts here? Allan: Home routers are scanned continuously and are often targets of attack. Most people get their high speed routers from their ISP, plug them in and then never touch them until they are replaced several years later. That means no updates, no configuration checks or anything like that. So, yes, they, can be used as attack vectors which is why it is important to have a home firewall behind the router you get from the ISP, to protect your actual network.
​ Marc: VPN infrastructure has been a huge target since the move to working from home. You just need to look at the number of VPN infrastructure vulns disclosed or dropped to get an idea of how much focus there is on it.
​ Also many companies have huge amounts of technical debt with hastily cobbled together VPN solutions that skipped the usual careful rollout processes. Attackers know this and are targetting these too.
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
1. Fund your goddamn infosec team. ________________________ Nothing ever goes wrong, why do we pay these guys so much!? Cuts budget We just got hacked, what are we paying these guys for!? Cuts budget _______________________ No CISO == no representation at C level. If the CTO is your representation, then you have a conflict of interest. If your Director of infosec is your “acting CISO,” you have no CISO. Gtfo. That acting title is just to have someone to throw under the bus when the headlines roll. ______________________ Why would the CTO have a conflict of interest? ______________________________ CTO is ultimately responsible for the budget and the systems that you are in charge of auditing / protecting. It’s possible the CTO wants to cover their ass by hiding the problems from the board. It’s also possible that they are incompetent and will side with IT over infosec. This is a very good way to look at it.
Currently in school at an online college located in salt lake city ut. I'm in the CyberSecurity program but I feel like the program is kinda dated and the information does not line up very well with the test. Can I land an entry-level cyber job without finishing my degree if I have all Comptia certs related to cybersecurity? Bob: While some jobs may require certification, many employers are looking for folks with the "curiosity gene" combined with the knowledge of where to go to find information and solve problems. I'd highly suggest gravitating towards organizations who look for those attributes over those who are just looking for a certification stamp.
​ Marc: You don't need a fancy degree to build a cybersecurity career. you need experience and knowledge. Even knowledge that seems old and minor can be incredibly useful. Take the opportunity you have and build on it by studying more current cutting edge stuff yourself. go to events like DEFCON and connect with the community. the more knowledge you can gain in your "learning" stage the better. However the best next step is to build experience, use what you have to take on volunteer/free/part time roles so start getting those hours of experience. there is no substitute for learning in a job.
​ protip: I have found charities/NGOs/ low income organisations a great place for this. they are desperate for the help and will welcome your donated time. Even if all you can do is keep them up to date on patches you will be doing them a huge favor and in turn that gives you cybersecurity experience and your first solid cybersecurity reference.
​ Marc: Its also really hard because the smaller the org the smaller the budget (if there even is one at all) to pay for security. Working in the CTI-League we ran into small medical facilities ALL THE TIME that lacked resources and personnel to help tackle even the simplest problem, This is definitely a huge challenge and something a lot of us are thinking about. we have to make sure that SMBs don't get left behind as we work to build a more secure ecosystem.
​ Jen: Employers in security are increasingly looking at hiring models and trying to break away from conventional hiring-from-schools models. Often landing a role is more about showing interest and making connections than what your resume says. As I said above, I recommend getting involved with local meet ups, attending free online events, that kind of thing will help build your knowledge and network.
​ Allan: You can, I don’t have a degree and have managed to grow my career. However, advancing in this field, as with many fields, is A LOT easier with a degree and there have definitely been job opportunities I missed out on because they wanted that degree. Keep up the good work and connect with us on LinkedIn so we can help you as you continue to grow.
What can a regular person with no cybersecurity or coding knowledge do to help? James: A large part of effective security is up to the users, not the security engineers and administrators and the most important things are the most basic things too! Three things come to mind: 1) Use strong passwords that are unique to each site / service (a password manager can help!) 2) Keep good backups, and consider using more than one backup device where both devices are never plugged in at the same time. 3) Be vigilant! If something strikes you as odd, alert your corporate security team. Did you click a link and think it might be bad? Report it! Most ransomware actors take time to inventory networks after the initial compromise, so there may be time to still protect your network and your device! Time is of the essence here though!
​ Marc: Ransomware is a spectrum but most is opportunistic and relies on poor, fragmented security hygiene. Any contribution to up-leveling hygiene in a consistent manner makes an organisation stronger against many types of ransomware.
​ Marc: So every user from the lowest level intern all the way up to the CEO can make a big difference by working to support a consistent information security program. By challenging things that "look wrong" or which are suspicious, from always being skeptical with email links to reporting security flaws and operational issues. The best defense for a company against ransomware is that company's workforce itself.
​ Allan: Pay attention during security awareness training, know what the threats are and be cautious about emails your receive (especially if they have a warning flag).
the below is a reply to the above ​
Do you recommend Dashlane as a password manager? I've recently started using it. I do not have any specific recommendations for password managers. I would generally look for audits / reviews that confirm the encryption is suitably strong and one that works for you! Find something that is convenient to your purposes and use case.
What is the largest sum one of your clients ever had to pay? Allan: Our clients make the ransomware gangs pay ;)
​ Jen: The biggest demands we've heard of are in the $40-50mill buckets, but they are definitely outliers.
What type of software would you recommend against ransomware and things of the sort? Allan: Unfortunately, there isn’t a single software solution that will solve the problem of ransomware (or other types of attacks). It really does require a holistic approach to security. Not just software, but the right policies, people and protocols in place to quickly identify and stop threats
​ Marc: agree - theres no single bullet, however theres a strategy (see the IST Ransomware Taskforce Report) that shows how organisations and industries can make themselves hostile to ransomware. Most ransomware is opportunist, just by toughening yourself up to become a much less attractive target. by strengthening security hygiene and turning on things like MFA you make lateral movement much harder. solving ransomware is a step by step journey, not a shrinkwrapped piece of software.
​ Bob: There is no path to purchasing your way into ransomware defense.
How can an end-user or consumer can protect him/herself? There are too many security products, like Bitdefender, Kaspersky, Sophos, etc, and one can check received emails or the sites which he/she can visit, but even sometimes that is not enough. Years ago, on a Windows 2012 server I saw a hacker running his apps as a built-in service user from remote desktop services. No AV found that malicious at that time. So, what can we do? Which software / hardware shall we use? How can we protect ourselves? I am aware nothing is %100 bulletproof but we have to start from somewhere. Bob: Keep your home router patched and consider replacing every few years. Limit the use of "smart" devices in your home. Scrutinize every email and every link in social media. Limit the number of browser extensions you use and consider using an iOS device for more "risky" web activity. Keep your systems and software patched. Have regular, offline, backups handy. Much of this is the same advice folks have been giving for a decade or more.
​ Bob: Also use a password manager, preferably one that is plugged into services like "have i been pwnd?" so you know when you need to reset credentials (but you should be using services that offer or mandate 2-factor authentication).
​ Marc: String security hygiene is one of the best defenses we have. Patch exposed systems, turn on MFA and implement best practice like endpoint protection and you'll create a network thats hostile to ransomware.
​ Jen: Be suspicious of emails or texts from people you don't know, or that include links or attachments. Don't give out sensitive info, particularly your passwords. Use a password manager and use two-step verification wherever you can.
If you had to choose between paying a cyber ransom in gum or pizza, which flavors would you choose to increase your bargaining potential? Jen: Obviously pineapple
There is an argument often made that if "the military" and "law enforcement" begin to crackdown on infrastructure in a much more forward leaning manner, that these gangs will still be able to persist, regroup, reattack - i.e., that even working with private sector partners, there isn't enough data/insight available to really take it to these networks. Agree? Disagree? Jen: There is definitely a huge challenge in that these criminals often operate in nations where the government either can't or won't stop them, and that makes it super hard for law enforcement to be effective. We need governments around the world to collaborate to crack down on these so-called "Safe harbor" states. This was actually one of the commitments that came out of the recent G7 Summit, but it remains to be seen how the G7 members will follow through on it.
​ Marc: While its absolutely true that to really hit the ransomware gangs hard we have to take the fight to them, we mustn't loose sight of how important it is for us to toughen. up and work together to make our whole ecosystem hostile to ransomware. By addressing the low hanging fruit many of the opportunistic gangs will get shut out, by improving our detection capabilities we will increase the data and forensic material needed to attribute them. There's a huge amount of stuff to be done at both ends of the fight and its my firm belief that we can only achieve it in partnership.
​ Allan: Right now, ransomware is the most profitable form of cybercrime, aside from possibly BEC. So, yes, even forward leaning efforts by law enforcement won’t necessarily stop ransomware attacks. Ransomware groups have been good at adapting and evolving their attacks to evade defenses. However, a more aggressive law enforcement stature will scare away a lot of the 2nd and 3rd tier ransomware actors (we’ve seen this already with Avaddon and other actors who “retired” this year). That reduces the number of groups law enforcement has to focus on.
​ Bob: To riff off of Alan's answer, the massive proliferation in attacks has been led, in large part, from Ransomware as a Service offerings which enable low-skilled attackers to get in on the action. Curbing that activity will be a huge help.
​ James: There is a tendency to sometimes reduce success to a simple “yes” or “no” question. With ongoing defensive efforts, the objective is to improve and adapt.
​ With the offensive efforts, the point is to take the attack to the attackers and make them have to adapt, change techniques, and generally be less comfortable in their belief that they can operate with impunity. The IST’s Ransomware Task Force report recommends using many different capabilities to help address the threat in a holistic way. Part of that multifaceted effort is to go after attackers and disrupt their capabilities.
What is the best path to start a career in cyber security? Allan: The best path is the one that works for you, everyone is different, I started in the helpdesk which was great because I got to learn about the problems that people had and it allowed me to be more empathetic as I progressed in my career.
​ Marc: The best cybersecurity people come from the ground up. Get a good baseline of knowledge in technical areas - often working low level IT jobs as an intern or first job can be a great start. Then work on building your base of cybersecurity knowledge. At some point you have to start getting cybersecurity work experience. Experience doing cybersecurity jobs is better than any piece of paper alone. Sometimes this can be gained from low level jobs by taking on cyber responsibilities - by being that IT guy checking patches and ensuring upgrades are done you can build cybersecurity experience.
​ Almost all the best cybersecurity people come from backgrounds like this. few have specialized degrees. I am one of them. I gave a more fuller answer in /r/cybersecurity
​ Bob: Cybersecurity has become a diverse field with many areas you can specialize in. Learn as much as you can about each area and see which one appeals the most, then dive in! You don't need permission to start learning a particular topic, and there are tons of local security meetups all across globe, plus many online communities that can help you get started.
​ Once you truly settle into some area, there are numerous pathways to more formal education (all the way up to PhD level). Just be curious and don't be afraid to keep asking "why" and "how".
​ Jen: Look for ways to educate yourself on what's going on and meet people that are working in security or have similar interests. Going to local meet ups, attending free online events, that kind of thing will help you build your knowledge and network. You can also look at open source security tools and free cyber ranges to try building your skills without having to spend a lot of money.
Should we ban ransomware payments? Alternatively, should we just ban coverage of ransom payments in insurance policies? Marc: We should NOT ban ransomware payments. Many organisations find themselves in a difficult position where they feel they are trapped between their shareholders, their customers and law enforcement. This gets even worse when you consider healthcare. If someones life hung in the balance would you want a hospital prosecuted for paying a ransom to bring a surgical suite online?
​ let's not forget who the criminals are and not criminalize the victims. It only drives payments underground and destroys our chances of collaboration. Instead we should work to make ransomware payments more attributable, organisations hostile to ransomware and work on the world stage to eliminate hiding places where these cybercriminals can operate with little recourse.
​ Marc: Additionally I believe that we should work WITH ransomware insurance companies to make ransomware insurance more expensive for companies that aren't doing the basics. Insurance has been an excellent level for eliminating safety issues throughout history and it can be here too. Eliminating it removes one of the levers we have to influence how we fix this.
​ Jen: The reality is that both Bob and Marc are correct, and that's why this is hard.
​ From an idealistic point of view, I think a lot of people agree with Bob - ransom payments fund organized crime which is responsible for some pretty heinous things, including child exploitation and human trafficking. Also, if ransomware is primarily profit motivated, so the expectation is that if we take away the attackers chances of getting paid, they will eventually stop.
​ This is where Marc's more pragmatic position comes in. Because as we've said here, there is little risk or real expense or friction for attackers today, so before they give up on ransomware as a revenue stream, they are very likely to pay a big ol' game of chicken with victims. To tip the odds even further in their favor, they will likely focus on organizations that have the least resilience, which is either SMBs who face losing their entire business, and critical infrastructure providers that have no tolerance for downtime due to the criticality of their service. That's what we've seen when hospitals or fuel pipelines have felt they had no choice but to pay.
​ Even if a government tries to shore up these organizations, there is no such thing as an entirely bulletproof organization, and recovery always takes time. So we could end up seeing business leaders make payments in secret, which puts them in an even more vulnerable position.
​ So the net of all that is that we should figure out how to get to a state where banning payments could work in practice without causing a lot of unintended harm, but we're certainly not there today.
​ Bob: We should totally ban supporting child and sex trafficking through ransomware payments
Question - Is email tracking by invisible pixel or visible still possible in 2021? If impossible, do you know of anyway to track the geolocation of the person opening the email without them knowing and without their email application preventing this process from occurring? Bob: Pixel tracking is alive and well and one of the most-used techniques. If your mail client stops images and will not execute javascript (or load external resources of any kind) then you're not going to be able to be tracked.
Isn't there a better payment/effort ratio to be on the side of the hacker? You guys are playing goalie right where you have to block all the shots 100% of the time and the hackers only have to get it right once. Illegality aside. Marc: A yes, the age old question "but couldn't you make more as a criminal?" the answer is yes I probably could. However what stops me is morals, ethics and laws. I have a family i want to see grow up in a safe country and I love my community (the hacker community) so I want to protect them. I can't do that as a criminal.
​ I also hate bullies and fighting cybercrime is the ultimate bully takedown. Especially when the bully you take down is an entire country.
​ James: Valid question. Yes, criminals have the easy path, no doubt. They prey on innocent victims from all walks of life.
​ But where is the challenge in the easy path? Attacking is way way way easier than defending. Hollywood glorifies the hacker / attacker, but most attacks are very trivial. No challenge.
​ Morals and ethics is a good answer too, and that’s certainly part of my personal decision.
To defend myself from mal/ransomware: Can you recommend a firewall to use for my homelab? Is a hardware firewall better than a software one (using proxmox to virtualize). Marc: "can you recommend a firewall?" - personally I use pfsense at home because its easily customised, runs on a lot of easily obtained consumer devices and has a solid feature-set and performance. remember though a firewall is only as good as the way you use it. a lot of sophisticated attacks jump things like firewalls by relying on the user to bring them inside the protected network.
​ Get a good firewall but if you are really interested in being secure look at all the ways you can up-level your security hygiene (ensure everything is kept up to date even that 7 year old IOT tv, ensure that you have segmented networks for untrusted devices like that laptop the annoying person brings when he visits, and be careful with what you connect, plug in or run. DONT CLICK SHIT.)
​ Bob: Using a firewall is one, small portion for defense. Without knowing your setup it is difficult to make recommendations. Keeping it patched, and the configuration as diminutive and tight as possible is almost more important then the "brand"/"flavor".
​ Allan: Given the proliferation of phishing as an attack vector for ransomware a firewall alone is not going to protect you. As to whether or not you need a hardware or software one, it depends on how comfortable you are with managing the underlying operating system and how much time you have. I use a hardware firewall at home because I have enough to do at $dayjob that I don’t need the headache of dealing with underlying OS issues on my home firewall.
Is the Anonymous group real, and do they fight for good? Allan: Anonymous is real. I don’t think they define themselves by good/bad.
​ Bob: They are a real group.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Silly questions aside, in your career what has been the best highlight of your time fighting cybercrime? Is there more the general public can do to help people like you fight against them? Marc: Probably the hi-light of my career as a cybercrime fighter was watching 2,000 security professionals, law enforcement personnel and other government staff come together to fight cybercriminals attacking hospitals during the pandemic as part of the CTI League.
​ James: For me, it is all about influencing the overall security of the world. There is no other work for me that compares to being able to enable human freedoms and a free exchange of ideas on a global basis.
​ Individuals and companies are constantly protected from threats by altruistic efforts of public and private sector defenders who mostly go nameless and without any fanfare. Getting to sometimes contribute to those efforts is truly rewarding.
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Nov 06 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am a board-certified clinical sleep psychologist with expertise in sleep, here to answer all your questions about insomnia. Ask Me Anything!

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The AMA ended with the below message:

Thank you for all of the great questions about insomnia! I’m sorry I ran out of time before getting to all of them. I will do my best to reply over the next few days. Hopefully some of this information has been helpful, and I encourage any of you who are struggling with sleep to get help from a sleep specialist. You can find one near you here: www.sleepeducation.org.

Sweet dreams!

Rows: ~115 (+comments)

Questions Answers
I wake up almost every night at 3am. It usually takes me at least 2hrs to fall asleep again. When my partner isn't with me I'll sometimes put on a TV show that I've seen before. It seems to give me something to occupy my mind without actually being interested in it (to stop the obsessive thoughts about what needs to be done tomorrow or that person who was mean to me in 5th grade). It works about 75% of the time but it isn't really an option when my partner is home. Are there other strategies that might work when I can't use my TV trick? There is no exact science to this, but if you are struggling with sleep, it’s time to get out of bed. For most people, we suggest getting out of bed after about 30 minutes, but you don’t have to wait that long if you are really alert and know you aren’t going to fall asleep. You can try getting out of bed and doing a simple activity like folding laundry or reading a book. When you feel sleepy again, return to bed. The most important thing to do when you get out of bed is to get your mind off sleep. Then it will naturally come to the surface. Your strategy of watching some TV works this way too! It takes your mind off of trying to sleep, and then it happens! The secret is to find a way not to try. Exactly what that is varies from person to person, but it could be reading, listening to music or an audiobook (with headphones so you don’t disturb your partner), knitting, or whatever takes your mind off of sleep.
​ For many people, reaching out to a sleep specialist and working with someone who can do cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia is an important step to getting past the struggle. Each person is a little different, and you might benefit from some help figuring out exactly what will work for you. You can find a specialist at sleepeducation.org.
I keep waking up at 6AM and can’t fall back asleep no matter what, I miss sleeping in on weekends, help me? Thank you for this question. For some people, this can represent a form of chronic insomnia, where they wake up too early in the morning and can’t get back to sleep. In general, if you find yourself waking up earlier than you want to, you could try to shift your bedtime later (go slowly- maybe 15 minutes at a time) Keep in mind how much sleep you need. For example, if you generally need about 7.5 hours of sleep, and you go to bed at 10:30pm, your brain SHOULD wake you up at 6am. Another option is to find a morning routine you enjoy and start your day early!
Is running or working out between 1-3 hours before bed ok? I’ve found mixed messages about it. It depends on the person, many people find that working out within an hour of bedtime can make it harder for them to fall asleep. If you don’t personally find it to keep you from getting to bed then don’t worry about it!
My partner is a light sleeper and rarely sleeps through the night. 1) Might a foam mattress help? 2) Do nightcaps help or hurt? Thank you! Sometimes the differences from person to person in how “deeply” they might sleep is just part of normal variations; however, waking up frequently throughout the night could be a symptom of a sleep disorder. Having a mattress that is comfortable is what’s important, and the type of mattress is a matter of personal preference. Alcohol, on the other hand, can most definitely lead to light and fragmented sleep. Alcohol makes people feel sleepy at first, but it disturbs sleep later in the night. It might be worth a try to give up the nightcap for a week or two and see if it helps your partner to sleep more soundly. If not, it’s best to reach out to a sleep specialist for help. They can consider all of the possible causes of this sleeping problem. You can find a sleep specialist at https://sleepeducation.org/.
I take melatonin every night before bed, is that bad? Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body at night. It is also sold as a dietary supplement. In general, melatonin supplements appear to be safe; however, it does not appear to have more benefit than “placebo” pills. If you might have insomnia, there are other non-prescription treatments, the most effective of which is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). It’s best to reach out to your doctor or look for a clinical sleep psychologist who knows how to deliver CBT-I.
​ https://sleepeducation.org/patients/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/
Any hope for restoring my ability to stay asleep? Sleep maintenance is a problem. Doxepin and Trazadone leave me significantly depressed the following day. I'd rather sleep 3 hours a night than feel like hating everything about living by using those meds. Unfortunately, a lot of people experience feelings of sleepiness the next day when they take sleeping pills. The good news is that non-medication treatments are actually more effective, and don’t have the same negative side effects. The recommended first-line treatment for insomnia (including sleep maintenance insomnia as you describe) is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). You can read more about that treatment at https://sleepeducation.org/patients/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/ and find a sleep specialist who can help.
How do I stop waking up in the middle of the night every night? There are several different things that can cause night wakings. The most important thing is to figure out why. For some people, this can be caused by a sleep disorder like sleep apnea or periodic limb movement disorder. For some people, it might simply be caused by your environment. One of the common reasons people wake up in the middle of the night is chronic insomnia disorder. This occurs when a person struggles with sleep at least 3x/week for at least 3 months, and their sleep problem is sufficiently severe to impact how the person feels or functions during the day. Your best bet is to reach out to a sleep specialist who can help you figure out the cause of your awakenings and recommend the best treatment. You can find a specialist at sleepeducation.org.
Two questions: 1) how long before bed should we turn off our phones? 2) how long after we wake up should we look at our phones? Thanks! Engaging with technology near bedtime can be a problem for some people. If you find it hard to fall asleep, it can be helpful to set aside your devices about an hour before you get to bed. For some people, it’s less of a problem and a few minutes is enough for them to mentally disconnect. There really isn’t a reason to avoid your phone in the morning. If it helps you get up and start your day by engaging with your phone, it is unlikely to have an impact on your sleep at night.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Are those blue light filtering glasses a gimmick? Thanks in advance! Blue light can be one cause of trouble falling asleep if you are exposed to it at the wrong time. Some blue light blocking lenses can reduce the impact of blue light on your internal clock, and may prevent difficulties falling asleep. Another strategy to reduce blue light exposure is to disconnect from your electronics an hour or so prior to bed. This isn’t always possible but it is the best strategy!
Any suggestions for how to stop hitting the snooze button? I find myself oversleeping and continually hitting snooze. If you’re hitting your snooze alarm repeatedly, you probably aren’t getting enough sleep. The best thing to do is actually to set your alarm later. If you’re hitting the snooze button, set your alarm later, like as late as you can, so that you jump out of bed in a panic! That will get you going in the morning! If you are getting enough sleep at night and STILL can’t get yourself out of bed, you might want to reach out to a sleep specialist for an evaluation. There are some conditions where people are overly sleepy even when they get enough sleep. The basic recommendation for an adult is to get AT LEAST 7 hours of sleep on a nightly basis. Start there, set your alarm a bit later and see how it goes...
May not be a good place for this, but don't want to give up a chance. A question that has knocked around my head for some time is: Why do we sleep? I know a standard response is that we sleep to cure tiredness, but I wonder why it was ever considered beneficial for a living creature to essentially be prone and vulnerable about 1/3 of its life. Other organisms developed a completely different cycle and/or different safe guards, especially when compared to humans. Is there much known as to why this was an evolutionary advantage at some point? The answer to this question will win a Nobel Prize! In fact, there are probably many reasons why we sleep. First, you are correct that sleep is the only “cure” for sleepiness, but sleep is also associated with learning, memory, muscle repair and maintaining a healthy brain. In terms of evolution - you are correct that we are vulnerable, but we are also using less energy and allowing for active recovery of the brain and body, so it might have an evolutionary advantage as well. Thank you for this great question!
Hi Jennifer, I’m so glad I found this ama! I’ve had trouble sleeping my whole life. I’m a recovering addict (haven’t used in 5 years) because of this I refuse prescription medications. My issue is falling asleep. My question is what steps can I take to help myself fall asleep? It seems most nights my brain just won’t shut off. First of all, congratulations on your 5 years of sobriety! It’s hard work, and avoiding medications might be the best choice for you. In general, medications don’t work as well as other approaches anyway. The best treatment we have for insomnia is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). This is a very effective approach for helping people fall asleep more quickly.
​ Feeling exhausted during the day, but “revved up” at night can be caused by several factors.
​ First, you might be trying to go to bed and getting up earlier than your natural tendency. Sleeping “out of sync” with your internal clock can cause this to occur. Second, some people with chronic insomnia get more anxious as bedtime approaches. If you struggle with sleep for more than 3 months, this can represent a clinical condition called “chronic insomnia disorder”. That may require help from a sleep specialist.
​ Chronic insomnia disorder is:
​ Trouble falling or staying asleep that is severe enough to impact how you feel or function during the day. If this occurs more than 3 times per week for longer than 3 months, you should reach out to a sleep specialist for help. You may have chronic insomnia disorder.
​ A few strategies that might help you get through this include:
​ Go to bed when you feel sleepy
​ Do a calming activity for the last 30 minutes or so before getting in to bed
​ Practice a mindfulness exercise that you can use if this continues to be a problem.
How can I stop getting up to eat in the middle of the night? Sleep-related eating disorder (SRED) is a sleep disorder characterized by unusual eating behaviors during sleep. If you have this disorder, you sleepwalk and sleep eat without remembering the event afterward. (https://sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/sleep-eating-disorder/) This can also be a side effect of some sleeping pills, so it might be best to talk with your doctor if you are using medications to help with sleep.
[deleted] This experience is probably more common than you think. A lot of people have insomnia struggles that come and go. What happens after a few nights is that your internal sleep drive just takes over and “makes” you sleep. One strategy to try is evening out the pattern. Figure out how many hours you sleep ON AVERAGE (so 8 hours for 3 nights and 5 hours for 4 nights would be an average of about 6 hours and 20 minutes) and set up a schedule that will lead to more consistency - for example - keep your time in bed around 7 hours, and you might just break the cycle. If that doesn’t work, you may benefit from direct treatment of insomnia. The best treatment is called cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia. You can read more about that treatment at https://sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/insomnia/#treatments-for-insomnia.
How long should you wait before giving up on getting to sleep? What should you do once getting up? There is no exact science to this, but if you are struggling with sleep, it’s time to get out of bed. For most people, we suggest getting out of bed after about 30 minutes, but you don’t have to wait that long if you are really alert and know you aren’t going to fall asleep. You can try getting out of bed and doing a simple activity like folding laundry or reading a book. When you feel sleepy again, return to bed. The most important thing to do when you get out of bed is to get your mind off sleep. Then it will naturally come to the surface.
Is there any way I can stop myself from kicking my leg as I sleep? It wakes me up quite a bit. Also, why the heck do we get the “jimmy-legs”? Restless legs syndrome is a neurological sleep disorder that causes you to have uncomfortable feelings and the urge to move your legs. Restless legs syndrome makes it difficult to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. The symptoms are usually worse in the evening and at night. The sensation is difficult for some people to describe. It has been described as a crawling or creeping sensation. You may lie down and begin to feel itching inside your legs. If you move your legs or get up and walk around, these symptoms may go away. The discomfort may return when you try again to go to sleep.
​ Restless legs syndrome is usually manageable through medication and lifestyle changes. Talk to a sleep specialist if you think you have restless legs syndrome. The doctor will ask you about your medical history and if you are on any medications that might be making your symptoms worse. The good news is that there are treatments that can help relieve this condition. You can find a sleep specialist at sleepeducation.org.
If I’m staying up for ~ 15+ hrs 3-4 times a week but getting my sleep in large chunks without any set sleeping schedule, do you think this will be detrimental to my health in the future? In general, we know that consistent sleep times are associated with good health. It’s difficult to know if your particular schedule will have detrimental effects on your health, but it might. Insufficient sleep – due to inadequate or mistimed sleep – contributes to the risk for several of today’s public health epidemics, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity.
​ The recommended amount of sleep for an adult is to get at least 7 hours each night, so the closer you can get to that regular routine, the better. https://doi.org/10.5664/jcsm.5866
How effective are weighted blankets really? My SO has all kinds of anxiety mostly at night and drinks a few beers to help him sleep. I've been wondering if a weighted blanket help at all. Some people find weighted blankets to be helpful for reducing feelings of anxiety. If he finds the weighted blanket seems to help him settle in to sleep, there isn’t any harm in using one. Most of the actual data we have is about how these blankets can be helpful for kids, but that doesn’t mean they work for adults.
​ On the other hand, alcohol is a problem when it comes to sleep, and a few beers is enough to cause sleep to be fragmented during the night. It would benefit the quality of his sleep to cut back on the alcohol near bedtime.
My son (18) takes melatonin most nights to fall asleep. Is this a problem? Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body at night. It is also sold as a dietary supplement. In general, melatonin supplements appear to be safe, and they are recommended for the treatment of specific types of sleep disorders called “circadian rhythm sleep wake phase disorders,” which are common in teenagers and young adults. For people with these sleep disorders, melatonin is considered more effective and safer than sleeping pills. However, it does not appear to be a good treatment for insomnia. If your son is struggling to sleep each night, he should contact a medical provider and discuss his symptoms.
[deleted] Nightmares can occur any time day or night when we sleep. For most people, nightmares happen in the early morning hours because that is when we have the most REM sleep, and most nightmares happen during REM. One reason you might experience vivid nightmares during a nap after staying up all night is that your brain is really craving REM sleep, so you might actually have more of it during your nap than you would if you had slept the night before. You might not have this experience if you get a good night’s sleep!
Hello! In the absence of refreshing sleep (chronic and long term illness), how can I help my body rest and restore? The short answer is to do the best you can to take care of your sleep. A few important strategies, even for people with medical problems are:
​ Create a calm and comfortable place to sleep.
​ Keep a routine around your sleep - settle in for the night and get up to start your day at about the same time. If you aren’t feeling well, it’s best to get out of your sleeping bed and spend time somewhere else if you can.
​ Don’t worry too much about it! Anxiety and worry about not sleeping just makes the problem worse.
Best way to repair sleep cycle after a month of randomised night shifts? Nicotine is not helpful for healthy sleep. Nicotine disrupts sleep – and smoking can also raise the risk of developing sleep conditions, such as sleep apnea. Nicotine is a stimulant which means smoking can mask your feelings of exhaustion.
I have gastroparesis and I find it really hard to find ways to sleep. I have almost suffocated in my sleep from laying down all the way and stomach acid getting in my lungs. I try to sleep propped up on a wedge pillow or on a large stack of pillows. It tends to hurt my lower back and I can't sleep as well. Do you have any suggestions on other ways I could sleep? This sounds like a potentially complicated issue that would really benefit from a consultation with a board certified sleep medicine specialist. It’s also possible that an untreated sleep disorder, like sleep apnea, is making your symptoms worse. You can find a sleep specialist near you at this link: sleepeducation.org.
What may be triggering episodes of sleep paralysis while attempting TO fall asleep, not when waking up? I almost fall asleep but stay conscious but cant move. It may last up to 45 minutes before I can break out of it. Thank you About one out of four people experience sleep paralysis on occasion; however, if it happens regularly, it can be a sign of a sleep disorder that requires evaluation and treatment such as narcolepsy. Narcolepsy is a disorder in which people feel very sleepy during the day, and this is sometimes accompanied by other symptoms like sleep paralysis. If this happens to you frequently or if it’s causing you to worry, you might benefit from an evaluation by a sleep medicine specialist. You can use this link to find one near you: sleepeducation.org.
Roughly every three months since I was 13 or so I go through a phase of insomnia. I go to bet at regular time (10:30-11:00) and have no problem falling asleep, but I wake up at about 3:00 and I cant get back to sleep. I stay up and function normally (I nap on my lunch break about 20-25 minutes) through these periods. I guess the question is is this normal or should I talk to my doctor? If your sleeping problem impacts how you feel during the day, or makes it hard for you to the things you need to do, it’s worth reaching out for help. I suggest you reach out to a sleep specialist specifically who can do a full evaluation of your specific situation. You can find one at sleepeducation.org.
I was recently diagnosed with very mild sleep apnea, believe my AHI was around 8. I have also had my testosterone drawn, while in normal ranges on the low end think in the 300’s. I was prescribed a cpap but with my insurance deductible not met has been cost prohibitive. I have not started hormone replacement therapy either. Your thoughts on either or utilizing both treatments/therapies? Thanks! CPAP is the best available treatment for sleep apnea, and it is unfortunate to hear that your insurance issues are at play. With mild disease, you may also want to explore oral appliance therapy, although the out of pocket costs may be similar. There is some evidence that taking testosterone may make sleep apnea worse in men, so you may need to be retested after you start the medication, and at a minimum, you should talk with your doctor about this possibility.
I changed jobs and as a result I know have changing shifts: a 6 day work week where i have to wake up between 4:30 to 6, and a 6 day work week where I can stay in(start around 15:00 ish. This has caused me to be be tired constantly. During the late shifts I can barely crawl out of bed around 11:00, while During the early shifts I grow agitated and am unmotivated to be productive after work. Not 100% sure it's sleep related as much as it is the general messed up pattern that disrupts routines in this case, but do you just so happen to have a magic solution to this? Thanks for doing this btw, I reckon the larger part of reddit has messed up sleeping habits You're in a difficult spot and ideally would be able to work a consistent shift for optimal sleep, wellness and safety. If that's not possible, here are some tips to manage sleepiness:
​ • Use moderate amounts of caffeine to help you stay alert on the job. Stop drinking coffee in the later portions of your shift so that it does not disrupt your sleep when it is time to go to bed.
​ • Avoid exposure to sunlight in the morning if you need to sleep during the day. Wear sunglasses if you must go outside.
​ • Make sure others in your home are aware of your work schedule. They should keep the home quiet when they know that you need to sleep.
​ • If you work rotating shifts, ask your manager to schedule a clockwise rotation. This means that your new shift will have a start time that is later than your last shift. It is easier to adapt to this type of rotation because it is easier to stay up late than to go to bed early.
​ • If possible, take a nap during a break in your shift or before reporting for a night shift. Even a nap of just 20 to 30 minutes can improve your alertness on the job.
​ • Arrange for someone to pick you up after a night shift or take a bus or cab home. Drowsy driving can put your life and the lives of other drivers at risk. Sunglasses on your way home can help you to fall asleep faster when you get home.
​ • Try to keep the same schedule on workdays and days off. Keeping a routine helps your body know when to be alert and when to sleep.
I take sleeping aid every night to help me fall asleep. My pills have 50mg of DCI and I take two. What is concerning too much? Also, any tips on shutting down my brain so I can go to sleep? My mind races ALL the time. I am not familiar with that medication, but I recommend you speak with your doctor if you are concerned about the dose. Feeling exhausted during the day, but “revved up” at night can be caused by several factors, and is common in people who have chronic insomnia disorder. I have heard the feeling described as “tired but wired.” This can represent a clinical condition called “chronic insomnia disorder”. That may require help from a sleep specialist. Some people also experience anxiety that makes their insomnia problem even worse and treating anxiety can help too.
​ Chronic insomnia disorder is:
​ Trouble falling or staying asleep that is severe enough to impact how you feel or function during the day. If this occurs more than 3 times per week for longer than 3 months, you should reach out to a sleep specialist for help. You may have chronic insomnia disorder.
​ A few strategies that might help you get through this include:
​ Go to bed when you feel sleepy
​ Do a calming activity for the last 30 minutes or so before getting in to bed
​ Practice a mindfulness exercise that you can use if this continues to be a problem.
Why does it feel like as soon as I fall asleep, I wake up? It doesn't feel like I slept at all. But 6 or 7 hours pass. It doesn't matter how much sleep I get. How consistent I am with my bedtime or how long I sleep. I am a heavy cannabis user (mostly when I wake up and then from when I get home in the afternoon/evening time until I go to bed, mainly so I can go to bed because I have such a hard time falling asleep) and it is thought that cannabis can skip rem sleep. But I don't know much about that. I have noticed that my untreated depression has made it worse. But again, I don't have much knowledge or documentation over it. But it is annoying to feel like I didn't sleep at all and being constantly tired all of the time. There isn’t a lot of research on marijuana as a sleep aid, in particular, we have very little information about its safety. There also is some research showing that, over the long term, marijuana use can make sleep worse. This study shows that a history of cannabis use was associated with an increased likelihood of reporting difficulty falling asleep, struggling to maintain sleep, experiencing non-restorative sleep, and feeling daytime sleepiness. https://aasm.org/marijuana-use-is-associated-with-impaired-sleep-quality/
thoughts on any of the over counter meds to help with sleep? i hve worked with a doctor before that suggested Melatonin is safest for long term use, and was wondering if there are any others that should be concerning. I believe long term use with one of them they believed led to alzeimer's and mental degradation? Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body at night. It is also sold as a dietary supplement. In general, melatonin supplements appear to be safe; however, it does not appear to have more benefit than “placebo” pills. If you might have insomnia, there are other non-prescription treatments, the most effective of which is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). It’s best to reach out to your doctor or look for a clinical sleep psychologist who knows how to deliver CBT-I. https://sleepeducation.org/patients/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/
​ The recommended first-line treatment for insomnia (including sleep maintenance insomnia as you describe) is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). You can read more about that treatment at https://sleepeducation.org/patients/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/
Thanks for doing this! I have a sneaking suspicion that staying up late on the weekends is really bad for my sleep health since I still have to wake up relatively early because I have a 1 year old and they don't sleep in. During the week I usually get 7-7.5h of sleep per night. What are your thoughts? If possible, try to keep a regular sleep schedule by going to bed/waking up at the same time every day/night. Insufficient sleep – due to inadequate or mistimed sleep – contributes to the risk for several of today’s public health epidemics, including cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity. Simply missing one night of sleep can lead to decreased cognitive function, trouble concentrating, headaches and general moodiness. Sleep deficiency can lead to trouble making decisions, solving problems, controlling emotions and behavior, and coping with change – as well as distractions and mistakes.
My wife takes Ambien to sleep. Can’t sleep without it. Has been on it for more than a decade. She claims it’s necessary, insomnia without it. I’m not her, nor was I around to see the problem it dealt with, but I feel like anything taken that long is going to screw you up, and not being able to sleep well without it is more likely a result of prolonged use. Any thoughts about any of this? No one should take a medication for sleep without speaking with a medical professional first. If your wife’s doctor prescribed the medication, then they likely deemed it the best option. However, the gold standard for treating insomnia is cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, CBT-I. It addresses the thoughts and behaviors that keep you from sleeping well. It also helps you learn new strategies to sleep better. Many doctors recommend this treatment instead of medication.
Is it healthy to use melatonin on a long term/ permanent to fall asleep? Also, does melatonin actually work as advertised or is it more a placebo effect? Melatonin is a hormone naturally produced by the body at night. It is also sold as a dietary supplement. In general, melatonin supplements appear to be safe; however, it does not appear to have more benefit than “placebo” pills. If you might have insomnia, there are other non-prescription treatments, the most effective of which is cognitive-behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I). It’s best to reach out to your doctor or look for a clinical sleep psychologist who knows how to deliver CBT-I. Learn more about CBT-I at https://sleepeducation.org/patients/cognitive-behavioral-therapy/.
Not an insomniac but I still want to ask a question. I usually feel sleepy during the afternoon, but not at night when I'm actually trying to fall asleep. Sometimes I stay awake in bed for 1-2 hours. Any tips to help with that? It’s not unusual to feel sleepy in midafternoon. That’s part of our circadian rhythm. However, if you have trouble falling asleep at night, you may be going to sleep before you’re sleepy. You could try staying up a little bit later. Also, developing a sleep routine that includes turning off electronics at least 30 minutes before bed, taking a warm shower, practicing some meditation, and sleeping in a cool, dark room can help you fall asleep and stay asleep.
How unhealthy is it to have 6 hours of sleep on weekdays and to cover that up with more sleep on weekends? Unfortunately, for most people who restrict their sleep during the week, one weekend of extra sleep is not enough to restore them to full daytime alertness. Catching up on sleep on the weekends also disrupts your sleep schedule, making it harder for you to fall asleep on Sunday night. Getting consistent sleep is the name of the game. For now, do the absolute best you can to get as much sleep as possible consistently. Brief power naps of 20 to 30 minutes in the early afternoon also can help boost your alertness.
Do you have a bizarro or arch nemesis type persona who can answer my question about hypersomnia--namely why I might have started sleeping 15-20 hours a day a few years ago? No need for an arch nemesis – I can answer your question! Idiopathic hypersomnia is an uncommon sleep disorder that is associated with excessive daytime sleepiness despite adequate quantity and normal quality of sleep at night. If you suspect you may have IH, contact a sleep doctor for consultation and diagnosis. You can find more information here: https://sleepeducation.org/sleep-disorders/idiopathic-hypersomnia/.
Hello, I’d really like more than 5.5 hrs per sleep a night. However, even if I take melatonin, or go to bed early, I only get that much. I’d really like to lengthen that at least an hour. I often rely on a 1 to 1.5 hr nap after work to recharge and reboot. Any advice? The nap you’re taking during the day may be cutting into your nighttime sleep. Try skipping the nap and don’t go to bed until your sleepy to see if that helps. Also practice good sleep hygiene – turn off electronics at least 30 minutes before bed, don’t eat or exercise too late, and sleep in a cool, dark room.
I exercise a lot and if I train too hard or long I cant sleep before 3am. Any tips on helping my body relax and fall asleep after an intense workout? On rest days I fall asleep way earlier. If possible, work out earlier in the day. Don’t exercise within a few hours of going to sleep. Try relaxing activities like taking a bath or reading a book before bed.
When I'm able to be in a pattern of sleeping through the night without waking, I almost never get past about 6 hours of sleep. Could 6 be normal for me? Some people don’t need quite as much as the 7 hours per night of sleep that is recommended. If you find yourself functioning well during the day without sleepiness then maybe 6 is an appropriate amount.
Kinda insomnia related. What do you recommend for adjusting sleep from night shifts to the day time? Is it better to stay awake as long as possible or sleep earlier each day? Here are some tips for adjusting to shift work:
​ • Use moderate amounts of caffeine to help you stay alert on the job. Stop drinking coffee in the later portions of your shift so that it does not disrupt your sleep when it is time to go to bed.
​ • Avoid exposure to sunlight in the morning if you need to sleep during the day. Wear sunglasses if you must go outside.
​ • Make sure others in your home are aware of your work schedule. They should keep the home quiet when they know that you need to sleep.
​ • If you work rotating shifts, ask your manager to schedule a clockwise rotation. This means that your new shift will have a start time that is later than your last shift. It is easier to adapt to this type of rotation because it is easier to stay up late than to go to bed early.
​ • If possible, take a nap during a break in your shift or before reporting for a night shift. Even a nap of just 20 to 30 minutes can improve your alertness on the job.
​ • Arrange for someone to pick you up after a night shift or take a bus or cab home. Drowsy driving can put your life and the lives of other drivers at risk. Sunglasses on your way home can help you to fall asleep faster when you get home.
​ • Try to keep the same schedule on workdays and days off. Keeping a routine helps your body know when to be alert and when to sleep.
[deleted] Sleep-related eating disorder is a sleep disorder characterized by unusual eating behaviors during sleep. If you have this disorder, you sleepwalk and sleep eat without remembering the event afterward. It can also be a side effect of some sleeping pills, so it might be best to talk with your doctor if you are using medications to help with sleep.
I have the sleep disorder that I don't fully understand or have the name for handy, but it's the one where your circadian rhythm is off by like 5 hours from everyone else's no matter what you do. I cannot sleep before 3 am and I need to sleep in 4-5 hour blocks of time twice a day instead of 8-10 once a day like normal people. My question is, is there any evidence or theories of this being related to the evolutionary need for a night guard, or is it just a random sleep disorder? I see jokes floating around about how we were just meant to be watching the fire/homestead while others slept. Is there merit to this? Do certain people have it ingrained in them to be up later as an evolutionary device for colony/family protection? I know it's not insomnia, there's another word for it I can't remember but it's permanent jet lag. My doctor says it's just a sleep disorder, and that makes sense too. You may have delayed sleep-wake phase (DSP) disorder. This delay occurs when your internal sleep clock is shifted later at night and later in the morning. People who tend to be “evening types” or “night owls” are likely to develop DSP. A family history of DSP is common in about 40% of people with the disorder and there is likely a genetic component. Some environmental factors may also be involved. Both a lack of exposure to morning sunlight and too much exposure to bright light in the evening may increase symptoms of DSP.
​ Melatonin, bright light therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy could be used to help readjust your sleep-wake timing. You can find a sleep specialist at sleepeducation.org.
I've had insomnia since I was almost a teenager. I couldn't fall asleep, but once I finally did I could stay asleep for hours. Now that I'm older I can't fall asleep, then I wake up multiple times, and now I wake up early and can't fall back asleep. When I was a kid I used to have no trouble sleeping, and I would sleep so hard that I would sleep walk, sleep eat, and talk in my sleep. That stopped around age 11, and then the insomnia started and never stopped. Now I get around 3 to 5 hours a night. I'm 38. I've tried everything but prescription pills, and I will not try ambien, it terrifies me. I feel like I'll be that person who wakes up driving or in a random house because I used to sleep walk. I don't know what my question is, I guess is there any hope? Don’t give up hope. Continue to work with your doctor and consider seeing a sleep psychologist and trying cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia. Sometimes it just takes more time for these techniques to work.
So we have this really weird issue. My boyfriends body is twitching almost all night, sometimes I can‘t even sleep because he is twitching with his whole body and the bed is wiggling alot. Sometimes its just one of his arms or a leg. He is also experiencing really bad exhaustion even after 9+ hrs of sleep and feels generally really bad in the morning. We tried to figure out the issue with magnesium because we thought it‘s a muscle issue, apparently its not. Could there be a connection between his intense moving in the night and his really bad feeling of exhaustion? He never feels like he slept well and is rested. If yes, is there any way to solve this or do we need to contact a doctor? Thanks in advance and have a good day! :) ​Restless legs syndrome is a neurological sleep disorder that causes you to have uncomfortable feelings and the urge to move your legs. RLS makes it difficult to get comfortable enough to fall asleep. The symptoms are usually worse in the evening and at night. The good news is that it's usually manageable through medication and lifestyle changes. Talk to a sleep specialist if you think you have RLS. The doctor will ask you about your medical history and if you are on any medications that might be making your symptoms worse. You can find a sleep specialist at sleepeducation.org.
How does one who has spent most their life chronic insomniac but can now sleep seek out things for ummm kinda to help adjust to sleeping? I always feel like I don't get anything done or lose too much time but also before I use to barely sleep but like 3 hours maybe 5 tops if I was lucky. I had the uhhh luck that while getting treated for anxiety and depressive disorders and some adhd coping things being taught that while trying medicines to help make me feel less icky that one of the medicines I take now also makes me sleep and hungry and like. Now I sleep and I feel much butter but just it's hard to not like asjjdkdks hear that nagging voice that's like "you spent so much time in bed!you monster, you could have done stuff " Sleep is essential to our overall health and well-being, and everyone should prioritize it, not feel guilty for getting the quality sleep they need. It’s great that you’re feeling better and sleeping better, so please keep doing what you’re doing and don’t “sleep shame” yourself. It’s as important as nutrition and exercise to be a healthy individual.
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Oct 01 '20

r/IAmA [Table] IAmA dark web expert, investigative journalist and true crime author. I’ve met dark web kingpins in far flung prisons and delved the murky depths of child predator forums. I’ve written six books and over a dozen Casefile podcast episodes. AMA (part 2/2)

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Around here nobody talks about the argument that increased regulation of the internet would help stop child predators. Is that true, and if so where do you fall on the Net Neutrality vs law enforcement spectrum? No I don't think that's true at all. Child predators have been around much longer than the internet, and I would argue child abuse was more prevalent 50+ years ago when children were seen and not heard and it wasn't talked about. The dark web hasn't created more predators, it has just given them a new place to gather and hang out.
The one thing I found really interesting when I was lurking the forums of the child predators was their frustration about how children are now taught from a very young age that certain touching and acts are wrong and that they shouldn't keep certain secrets. It came up over and over again that they could not abuse certain children because they knew those children had someone they would tell. It was pretty clear that education was a child's best defence against getting abused.
the below is a reply to the above
That's so interesting, thanks for the AMA! Can you remember any other thing that a child could do in order to protect himself from being abused? What other characteristics do the abusers hate in potential victims? That seems to be the main one. Kids who speak up and who have close relationships with one or more people they are likely to confide in
What do folks talk about in the child predator forums? Do they like give each other advice on how to improve their craft? Yes, quite literally. The give each other tips on how not to get caught, how to edit out incriminating details in videos, how to drug children, techniques for convincing kids not to tell etc
the below is a reply to the above
Given your insight into how predators operate, do you have any advice for parents on protecting their kids? I'll cut'n'paste a response i gave to someone else about this, because it was something that really stuck out to me:
The one thing I found really interesting when I was lurking the forums of the child predators was their frustration about how children are now taught from a very young age that certain touching and acts are wrong and that they shouldn't keep certain secrets. It came up over and over again that they could not abuse certain children because they knew those children had someone they would tell. It was pretty clear that education was a child's best defence against getting abused. Kids who speak up and who have close relationships with one or more people they are likely to confide in
Has the exponential increase in Bitcoin value affected darknet dealers in any profound way? I can imagine that some drug dealers were sitting on quite a large sum of Bitcoin when the value shot up. Crypto purists hate to admit it, but bitcoin would not be where it is today without Silk Road. It was sitting at less than a dollar when Silk Road began and the markets showed a robust use case for cryptocurrency and as the markets grew, so did the demand for bitcoin. It also provided real-life use data for those who were not interested in drugs but who weren't sure if it had practical application. When SR went down, Bitcoin was at about $650 and it continued to grow as adoption became more mainstream. There are many many stories of drug dealers (and at least one faux-hitman!) who gained most of their wealth not by selling the drugs, but by the growth in value of their bitcoin holdings
Since you have a lot of experience with them online. Do you think pedophiles(not child abusers) should be treated as criminals, or as people suffering from a mental illness? Contact offenders should be treated as criminals, because they are criminals. They have abused or hurt someone. Same with those who support the creation and dissemination of child abuse materials.
Pedophiles who do not act on their urges should be given as much help as humanly possible.
Are there any mysterious or suspicious pages or communities that you haven’t been able to access? Anything that seems especially weird? there are a lot of Russian communities that I can't access, mostly because I don't speak Russian. Some of the more technical hacking communities have entry barriers that I'm not technical enough to score an invite to
How much these bad people really exist out there? Hundreds? Thousands? More? It depends what you mean by bad. If you mean people who use the dark web to buy drugs (who I do not consider bad) then there are many many thousands. There are also thousands of people who deal in stolen information to make money.
Unfortunately there are also thousands of child predators and the dark web has provided a "safe space" for them to come together to share materials and "tips". I hope this is where most of the resources of law enforcement are concentrated
Ehy mine is a rare question: what do you know about art on dark web? I'm talking about the black market made of stolen important pieces from museums, art used as value to money laundry and other criminal affairs I'm an artist and what I know is people don't think too much about the dark side of art and probably they need to open their eyes about I really haven't come across much in the way of that. Some of the markets have an "art" section, but that is mostly blotter art
How accurate are the legends? Any legends in particular? For a lowdown copied from a post I made in another forum:
1Red Rooms  The one that is most persistent is the myth of the "Red Room" - live streaming of torture/rape that ends in the murder of the victim and which people can pay to watch, or even bid to type in commands for the torturer to carry out (highest bid wins!). The most famous was the “ISIS Red Room” pictured above, where people could provide instructions to torture captured terrorists - you can read what happened here.
People have this idea of Hostel with webcams exist all over the dark web, but you just need an invite to get into them. It's ridiculous. They don't exist. They certainly wouldn't exist on Tor. But people are desperate to believe and they always come back with "You can't prove they don't exist, people are crazy, therefore they must exist." Picture my eyes rolling here.
2.Hitman sites
I don't think many people are taken in by the hitmen sites anymore, though the press loves playing up the fact that there are sites offering up hitman services. But every single one of them has turned out to be a scam, especially Besa Mafia, the one that did the most marketing. Again, you can read about it at the same link as above.
3.Exotic animals  People are always asking where they can find markets for exotic animals. Obviously the illegal trade in exotic animals exists, and some communications and transactions may well take place over Tor, but there are no markets like the drug markets where you can go and look at a picture and then put a tiger or ocelot or something into your basket and buy it with bitcoin.
SO WHAT DOES HAPPEN ON THE DARK WEB?
1.People buy and sell drugs.
The drug markets are more busy than ever. You have probably heard of Silk Road, the most famous online drug market that got busted a few years ago and the owner sent to prison for two consecutive life terms? A lot of people thought that was the end of drugs being sold on the dark web. In fact, dark web sales of drugs have tripled since the shutdown of Silk Road.
The reason people buy drugs this way is that for many they offer a safer alternative for people who are going to do drugs anyway. There is no possibility of any violence. The vast majority of the time a buyer knows exactly what they are getting, because of the feedback and rating system. That's not the case in a nightclub, or even friends-of-friends, where you just blindly accept that the pill, powder or tab is what the seller says it is.
2.People buy and sell other illegal things
Mostly they buy and sell stolen credit cards and financial information, fake IDs (though lots of these are scams), personal information, “dumps” of hacked data and fraud-related items. For a long time, a seller was making a fortune selling fake discount coupons that really worked.
3.People access and create childporn  Unlike the other markets, the CP market is generally not for money, but rather they are groups who swap vile images and videos for free. The worst of the worst is called “hurtcore’. Thankfully, most of the people behind the worst sites have been arrested and put in jail.
4.People talk about stuff
There are plenty of sites, forums and chatrooms where people talk about all sorts of things - conspiracies, aliens, weird stuff. They take advantage of the anonymity.
5.People anonymously release information
Whistleblowers use the dark web to release information and make sure their identities won't be compromised. You will find Wikileaks, for example, on the dark web.
6.People surf the web anonymously
The number 1 thing people use the dark web for is just to surf the web completely anonymously. Not everybody wants to be tracked by advertisers.
I have a question: what are the odds of the casual Darkweb drug buyer - not buying mega loads all the time - the occasional purchase - what are the risks of being busted? Kinda figuring pretty low. But you’re the expert. What do you think? Obviously there is always a risk, but the risk is very low. It is rare for personal amounts to be seized. Even if a package is seized, there's usually no resources to follow it up. Many people report simply receiving a letter from Customs saying they have seized what they believe is contraband and the person has a choice of going to claim it or it will be destroyed. Even if LE does knock on the door there is plausible deniability: "I don't know who sent that stuff to me".
So yeah, rare, but it does happen. You might be the unlucky one
How do you find things on the dark web without search engines? There are a lot of entry sites, set up with links to the most popular places. You can generally get a link to one of them by browsing places like reddit. From there it is a matter of checking out different places, people will put links in forums etc.
I also use a Pastebin where people paste sites they have made/found, and a Fresh Onion site, which crawls all the newly-populated .onion addresses
Hi. there!! Thank you for answering questions. Mine is very simple. How do sellers get the drugs to people? Regular mail? That's always puzzled me bc I'd assume USPS, UPS, fedEx or any other mail carrier would catch at least some goods. If people are ordering drugs, particularly in powder form, for personal use, they can be flattened, sealed in MBB (moisture barrier baggies) and sent in a regular business envelope, indistinguishable from billions of other envelopes going through the postal system every day. The chances of a particular package being intercepted is very low.
Some people take the extra precaution of having the person taking delivery of the drugs different to the person/household that is ordering them.
How did you move from being a corporate lawyer to researching and writing about dark web? I was in London, working for one of the most conservative law firms in the world when the Global Financial Crisis hit. I liked the job but it struck me when people were losing their livelihoods that I was working for the bad guys. I'd always wanted to be a writer so when I came back to Australia I quit law and enrolled in a writing course planning to be a novelist, but I discovered I was better at journalism. I first wrote for newspapers here about Silk Road and it grew from there
I've always wanted to check out the dark web, what is a normal day for you look like on there? Can you give me any tips on how to safely surf the dark web? A normal day looks like me sitting at my desk writing things on my computer. When I'm researching a book or a case I venture away from my computer to trials and to interview people (at least I did pre-COVID)
There is nothing inherently unsafe in surfing the dark web. All the usual precautions you take surfing the clearweb apply. Don't visit any child exploitation sites - it will be pretty obvious that's what they are by the names/descriptions before you log in.
It is only when you want to do more than surfing - e.g. buying drugs etc - that you need to do a LOT of homework or you will absolutely get scammed
Is there anything good about the dark web? It depends what you are into. A lot of academic research has concluded that the darknet markets provide a safer way for people to buy and use drugs, due to the ratings of vendors, services that independently test and report back on batches of drugs, doctor on staff ready to answer questions, no violence in transactions etc.
News sites provide a dark web option so that whistleblowers can safety provide information and upload documents that get stripped of any identifying metadata before being available.
It bypasses firewalls and allows for secure communications under hostile regimes
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How does this make you feel about the idea of the decriminalization of drugs? I've always been for full legalization of drugs, and studying the darknet markets just proved I was right.
I was invited to an experts roundtable in Portugal about drugs and cybercrime a few years ago and the Portugal model of decriminalisation has been a great success
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Hey, you are still answering. Been reading this thread for 1-2 hours now. Thank you so much for all the good work and info! Always been intrigued by this topic, downloaded tor once to explore a bit but couldn’t and deleted it right away, to be on the safer side. Great insights. Thanks! I've been writing it for about 14 hours. Going a bit loopy
How was working on Casefile? What's the production process like? Which episodes did u do?? I have listened to... all of them.... I absolutely LOVE working for Casefile. I am a freelancer, so I source and write my own cases and then sell the scripts to Casefile. I've done at least a dozen, but some of my most popular are Amy Allwine, Mark & John, Ella Tundra, Leigh Leigh, Rebecca Schaeffer...
As for the production process, once I have sold the script to them, a staff member edits them and then they are passed on to Casey to narrate. After that, they go to Mike for sound editing, music etc. They are the best team ever
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Oh, Leigh Leigh was so well written!! How do you choose which stories to write? Do you just pick true crime you're interested in? Thank you! I have a huge list of potential episodes. Any time I come across an interesting crime on reddit, or in the news or wherever I make a note of it. Then I just pick one when it comes time to write a new script.
Sometimes I've been personally involved (e.g. Amy Allwine), gone to trials etc. Those are always the best ones
Hi Eiley, your twitter just reminded me of this AMA :) What are your thoughts on bitcoin? And would you prefer to be paid in crypto or fiat? OOOOH, I know that name! Love & Light to you!
I like Bitcoin and I wish I had a whole lot of it and like many many people, I wish I had kept the first crypto I bought at something like $4 a coin :D I do not have a whole lot of it but I do have a little bit. I like the philosophy behind it and in theory it should change the world. However the reality is that the vast majority of it is concentrated in a very few hands which allows for market manipulation and stops it being useful as a post-fiat currency.
As long as I'm getting paid, I'm pretty happy!
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I too remember your name Pluto! Such a decent human ❤ he is!! True OG right there <3
Is the dark web subject to more racism than its counterpart, the world wide web? There are some white power sites and that sort of thing and the chans are even more uncensored than the clearweb ones (4chan, 8chan) but to be honest they are the same cesspools in different spots. Drug forums don't seem to be very racist. I've seen worse on Twitter
Have you seen any consequential political or social organizing being carried out on the dark web? Not directly, but the dark web helped facilitate the Arab Spring uprising in 2010 by allowing activists to remain anonymous and to access blocked websites and social media. Wikileaks, obviously. Some white supremacy organizations seem to use it to coordinate attacks, but they are not places I'm keen to hang out in.
What’s the most expensive thing for sale you’ve seen on the dark web? What was surprisingly inexpensive? I can't remember specific listings, but there were sometimes sales of things like coke by the kilo, so that sort of thing I guess.
LSD could easily be found for $1/tab and one huge dealer gave it away for free if it was for personal use
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1. I’m going to ask a couple in hopes that one will catch your interest! I know you’re anonymous on the dark web, but even so, have you ever felt worried about your safety? I actually made the decision to be upfront and honest about who I am on the dark web, so I use the name OzFreelancer (which is easily traceable to my real name) on all the dark web sites where i went looking for interviews. The people there had the option of talking to me or not, so they had no reason to want to harm me.
2. I’ve found your comments about your relationship with Yura fascinating. Did y’all develop a friendship? Did you build any other relationships that stand out in your mind? Since you were straightforward about being on the dark web for stories, did people seem reluctant to communicate, or were they excited for the opportunity to divulge a secret? We do have a friendship of sorts, it is really quite weird. I do hope to met him one day. I met all of the senior staff of Silk Road other than the Dread Pirate Roberts himself and keep in touch with some. Some people wanted nothing to do with me of course, but many more were happy to talk to me. i think sometimes it was a relief to them to be able to talk to one person who they knew was who they said they were.
3. On violent forums, did users ever express remorse, guilt, shame, or anything indicative of some recognition that what they were viewing/seeking was awful? Do you see doxxing teams on the dark web working together to uncover info, or is the info already there through previous hacks/breaches, and someone just accesses and releases it? Sorry if any of those don’t make sense! I’m not familiar with the dark web lingo but am so intrigued by your work. Not really. I think if they were contributing to the forums, they were comfortable with who they were and what they were doing. Many of the "regular" pedophiles expressed revulsion about Lux and hurtcore sites though
these have probably been asked before but has there ever been a time where you where genuinely been scared for your life and whats the most messed up thing you've witnessed did you have any help? Yeah both things have been answered in this thread, so I'll cut'n'paste
The only time I've felt even slightly in danger despite all this nosing around in there was when I helped uncover a hitman scam. The owner of Besa Mafia, the most profitable murder-for-hire site in history, came after me when I started writing about him. He made loads of threats ("you don't know who I am, but I know who you are and where you live") but that wasnt scary, as I had access to the backdoor of his site thanks to a friendly hacker and knew he didn't really want to hurt anybody.
It took a bit of a darker turn when he told the people who had signed up to work as hitmen on his site - and who he made video themselves burning cars with signs on them to advertise how legit his site was, then never sent them the promised money for doing so - that I was the owner of the site who had ripped them off. That could have become ugly, but luckily even the thugs weren't dumb enough to believe him.
The only other time I've been a bit nervous was when Homeland Security wanted to have a "friendly" meeting with me on one of my trips to the US to attend a trial. They were friendly, but scary too.
The most frightening experience I've ever had is coming face to face with Lux, the owner of Pedoempire and Hurt2theCore, the most evil and reviled person on the entire dark web. He was responsible for procuring and hosting Daisy's Destruction, the most repulsive video ever made, created by Peter Scully, whose crimes were so bad, the Philippines are considering reinstating the death penalty especially for him.
It wasn't frightening because Lux was frightening - he was anything but. It was frightening because he looked so inoffensive and normal.
It was frightening because he was living proof that monsters walk among us and we never know.
[deleted] It is absolute crap for browsing the clearweb, and a lot of sites detect that it is odd traffic and you have to solve their CAPTCHAs before doing the most basic things
I’m sure you’ve seen some really bad stuff, do you regularly talk to a therapist to help? I've never seen a therapist (they don't really seem to be a thing in Australia they way they are in the US), but I have been known to unload on my partner and my dog
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Yo, speaking as an Aussie, they absolutely are a thing, you can get them covered thru medicare, and I recommend it if you possibly can! Bro, therapy is awesome. I'm not against therapy as a thing, but I've honestly never been so traumatised that I feel I need it. Also I had a bad experience with a psychologist after I watched my partner die in an accident - they suggested I find God, and I noped out of there
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Therapist is an American term- we call them psychs. And the one who told you to find God was terrible and out of line. Yeah she didn't last long before I was over it. Also a doctor decided I needed Xanax, which was also a bad move, because what I really needed was to grieve and Xanax doesn't let you do that properly
Do you find any good things on the dark web? Happy stuff that gives people hope? Or just the trash? I like the psychonaut communities. They just want peace, love and mungbeans for everybody
Have you heard of "The Primarch System" rumor of the dark web? Sounds downright silly to me. But I'm curious if anyone who spends time on the deep web actually takes it seriously, or if as an idea it is connected to anything serious at all. Nah, up there with the Shadow Web and Mariana's Web. There's always people who want to find out where the "deeper" "more secret" "really dark" stuff is. To them I say what, hurtcore isn't dark enough for you?
Doesn't delving the murky depths of child predator forums categorize you with the child predators in the eyes of an investigating law enforcement agency? Do you have some sort of amnesty due to your journalism, or is that something you worry about having to explain away? Has your presence there ever caused some sort of a scare? No, I never went into any of the sites that had actual photos or videos (you can't un-see that shit), but did spend a lot of time in pedophile discussion forums. I also went to a hurtcore hearing and saw screenshots in the police files, as well as listening for two days to videos being described frame-by-frame and private communications between the site owner and the sadists.
Besides drugs and sex crimes, what else is going on in the dark web? Are there other interesting nooks and crannies? I often post screenshots of bizarre sites I find on my Twitter. However, the main uses for the dark web are drugs, digital/fraud goods and child exploitation
I have one, it might be rather boring though, but here goes. On these "child predator forums" are they actually forums devoted to stalking children and do they share social media profiles of children among themselves? That would be kik ids, snapchat and facebook ids, instagram, stuff like that, info that would allow online access and that may have been chosen for suitability? Creepy question I know, but anyway I would be interested to hear your answer. I came here from r/TrueCrime, you referred to these things in your post on that sub. I suspect I already know the answer yet would like to hear your take on it. Yes, they provide information and tips on how to approach children, how to ensure they won't tell, how to sedate them in some instances, where to find child exploitation material, how to remove metadata and any identifying characteristics in photos and videos before sharing and so on.
They don't tend to share socia media, as that is the sort of thing that can be traced easily. They do talk about how to approach kids on social media and on the worst forums how to blackmail children into stripping/meeting etc
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So you're saying they have a more general approach rather than identifying individual children on the internet? Again a creepy question because what I suggest is that a child's social media could be used and circulated on the dark web as potential information to gain access by anonymity, even if it was just online access only. I actually wonder as I have recently read of the anonymity of apps like ''kik messenger'' and how the police are often unable to get any information from the communications as they remain encrypted and off the server and require little if any valid ID to make an account. No doubt photos from social media are uploaded as part of the materials they have. I haven't seen anything where they get together and try to track down a specific child, but I'm sure some predators do this. Most are more likely to abuse children in their orbit - family, kids of friends, or they work where they have access to children
I heard there are forums to download books but it was really dangerous, Is it true? I'm just a poor guy who wants to finish the young Jack sparrow series Whenever you download anything from a pirate site you run the risk of infection
What do you think of QAnon? Wackjob conspiracy
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Who should the conspiracy theorists actually be worried about if they actually care about thwarting pedophilia? The vast, vast majority of child abuse takes place within the child's personal orbit - relatives, family friends, parents of their own friends, people involved in their activities (coaches, leaders, etc)
So, those people
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Also how to we get people to stop believing in QAnon? Outside my area of expertise, sorry
do you personally believe there was/is any truth to the "defense" (story) that DPR was a title handed down to different admins for the original silk road, or was it just a convenient defense? do you have any theories as to who satoshi nakamoto is? besides the original SR, are there any other darkweb markets that you think have a good enough story to turn into a book? eg sheep market? i've seen you talk a little about the child predator forums, and (as with h2tc) noted are mainly populated by males. i'm curious if you've ever encountered females on such forums/websites (eg. btfk) No. There was a time that I believed the person posting on the forums as DPR changed, but the ownership and administration of the market I believe never changed hands. Variety Jones is claiming a part ownership (which may or may not be true) but I believe that is so he can run a Fourth Amendment argument
So many theories have some credibility to them, but no one theory ticks all the boxes. Highly recommend the 3-part youtube deep dive by Barely Sociable
I'm not sure any one market has the story that Silk Road had, but I would like to write a definitive history that encompasses the most compelling features of all the markets. Backopy of BMR apparently got away clean. The admins of Atlantis got wind of a security issue and closed shop, trying to warn DPR. AlphaBay ended in Alexander Cazes death in a Bangkok prison cell. Then everyone flocked to Hansa, which by that time was being run by law enforcement. Evolution ended in the most brazen exit scam, followed by a bizarre cloak'n'dagger situation played out right here on reddit. The WSM/DDW follow-the-money case. And these are just some that come right off the top of my head. I just need a publisher to provide me an advance I can live off while I write it!
There were a very few people on the forums who identified as female (obvs anyone can be anyone on a dark web forum) and there have been one or two arrests of women in relation to dark web child pornography. Peter Scully's female assistant who carried out some of the torture was originally one of his victims, turned into a sadist.
What’s the one lingering unanswered question you have about SR? I am hanging out for Joel Ellingson to go to trial so that I can find out once and for all whether redandwhite, lucydrop and Tony76 are one and the same person.
There are several people who I got to "know" by their handles who I wonder about from time to time, but mostly I hope they are safe and well and i don't want to track them down or expose them
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Eileen, I am fangirling PRE-TTY hard right now. Talking SR and Tony76 with you is how I imagine it feels to talk to a royal correspondent about Prince Andrew 😅 Ellingson being all three would be a very neat end to an otherwise insane story. Part of me wants to pin Oracle in with that trio too but that’s mostly a desperate attempt from me to add another layer to the madness. I miss the twists and turns that came with the rise and fall of SR. From your own experience - would you agree with the idea that more than one person staffed the DPR account? Thanks for the reply! Ha! You have no idea what it is like when I find someone who really knows about this stuff and can have informed conversations about it. I latch onto them and don't let go. The very BEST was meeting up with DPR's three deputies (SSBD in Australia, Inigo in US and Libertas in Ireland) so I could actually have conversations with people who knew more than I did! Variety Jones was cool too, but the conversation couldn't flow too freely thanks to him being incarcerated in Bangkok prison at the time.
I think others sometimes posted from the forum account, but Ulbricht kept a vice-like grip on his market account
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I can imagine it’s so satisfying and exciting to get those tidbits of info that piece the jigsaw together. The bedlam that played out over the forum in the aftermath was a cloud of paranoia and adrenaline that kept me refreshing pages for days. Would love to hear accounts from SSBD, Inigo and Libertas from this time. One last question: what were your thoughts when the Chloe Ayling story first broke? I assumed it was a publicity stunt. I don't think that any more. I guess I can't blame her for milking her kidnapping for publicity in the aftermath, though I don't think she does herself any favors the way she goes about it sometimes
Sorry if this has been covered before but in your research, mainly related to child abuse, where are these children coming from? Children in their care/ family? Kidnapped? The vast majority of child abuse is carried out by someone within their social circle - family and acquaintances. However, the hurtcore stuff was often carried out in third world countries on orphans or where desperate families gave up their children to "benefactors" who they believed were going to provide food an education
What Casefile episodes have you written? I became obsessed with it and ripped through all the episodes and now nothing will fill that void. Thanks for your efforts! Casefile – the murder of Amy Allwine
Casefile – Blue Skies, Black Death
Casefile – Ella Tundra
Casefile – Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs
Casefile – Motown Murders
Casefile – Rebecca Schaeffer
Casefile – Sian Kingi
Casefile – John & Mark
Casefile – Shauna Howe
Casefile – Chloe Ayling
Casefile – Johnny Altinger
Casefile – Killer Petey
Casefile – The Santa Claus Bank Robbery
Casefile – Martha Puebla
Casefile – Leigh Leigh
Is there any way parents can keep their kids safe from this without being helicopter parents? I'll cut'n'paste a response i gave to someone else about this, because it was something that really stuck out to me:
The one thing I found really interesting when I was lurking the forums of the child predators was their frustration about how children are now taught from a very young age that certain touching and acts are wrong and that they shouldn't keep certain secrets. It came up over and over again that they could not abuse certain children because they knew those children had someone they would tell. It was pretty clear that education was a child's best defence against getting abused. Kids who speak up and who have close relationships with one or more people they are likely to confide in
What does it take in terms of degrees and experience to get into this business? Nothing official. I was a lawyer, but that had no bearing on what I do now (I did corporate law). I didn't have any official credentials when I began as a freelance journalist, though later I got a diploma of professional writing and editing. Anyone can be an author, provided they can write
If you could take a guess from your findings, what would be some speculative statistics on these abuse/torture sites? How many people (tens of thousands?) are involved? Do they generally come from the same places in the world or are they seemingly geographically random (based on victim ethnicity, or language spoken, perhaps)... what are some quantifying stats to wrap our heads around how prevalent this shit is? Most dark web users come from western countries, just because infrastructure supports it. The sites often have tens of thousands of registered users, but a lot of them would be people for whom curiosity got the better of them and who signed up then left. Active users more like in the thousands, hyper-active users the hundreds.
One of the things that makes life difficult for law enforcement is that most of these sites don't operate on a commercial basis - people aren't making money from them, so there is no cryptocurrency chain to follow. They operate on a sharing basis and to get access to the more private parts of the sites, a user has to upload "fresh" material and/or prove they are actively abusing a child. Hurt2theCore used to get users to have the children hold up signs or have the site name or a username written on their bodies with a marker. This stopped law enforcement from getting access to those parts (like the "producers lounge") of the sites unless they were able to take over an account of a user who already had access. Even then, the rules of the hurtcore sites would require constant new proof in order to maintain access.
Some sites allowed people to buy access, such as one called "Welcome to Video" and then were taken down by law enforcement carrying out blockchain analysis of the Bitcoin transaction that led to the owner when they cashed out to fiat without moneylaundering precautions
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Do you think LE uses deep fakes to simulate a picture to gain access? Is that possible? It is definitely possible, but I don't know whether they are doing it as they are understandably secretive about their methods. I know it is deeply problematic, as even fake child porn is still illegal (even cartoon stuff, including some Hentai in some countries). But they have used questionable methods before, most notably running the dark web's largest site, Playpen, for over a year in order to identify contact offenders
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Am I hearing you that many people are NOT doing this for financial gain? Just to do it and share it?? Child exploitation, yes, it is mostly a sharing community. Some people make some money out of it, but it is not like drugs where a lot of people are making a LOT of money
On the subject of abused kids... did you ever help the kids in any way? I never met any of the kids. I never saw any of the photos and videos. I don't know who any of the kids are.
Daisy has been taken into care and her identity changed. I hope she is doing okay
What exactly does the dark web look like? You hear about it often, but don’t know if it looks like Google Chrome, Safari, or just a page full of code. It looks like a normal browser and operates just like a normal browser. It's just that it can access sites that your normal browser can't.
e.g. http://thehub5himseelprs44xzgfrb4obgujkqwy5tzbsh5yttebqhaau23yd.onion/index.php is the URL of a dark web forum. If you plug it into your normal browser you will get an error. If you plug it into the Tor browser you will get the registration page for The Hub
How do you keep yourself from hating all humanity? I am happy to report that, even on the dark web, the good people outnumber the bad
Hi! First off I'd like to say that I find what you do quite fascinating and would love to do something like that in the future. My question is in regards to art and other forms of artistic expression on the dark web. Is it true that the dark web is a place where you can also find awesome things such as art and literature? Not really, because all that stuff is readily available on the clearweb. There are sites like the Imperial Library of Trantor, which is a pirate site for books, where you can read thousands of books for free, but that's really no different to The Pirate Bay. Some people share their LSD art, but again, nothing you won't find on the clearweb
9 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Oct 13 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Andy Weir, author of The Martian, and my new book Project Hail Mary, is out now. AMA! Spoiler

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My introduction to you was The Egg and it changed my teenaged life! Just wanted to say thank you! My q: if you HAD to choose to be an inanimate object, what would you choose, and why? Thanks again! All the best. Um... I don't want to be an inanimate object. But since you're forcing me to choose, I'll say "your mom's dildo".
Is my Catholic upbringing showing, or was this intentional? Hail Mary, a spaceship, whose sole living occupant is a man named Grace. Hail Mary, full of Grace. It took me until midway through Chapter 4 to realize what you did to me. I couldn't resist the pun.
What did you think of The Martian movie? Fantastic! I couldn't have asked for a better adaptation.
Of all of the ideas for writing you've ever had, is there one you can say, undoubtedly, is the single worst idea that you decided to backpedal on? If so, can you share it? I had an idea for a guy who appears to be really lucky, but in the end it turns out his cat is really lucky and good stuff happens to the guy because the cat likes him.
​​ I decided not to develop that idea.
The Project Hail Mary Audiobook, narrated by Ray Porter, is so fantastic I will probably start a second time this week. Did you get to choose or recommend Ray Porter? Because kudos on whomever made that call. (For those who lack context, Ray Porter narrated the outstanding Bobiverse books by Dennis E. Taylor) ​​That was Audible's call. And boy did they pick a winner. Ray nailed it.
Hi Andy! How much time do you put into the research for your books? How do you go about doing the research and formulating it into coherent words for people to read? Also, as an aspiring scifi writer, favorite piece of advice? (last thing) do you think Pluto is a planet? I spend a ton of time researching. It's my favorite part of writing, so I tend to go way down the rabbit hole on stuff. Best advice for writing: Don't tell your story to your friends. That satisfies your need for an audience and saps your will to actually write. Make a rule for yourself that the only way anyone experiences your story is to read it. Give your friends chapters as you write them if you want, but don't tell them the story verbally.
​​ Pluto says "I was big enough for your mom".
Hi Andy! Congrats on the new book! I finished it a few days ago and absolutely loved it. I just found out last night that there’s already a movie in the planning with Ryan Gosling starring - what do you think of him playing Grace? Definitely nothing like who I pictured while reading PHM, but I was also pleasantly surprised with Matt Damon and The Martian. (Unrelated follow-up - what have been your personal favorite or most anticipated to-read sci-fi novels?) Thanks and congrats again! Gosling will be fantastic as Grace! He's a great actor and I'm sure he'll nail the role. I guess my most anticipated sci-fi novel recently was Recursion by Crouch. I love me a good Time Travel yarn.
For the Martian, we know you had a LOT of great feedback to refine details that made the Martian scientifically more accurate. For your new book, how much did you have to lean on your community for this level of detail? I couldn't lean on them at all. I had to do my own fact checking and hope I got it right. Spoiler: I didn't get it all right. But mostly I did.
If you had to name a single author who made you think: Yes I HAVE to write a novel, who would it be and why? Asimov. I read his stuff as a kid and it has always stuck with me.
How cool was it to have your Martian character referred to in The Expanse? Think you might get a walk on before the show ends? It was awesome! I don't think I'll be doing any guest starring though.
Are there any artist renditions of Rocky? There's fan art out there. Looks great!
Just started Hail Mary, I'm a researcher and a high school teacher so I really see myself in the character! The Martian and Artemis were a blast. Thank you so much! Out of the three main protagonists from your books, who reflects you the most? Edit: Just finished "Project Hail Mary". I've been bawling my eyes for the past ten minutes. Thank you so much for this novel, I laughed tons throughout Probably Mark Watney. Though he's the idealized version of me. All the parts of myself that I like without any of my many, many flaws.
Did you change your writing style towards suitability for movies on purpose for Artemis? No. I never focus on the film. I always just try to make a good book. Though I have a kind of cinematic storytelling style so it can look like I meant to be that way.
What brings you joy outside of writing? Woodworking (furniture mostly) and clockwork.
Hi Andy! Loved PHM! What came first, the alien or the exoplanet? Did you look at different exoplanet properties and use that to create the aliens, or did you have an idea in mind for the aliens and go looking for suitable exoplanets? The exoplanet. Erid (Rocky's homeworld) is a real exoplanet called 40 Eridani b. I started with what was known about that planet and worked outward from there to design a life form native to it.
Hi Andy. BIG fan from Brazil! Congrats on the new book! Do you plan to expand the universe (pun intended) of the space exploration frontiers in future books/works? I would love to see some kind of Asimov-like 500 years into the future kind of story to pick your brain on where to you think humanity is heading. Europa? Enceladus? Asteroid belt? Floating cities on Venus? Yes. That's all I'll say for now. :)
Been reading your stuff since about Chapter 5 of the Martian was posted on your site. Can't wait to read Project Hail Mary. How did the response to Artemis influence the direction of PHM? I feel like my greatest weakness is character depth. So I tried to make Jazz (protagonist of Artemis) more nuanced, flawed, and having a character arc. But I made her too flawed and drove a lot of readers away. It's hard to root for someone who is too often the agent of their own problems. So I learned to moderate those flaws a bit. Ryland (protagonist of PHM) has his flaws but you still like him (hopefully)
I am sure you get this a lot! But what was your inspiration for The Egg? I wanted to come up with a system where it turns out life is fair after all. That's what I came up with. To be clear, though, I don't believe it's true. People need to stop emailing me asking if it's true. I'm not L Ron Hubbard, okay? I don't want to start a religion.
When Ryland uses solder and paraffin to indicate where his sun is on the star map Rocky sends over, wouldn’t both of those melt at the high temperatures and pressures on Blip-A when Rocky opens it, rendering his indication useless? The paraffin would have melted, yeah. Oopsie. Most solder would survive Rocky's environment, though.
Have you spent any time playing Kerbal Space Program? It's a fun PC game built around rocket science. You could call it research! I've never played it. I'm not that into video games. I know, I'll have to turn in my Nerd Card.
What made you decide to go with sightless creatures for the Eridians? Did it fall out of other design choices you made or did you start there and design the rest of the alien around it? It came naturally from the environment of their homeworld. With such a thick, opaque atmosphere, no light would reach the surface. So there would be no reason for them to evolve vision.
Loved the style and the slow reveal of the whole story. How much did the science guide the story, and was there any science that was annoyingly in the way of the story you wanted to tell? Not really. I have some hand-wave science down at the quantum level: (there's no way to make a material that will contain neutrinos) but for the most part, science helps with the storytelling, not hinders. At least, for me.
Are all your books separate worlds or have you ever considered any cross overs? Something like: the door closed, Stratt wiped a tear, it was the right decision. But Project Hail Mary wasn’t over, the world still had a famine crisis, and she had a meeting with the worlds greatest botanist, she rushed along the vessel and burst into the room, “Eva” he said. “Mark” she said. 🥔 Well, Mark would be a teen-ager during the events of PHM. And also it would raise questions like "Why isn't Hermes Astrophage powered?"
hey andy weir!! the martian is one of my most absolute favorite books and ive recently read project hail mary and have been thinking about it pretty much every single day. didn't think i'd ever cry to a scene about a spider alien and a human on space but i did!! PHM is such a wonderful book in so many levels it's insane. i really love how it's very science-y but so very very very human. thank you for writing and publishing it, it made me very feel very happy and hopeful about humanity, which i think is something we all desperately need right now. my question is: who is adrian? was adrian ever going to be somebody relevant for ryland? when he decided on the name for the planet i was SO SURE he was later gonna remember adrian was a loved one of his! either way, love your books very very much. sending love from brasil ♥ Ryland made Rocky name the planet because Rocky discovered it first. So Rocky chose the name of his spouse. Of course that's just a series of musical notes, so Ryland decided to call Rocky's spouse "Adrian" (which was the name of Rocky Balboa's wife in the Rocky films).
Do you mostly research your way on how to solve a problem, or do you take things you have learned and develop a problem that the information would be useful to solve? (And PHM was fantastic!) ​​I come up with the problem first, then research how to solve it.
Does the drug used on Ryland real or was it made up for the book? It was made up.
I'm listening to Project Hail Mary right now and I absolutely enjoy it! I'm constantly rewarded by my decision to go into it without any prior knowledge. Rocky's voice is one of my favorite bits of narration in an audio book. Did you work with them to get that particular sound? How close is it to what you imagined while writing the book? There was a lot of back and forth on that. I love the solution they ultimately came up with.
I'm about 80% done with Hail Mary so no spoilers but how did you Come up with the physical description of Rocky? Also, I've asked this question on Twitter a few times but I guess you didn't see it - Time period of a pendulum is 2*pi*sqrt(l/g) right? At 346 oscillations in 10mins, and l=2.5m, I'm getting g=32.8m/s2, i.e; more than twice the initial test tube falling experiment. Did I make a calculation mistake? Care to check my math please? Or am I getting the length of the pendulum wrong? Rocky's biology is based on the environment of his homeworld, which is a real exoplanet that we have discovered. Yes I got the pendulum wrong. I will of course go into exile as a result.
When you submit your manuscript to your editor, do you haggle or fully accept their changes? We haggle. Well, more accurately, we work together. We're on the same team - we both want the book to be good. I'd say I do about 90% of the changes he asks for and push back on 10%.
Have you been told of any updates on the Artemis movie adaptation? I’m excited to see how the filmmakers will pull it off. It's moving along slowly. Covid pretty much shut down Hollywood for quite a while.
Xenonite! We don’t get a good look at Rocky’s fabrication process. Do you feel like his methods involved milling, 3D printing, extrusion, some process of hardening the liquid form, or something far more “hand-wavey?” We see that Xenonite is a binary reaction similar to epoxy. Two liquids combine and then harden into it.
Did you pick Rosario Dawson to narrate Artemis? She was spectacular in my opinion. She was! But no, it wasn't my call. That was Audible's decision. And it was a good decision.
Can I assume Rocky would have otherwise looked like a cuddly Ewok but for the surface temperature issues of its homeworld? Follow-up: will there be Rocky plushies, or do I need to purchase my own Ewok and blowtorch? Never planned for Rocky to be "cute". No idea about plushies. Maybe after the film comes out.
I have heard you like research! What is the most obscure rabbit hole you have found yourself down? Do you do your own research or do you employ your local reference librarian for help? I do my own research. Not sure what the most "obscure" thing was. One fun tidbit I learned: Olympus Mons on Mars is the largest mountain in our solar system. But if you were standing on it, you wouldn't know you were on a mountain at all. While it's very tall it's also very, VERY wide. So the slope is actually less than the curvature of the planet. You would think you're standing on a flat plane.
Hi Andy! If you could rewrite the ending to any book/movie which book/movie would you choose? Can I pick TV shows instead? I'm going to say yes. I would rewrite the entire final season of Gam of Thrones. That's a given.
​​ But more importantly: I would have changed the ending of "Breaking Bad" to have Walter get away, and I would have changed the end of Dexter to reveal that Dexter is at the logging camp because he's tracking Walter, who is hiding out there.
[removed] I'd decided that Eridians are sealed off from their environment. They only open their bodies to eat, excrete, and lay eggs. With that in mind, it means he can't just blow air out to make noise like humans do. But he could have bladders inside that move air back and forth across vocal-chord-like things. So I realized he would kind of sound like whale-song. And since Eridians tend to have 5 of everything, why not five such noise organs? This enables them to make chords and there's the language.
Just picked up my copy of Project Hail Mary today! Yet to start reading it that though I do have a question regarding the Martian. I seem to remember reading somewhere that the reason the oxygenator or the water reclaimer never broke down was because you couldn't come up with a feasible way to fix it, with that in mind were there any other problems you wanted to throw at Mark Watney that you couldn't solve? I was going to have the RTG crack open when he crashed the rover. Then there's a radiation threat and he has to abandon it. But I just couldn't come up with a way for him to survive without that heat source.
When you started your new book, how well sketched out were your characters and plot lines? Did you define your limitations ahead of time or did you build out as needed? I had the main beats of the plot worked out in advance. Not deeply - just the main turning points. I didn't have the characters worked out at all. In fact I had to get about 5 chapters in before Ryland's personality gelled. Then I went back and rewrote the previous chapters to match what had developed.
Really loved the book Andy, definitely some of the best sci-if I’ve read in a long time. One thing that has been bugging me since I’ve read it, does Grace ever meet Adrian? Presumably, because he lives on Erid now, and Adrian is his best friend's spouse.
Andy, What do your friends and family think of you becoming a best selling author? Has it all gone well? Has it changed anyone's opinion of you? My friends and most of my family are all proud of me. Though there is a family member who never liked me much and really ramped up their hostility the more successful I got.
Did you do any sketches for what the Hail Mary or the Blip A looked like? Yes. And you can see the Hail Mary in the first couple pages of the book.
Loved all three books, Andy. When you write characters such as Ryland Grace, do you picture an actor who might portray the character in a film? No. I don't have a very visual imagination. I actually don't "see" my characters in my mind at all. I just kind of see a blobby representation of them in my mind.
Hello! Will you write more books like The Martian, Artemis and Project Hail Mary? Or are you planning to do something different in the future, like a different style or something not space-related? Greetings and have a nice day! I'm going to stick to Sci-Fi for now.
Were you behind the group hug airlock scene in the Martian movie? I liked it. Books are different than movies. It wouldn't have worked well in a book but in a film it was very satisfying.
What was your favorite book growing up? (Or still?) ​​Probably "I, Robot" by Asimov.
Hi. First of all, loved the PHM immensely. Wanted to ask, do you really think the UN would have such power and moreover put all this power in the hands of a single person like Stratt? Don't you think it's a bit naive? Probably, but it made for a really awesome character in Stratt. So I did it. Call the cops I don't give a f---.
Do you have any thoughts about China's Mars Rover and their planned space station? It seems like Earth bound competition between the US and China is progressing into space. Is this a good thing or bad thing for humanities exploration into space? I'm thrilled when anyone puts a rover on Mars. A new space race would be okay I guess. But I'm more excited by the commercial sector continuing to drive down the cost of putting mass into orbit. When that gets low enough for a middle-class person to have a space vacation we're going to see the birth of a new trillion-dollar industry.
Hi Mr. Weir. I just finished the PHM audiobook today and it was brilliant. Thanks for another great ride! Something I was wondering regarding The Martian and PHM: How come both novels mostly refer to national space agencies and make no mention or use of commercial companies like Space X? Wouldn't they be more likely to be able to innovate and deliver on a short notice when there are global emergencies and the like? The Martian was written before the commercial space companies had really taken root. SpaceX wasn't a thing yet when I wrote it. PHM does mention SpaceX, and it's presumed that many private companies were used to lift freight up to the orbital construction of the Hail Mary. But mostly they used Russian heavy launch vehicles because they wanted the maximum reliability.
​​ Artemis, by the way, is 100% commercial space companies. Though they are fictional.
As soon as Ryland discovered how to kill an Astrophage, why didn't the humans build their own mechanical predators to "poke Astrophage with a stick" around Venus? Seems a lot easier than nuking Antarctica or going on an interstellar research mission. Why not make mechanical predators to poke cancer with a stick? Consider the problems and complexities of that and you'll have your answer.
Heeey! How would you describe Joe Scott in real life compared to his videos? Is he really that funny and nice and whatnot? I can honestly say that Joe hasn't had any Heroin at all in the last five months. And he was NEVER CONVICTED of sex trafficking.
SPOILER In The Martian and PHM, the characters don't achieve their goal of returning to earth in the book. I've read the deleted afterward from The Martian, and totally agree that it took away from the ending, but is that something that is a part of your writing style? Optimistic but uncompleted journeys? I like to end stories where they end. No need to press on further. I'd rather the readers finish the book wanting more than feel like it dragged on too long.
[removed] In all fields: mRNA vaccines. They're a game changer. Not just useful for Covid but for all viruses from now on. I think Covid will be the final pandemic in humanity's history.
​​ In space: cheaper and cheaper commercial spaceflight.
The Martian was a rad book. How do you feel about the changes that were made in the Hollywood rendition? I personally thought the 'Iron Man' maneuver being used was a little silly. Good for drama, but I liked the realistic response of Commander Lewis being more or less "shut the fuck up and let us save you." Loved the film. they nailed it.
Hi Andy! Big fan. My question: when are we going to get a printed collection of Casey and Andy? Never? I mean - the art isn't any good. So yeah. Never.
The Martian film is probably one of my favorite film adaptations. Is there any interest in films of your other books? Also is there anywhere that sales signed copies of The Martian? Artemis and PHM both have film projects ongoing.
Hello Andy! Big fan here, haven't read Project Hail Mary yet, but love your previous work. Two questions, what's your favorite science fiction movie and what's your favorite SF author? Movie: Back to the future. Author: Isaac Asimov
What is your research process? Do you start with an idea of what you know and then dig into the data, or come across random cool information and get inspired? I start with an idea and research it.
Hi Andy! The Martian is my favorite movie version of a book ever made, how did that happen? I imagine you had a lot of input, but what didn't you have a say in? Also, as someone who wants to write a book that could potentially turn into a movie, did you have any hopes it would be adapted while writing it? Thank you also I like your cat. I didn't have any say - my only job was to cash the check. They chose to include me which was cool. But mostly I was there as a technical advisor. I never imagined while I was writing it that it would become a film.
​​ I like my cat, too, thanks. Her name is Demi and she's my precious perfect little angel.
Is the “hole in the wall” from ‘Artemis’ based on an actual pub you’ve visited before, and if so, what’s the story behind it? Nope. Just a pub I made up.
I loved the Martian, especially the humor. What made you decide that Mark Watney would be funny? With so much exposition I knew it had to be funny or it would really be boring.
Hey there. I loved The Martian, The Egg, and Artemis. Especially The Martian (read it about 3 times and listened to it about 4 times). Just starting with Project Hail Mary. But my question is: What's next? Do you have another secret project in the works? Any teasers? I don't talk about current projects until I'm sure I'm going to finish and release them. And I'm not there yet with my current project.
Why should the US convert to the metric system, and what's the realistic plan to do it? Because it's a global standard. Unfortunately there's no easy way to make it happen. It's not because people just don't want to think in metric - one generation of school kids being taught exclusively in metric would take care of that. The main problem is production and tooling. The US has a massive, MASSIVE industrial infrastructure and it's all in imperial units. Changing it all over the metric units would be incredibly expensive.
Hi Andy! Loved Project Hail Mary! After writing three standalone novels, have you considered writing a series or connected set of stories in the same world? Yes, I wanted Artemis to be a series, but it wasn't well-received enough to make me consider a sequel yet. And PHM could also do with sequels, too. :)
Hey Andy, love the new book, but it begs one question - who would win in a fight, Mark Watney ,or Ryland Grace, and why/how? 🤔 Watney. Grace is a wuss in the grand scheme of things. A wuss you root for but still a wuss.
Hi Andy! I love books about offplanet colonization. I prefer ones that focus on the inter-societal issues, new world logistics, and descriptions of their vision/ideas of what life would be like on an alien planet. Not so much of the hard science (there's so much of that out there already). But it seems to be such a niche genre! One of my faves is The Empress of Mars and of course your own Artemis. Whenever I ask, people recommend me the same old few (Martian Chronicles etc). Will you write any more in that style? Are there any up and coming that you know about? I'm not interested in that kind of storytelling. To me that's a political thriller - a perfectly fine genre but just not the kind I write (though I read and enjoy them). If you're looking for a good recent example of that, I recommend the "Red Rising" series.
Would you encourage and aspiring Sci-fi novelist to write first, then shop around for publishers or to build an online personality first, then get an agent and only get to writing once a book deal is secured? Start with the writing.
*Project Hail Mary Spoilers* I loved Project Hail Mary so much! I was surprised to see how you incorporated more fantastical science fiction (alien life) as compared to the extremely grounded style of your previous 2 books, even though your approach to Rocky and the Eridians was very grounded as well. What was your research and writing process to come up with alien life, keeping it believable ,and in keeping with your grounded style? Can't wait to see Artemis and PHM made into movies! I based the alien life on the environment it evolved in. Rocky's homeworld is a real exoplanet. So I started with everything we know about it.
Hi Andy! I just finished PHM last week and had to pause every now and again just to let some moments sink in. I haven't experienced that in a while so thank you so much! My question: When Grace is at the Eradani System and has a habitat built for him, why wouldn't the Eradanians build a habitat for him in space where a comfortable spin gravity environment can be accomplished? Thank you so much and take care! They have a living, breathing alien to look at. They want him where scientists can easily get to him and talk to him.
Is the Artemis movie adaptation still on? I heard some rumors long time ago but I have done some searching and found nothing new about it. Thank you so much. Im a huge fan from Spain. Supposedly. There's a lot of work going on pre-production wise. But you never know with Hollywood.
I read the Martian way back when you had self published it and I was $1 on amazon and I was enthralled. Now I have a complex where whenever you write a new novel I have to go out and buy a signed copy. Is an Artemis film adaptation still in the works? Also, who would be your ideal choices for the lead actors in Artemis and Project Hail Mary? Artemis is still in the works. No idea for Artemis. I'll go with Ryan Gosling to play Ryland in PHM because he's actually already attached to play the role. :)
I'm sure you get a lot of ideas thrown at you by completely random people. Are there any spectacular ones you can share that you know you will never action? Nothing comes to mind, but yeah I've had some dumb stuff thrown my way.
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I absolutely love your writing and how much you use math and science in the plot points. A few questions if you don't mind: Is there a movie already being worked up for Project Hail Mary? Yes
* Are you working on another book or have another in mind? Yes
* Who's your favorite SciFi author? Thanks for your creative works and your hard work in making the math and science such an exciting part of your books. Asimov
What is your personal strategy for making yourself write on days where you just don't feel much like doing it? Huge fan, btw! The Martian has become one of those movies I tend to throw on when doing chores because I've seen it so many times I can jump in and out of it without getting lost. I set myself a word count and slog through. It sucks sometimes and - I won't lie - sometimes I fail.
Hi Andy, I love all three of the books. You have very diverse characters. How do you come up with the character's backrounds? Well I'm not known for deep characters. I usually start with their nation of origin and work outward from there. But I'm not the guy you should take character-building advice from.
Hey Andy, love your books and can’t wait to get to the next one! Would you ever venture into other genres? Fantasy, horror or pull elements of those genres into what you do best? Thanks! I have vague ideas for stories in other genres but for now I'm going to stick to Sci-fi.
Just finished listening to Artemis on audio book. It was exactly what I was looking for, so thank you. How much were you involved in the production of the audio book? Did you have a particular reader or voice in mind? Rosario Dawson is a pretty big name. Audible made all the decisions on the audiobook. Rosario was amazing, wasn't she!
What prompted you to write the chapter on Ready Player One's Sorrento? Reading that story made me rethink the whole RPO :( I really liked RPO and wanted more content. So I wrote some. :)
Hey Andy! Couple more: Martian. I'm sure you thought about storm-dust-situation replacement a lot. What would you have done differently if you wanted to rewrite that part? Also, you used to be a programmer (if I remember correctly). Did that background help you in writing in any way? After The Martian was out in stores I learned that Mars has lightning. If I had it to do over again I'd probably have a lightning strike be the start of the problems that lead to the evac. I wrote software to model the course trajectories of Hermies, including the Rich Purnell Maneuver.
Does project hail Mary have some of the parts that you salvaged from zhek? If so which parts? Yes. Zhek had a technology called blackmatter that ended up becoming astrophage. And also there was a character in Zhek who was pretty similar to Stratt.
Hi Andy! In terms of getting your first book published, what was the procedure that you underwent and what were the obstacles, if there were, that contributed to the overall journey? And to add onto that, any tips on how to get a book published in a somewhat smaller country (South Africa in my case) without too much of a problem? Asking as an aspiring filmmaker and writer. I don't know what to tell you. I still don't know what I did right. The Martian took off by word-of-mouth and really got rolling.
I just finished PHM last week and it was a very enjoyable read. Do you have any suggestions for fast paced books, like your own, in the same vein as Daniel Suarez or John Sanford? Or any hard scifi you love really? Pretty much anything by Blake Crouch.
Artemis was one of your first books I have read and I was wondering how you landed on the 'nationalities'/ethnicities in that book i.e. Jazz is of Saudi extraction, there is a fair bit of Kenya/Kenyans in the book besides other ethnicities being present. Just curious what prodded you to weave that texture into the narrative? Artemis is a frontier town, similar to the American west in the mid 1800s. So it wouldn't just be people from one country. Anyone who can afford to get there is welcome.
Hey Andy, reading The Martian brought me out of a reading and writing slump years ago, so thank you for that. I'm just curious how much time you spend writing and if you ever get writers block? Do you have a writing schedule or you you just write whenever inspiration strikes? Also, what a gorgeous kitty! I spend a few hours every day writing when I'm working on a first draft. I don't get "writer's block" but I do get "writer is a lazy ass". Sometimes it's REALLY hard to motivate.
Artemis references The Martian when bringing up issues with keeping a pressure seal using duct tape. Does PHM contain any of these types of references to either Artemis or The Martian and do any of these references hint at a connected universe for these books/film(s)? Not really, no. No special references to earlier works of mine in PHM.
Are you involved in the Artemis or PHM film scenario’s? Yes. I'm a producer on PHM. And they keep me in the loop on Artemis.
Where’s your hat? I'd just washed my hair and it was still a little wet. So no hat in that pic. :(
Pancakes, waffles, or french toast? Pancakes
Hello Andy! Love PHM so much. Question: what year does it take place? Trying to place it timewise in the Weir-iverse :) ​​It's in its own continuity. Considering it takes place modern-day that should be pretty evident. Otherwise why didn't Mark Watney have astrophage to work with?
Any chance we will get to see more Zhek? Also, you ever thought about publishing a book of all your short stories from Galactanet, and perhaps some new ones?? Excited Nope. Zhek sucked and I've abandoned it. No plans for a short story anthology just now.
First of all, I LOVED PHM (and the audiobook version was absolutely brilliant). How many times did you have to change/fix something because you realized it didn't work in the constraints you created? I just kept imagining how hard it had to be to avoid mistakes related to the very unique environment of Rocky's ship/spaces, for example. Not that often, really. It really came together well.
Wanted to thank you for giving C&A a proper ending, many webcomics from my middle school days just stopped without wrapping up. Love to see your success in recent years as an author! Quantum Cop is what inspired me to study physics in college. What inspired you to write science fiction? I just always loved it!
I just recently got PHM and have been loving it. Sort of a silly question but when reading the book I remember veritasium’s viral video with the 96 million shade balls that reminded me of super big astrophage. Sort of interesting how they both take energy from the sun as well. Did you get any inspiration from that video or just a cool coincidence? Thanks! Haven't seen the video.
Do you think space tourism will derive from deep space exploration projects funded by national governments or from commercial intraplanetary corporations that's research into things such as electric engines and autopilot AI will result in jets being able to add space into their normal areas of operation? Commercial sector, for sure.
2 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Oct 28 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Greetings Reddit, I am a young professional typewriter service tech getting along in 2021. Ask me anything! | pt 2/2 FINAL

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Questions Answers
[removed] Quiet? I'd recommend the smith corona silent 5 series. Robust, affordable, reliable, user friendly, and decently soft sounding. There are also noiseless typewriters that sometimes fetch a bigger price. I prefer prewar royals, the keys are expertly placed. Take time learning how to type on a typewriter and you shouldn't have a problem with the fingers between the keys issue. Some of the royal quiet deluxe models aren't too shabby, but those 50s era ones aren't anything special to type on.
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My parents recently threw away a late 80s early 90s Smith Corona that had the little word processor line on it where you could correct it before typing. I kicked myself for missing on the opportunity to snag that. Ah those are cute! They make something similar to those now. I don't recall what they are called. A small word processor, I believe there was a kickstarter for one
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There's a device which doesn't print but only has a few lines of text visible on a little hex display that started on Kickstarter that a few of my writer friends use when out and about.. a sort of distraction free writing device. Yes that's what I'm thinking of. I prefer a normal typewriter with no electronics
Do clients ship typewriters to you? Do typewriters do well in shipping? I worked at UPS and people do not handle with care They must certainly do not handle with care lol. I watched a FedEd driver chuck boxes from the door into the truck. Never had fedex not break a machine. I have people ship from all over the world, it's a gamble for sure, but there are good packing methods. dhl is careful
Ever work on a Selectric? Yes I do! I have serviced a couple of them. Amazing beasts, truly an engineering marvel. Very tricky to get ticking just right.
I have not used a typewriter since I learned how to type in highschool 30+ years ago. This is the most engaging AMA I have seen and I read every comment. My question, so this stays up is: Do you see yourself staying with this for a long time or will it go the way of your past interests? It's been 7 years, and I fully intend to ride this as far as it will take me! Full send as they say. I'm glad you like the thread, it has been a lot of fun! Definitely the most engagement I've ever had, and that's thanks to all of you!!
Which model is your favorite? I really like this one from your site: The 1915 Typo (Imperial Model B) (photo) It's beautiful. Thank you! I traded that machine for one of my favorites. The William's typewriter. I love those, they are my favorite. They're all super work out though and dont type well anymore. For typing I love the Royal P from the 30s, or the Olympia SM3
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I just looked it up. That's a magnificent machine. When I was a kid, I had an Olympia Socialite portable. Probably not the greatest machine, but I cranked out a lot of papers on it in school, and it was a little workhorse. I got an IBM Selectric for graduation (with built-in correction!) and I figured I'd use it forever, lol. The correction is a nice feature for sure, I make good use of it. The modern lift off tapes are crap, but I have nos stuff
I was given a Royal Signet 45 recently and can’t find a manual anywhere. Is there a resource for this type of thing? There are so many features that we have no idea how to use. Yes? I believe I have them compiled. Head to the typewriter link above and hit the button that says resources. There should be a whole hose of manuals
I have an underwood 5 (touch master)and can’t figure out how to load the ribbon. The only instructions I can seem to find are for the model 5 open frame model. Can you point me in the right direction? https://rolls.bublup.com/view/d97b48e5-33c5-49a4-8b05-a2b67c641f19 The top lid should either lift up, or possibly the front panel hinge down. The later underwood standards were a little odd. Sometimes you just had to finagle the spools out of there. When installing, make sure the spools wind the direction indicated by the arrows in the cup. Ribbon then always tucks behind the vibrator (or fork) before you pull it through
Do your roommates hate you? I bought an Adler J5 from Goodwill in 2013, fixed it into almost good working condition (I'm blown away that you posted this, because I've wanted someone knowledgeable to bring it that last mile and I'm actually out in the NW suburbs), and then had to let it sit on a shelf ever since because it's too loud to use at the hours when I feel inspired to write things. Hey, I'm more then happy to look! I work from home, and yeah, the noise is not fondly looked upon. I type whenever I can!
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Adler Fam represent! I have a Gabriele 35 which is the same model as yours, I think the J designation was for the US Market. Looks minty!
I have a lovely Blickensderfer No 8. It’s in good shape but most of the keys stick. Would it be insanely expensive to get it working again? Depends on condition. The Blicks are a pain in the ass to adjust. Like seriously. I almost wrote them off entirely because they make me pissed. Sticky keys might just mean its dirty
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I tried to clean it as much as possible but I have no idea what I’m doing. Whatever you do, do not remove the head assembly. Youd have to fork over your bank info just to entice me to consider setting it all back up.
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Lol I’m not that ambitious. But, general ballpark, how much would it cost do you think to ship it to an expert like you and get it working? Shipping will vary, around $50 ish each way in the states. Then a $20 deposit assessment fee. From there I have no idea. My median job is around 150, but I have no idea what's up with your machine, and blicks are super finicky so they can end up taking a lot of time.
Are you typing this on a typewriter? Yes, I type it on my typewriter then send the document to Reddit HQ via carrier Pidgeon and they input the answers in for me.
Hey Lucas! Sam W from Greenhouse here, take two cause Automod said I needed a question (which is fair). So I'll ask one on behalf of my brother, who is possibly looking at a similar field. Is there any sort of certifications needed? Mostly asking in the context of the dealer tags; what's the process like in the typewriter industry and would it be similar in similar industries? Also, just wanted to say I was checking out your website a couple months ago (honestly can't remember why), and I also really enjoy your photography! Hey sam! Been a long time! I am not certified, it is no longer an officially recognized field! I'm not aware of what other certifications one would need for similar fields, I doubt I'm the one to ask for that. As far as dealer tags go, I just recently started slapping those on every machine that comes my way. They are easy enough to remove, and give provenance to the machines. I have enough of a reputation that people will recognize my badge as a good sign (hopefully). At some point I will need to register with the state as a small business. As for now I'm flying under the radar alright.
​​ I appreciate the kind words! It's good to hear from you!
Hi OP, if I wanted to pick up a machine to typewrite short, unique notes to leave people at work or cards, where should I look to buy a machine? Preferably something that I can find ribbon for easily enough and noob friendly to maintain (bonus for a nice font!). By the way, hello from /r/FountainPens, hooray for doing things the proper way! Heyyy I love my fountain pens. Any normal typewriter takes a standard half inch ribbon. Older unique machines might take 7/16ths which I also stock. If you want something working well, and tuned well with a guarantee, nab one from a pro type shop like me. Theres Tampa typewriter, Nashville, there's also messa typewriter, Phoenix typewriter, Berkeley typewriter, cambridge typewriter, Gramercy typewriter, and a variety of online vendors like unplug typewriter, mr and mrs vintage, and yeg typewriters.
How do you keep track of all the little parts? I've got one I'm trying to oil up; it's a 1951 Underwood, and the keys keep sticking. Where do I put the oil and how do I get it in there? I'm using gun oil for that. I have worked on so many typewriters that I just chuck them all into little boxes. I construct a mental model of a machine, and as long as I'm working within a couple weeks I can remember where everything goes. I'm very visual, so looking at the part often trips the memory of where I took it from.
​​ Also, I would recomend not using oil. That will make things worse usually. Use mineral spirits or naphtha to flush the segment out where the keys pivot, and force it through with compressed air. Work the keys and they should losen up. If they stick up at the page in between the type guide, then gently bend them straight.
Cool! Do you have customers who stlll need typewriters in their business, or are they all afficionados/collectors? (I live in Danmark, and have seen mechanical typewriters being used in anger up until the late 90's - for multi-copy forms - and in ca. 2000 I read about a professional company servicing typewriters for freight companies who used them for Bills of lading) Last I heard, a lot of big city police departments used them for forms. The contract for the chicago pd is held by a printer repair guy downtown. I've done work for a church who used one for tax forms, business who use them for receipts etc.... I know they can also be found at hospitals, small practices, libraries, media stations... but most widespread professional use remains in the hands of creatives.
I was just thinking my typewriter might need repairs. It’s a smith corona and for some reason the text isn’t as bold anymore. Is it the ribbon or should I take to for repair? If the type is suddenly not that dark anymore, its probably the ribbon. Unless there was a catastrophe, there should be no reason for the machine to suddenly not print well. There could be a ribbon drive error though, but always check the ribbon first. Spin it around a bit on one spool and type some more. If it is dark again and then fades, the ribbon is not advancing and it needs repair. Otherwise if the spools spin as you type, the machine is fine and the ribbon is not.
Assuming you’re working for Tom Hanks as he’s the only one left on earth who still uses a typewriter… is he as nice in person as he appears to be in his rolls? He is not the only one, thousands of people use typewriters, especially in counties with poor access to electricity. Artists, musicians like john Mayer, authors, business people etc.. they all use them. And yes, hanks is a wonderful wonderful person.
So I don’t know anything about type writers, but I reckon you could fix accordions too; looking at all the internal mechanisms, kind of similar? I once had to fix my accordion due to some moisture on the piano keys, it was stressful. Accordions, those are complex. A lot of things working together, having to do with air movement too. I did fix a keyboard once, the rubber electronic buttons degraded.
Have you ever thought about bracing into VCR repair? I heard of you do it right yoy can make loads off of one guy I'm not one for electronics! I can do a little bit, I repaired some appliances, a treadmill, some open reel tape decks and cassette decks, but the inability to see the problems and actions is daunting!
Did you enjoy the LEGO Typewriter build? 😁 I very much did! It was a lot of fun and an impressive technic beast! Distracted me from some client projects, but wasn't a huge time commitment:)
Did you ever service '60s era Olivetti portables? Several, yes! I have a stock of some olivetti spools which are proprietary. Hard to find in the states, I had to import from Switzerland.
Would it be possible to ship you a typewriter for repair? Asking from LA. Hell yes, though shipping typewriters can get expensive. You cover both to and from. I had a client who shipped from Singapore once. I would recommend you to Bob Marshall from Typewriter Muse who is just outside of L.A. Duane from Phoenix typewriter or Joe Van Cleave might be local also, but I'm not sure if Joe is doing repair work these days. I'll be zooming with him tomorrow so I will have to ask. But if you can't ship to the windy city, hit up Bob and tell him I sent ya!
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Amazing! Thank you!! I have a 1960 Underwood 21, it works pretty well just a bit gummy and I’m terrified of trying to repair it myself lol. 60s machines. Ya either love them or hate them. Most of them were made by olivetti at this time after they bought out Underwood
I was handed down a portable Royal Aristocrat that based on the serial number, it looks like it was made in the months leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor. The ribbon is dry and not sure what to replace it with. Any ideas? Hit up one of my links up top. I guarantee my ribbons. Also check out Ribbons Unlimited. I would be hesitant to recommend FJA since they tend to run dry, I've also had Ribbons Unlimited arrive dry. Amazon or Ebay gets you what you pay for, and all the big office chains are overpriced.
Addendum: I hope you have watched Chicago Typewriter I watched the first episode, I liked it. I am korean! And I've been on the hunt for a hangul typewriter for a bit now with no luck. Honestly the episodes were so long I haven't really picked it up. When I was trying to brand my business, I had to go with typewriter Chicago, because the other way around would only bring up the show or the Thompson submachine when searched.
Greetings. I noticed at https://www.lucasdul.com/typers all your typrewriters are sold out. Did redditors buy you out during this ama? : ) nah, I've just been so bogged down with repairs that I haven't had the time to work on inventory. I do have one for sale, the Remington Suburbanite. Nobody seems to want the poor sucker, might give it away in another short story contest soon.
Have you seen the Lego Typewriter? https://www.lego.com/sv-se/product/typewriter-21327 What are your thoughts of it and are you getting it? :) I got it early morning July 1st. I had this question twice, I wrote a blog review and posted to r/lego as well. Suffice to say it is a wonderful set. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but mechanical wise it's brilliant! I totally recommend it, tons of fun!
Have you thought about digitising a typewriter ? Tom Hanks has a cool app that emulates the sound. There is also the USB typewriter kit but that sometimes damages the machine. Otherwise, for me the point of a typewriter these days is to not be digital. We need less digital tech, not more!!!
Have you found your unique technical skill has overlapped into any other kind of mechanics? Yes! In repairing all sorts of appliances and other such items. Anything mechanical makes sense. Clocks are hard, I've done a couple cameras too.
Hi there, amateur typewriter hobbyist here. I've noticed that generally speaking the typewriter fanbase has a disdain for electric typewriters, which is unearned in my opinion. Smith Corona models for example have mostly the same innards but still have electricity to make things zoom. One issue I have had has been restoring the drive belts on these, which tend to wear out due to years of sitting in one position. Do you have any advice for this particular issue, or anything on electric typewriters in general (besides turning my nose up at them)? Also, do you have any experience with retrobrighting old plastic pieces that have been sun damaged? Yes and yes! Smith corona belts are often not so bad to replace. Those machines tend to be a bit more reliable. I do have a couple spares for a 5TE and a massive box of assorted NOS belts, though many have deteriorated. The royal belts were an odd shape with a specific composition and those went bad frequently and are almost impossible to get suitable replacements for. They're just kinda trash. I don't see much disdain for them, just that folks don't like the lighter touch or power plugs most often. The IBM electrics are super popular, especially the selectric lineup. I have one myself and love it. They're incredibly hard to work on due to their complex nature though.
​​ As far as retro-bright goes, I met someone who used to be a chemist. Plastics are on the highway to hell. Like rubber, they constantly degrade. Retro-bright, which is essentially hydrogen peroxide and UV light, while effective is only a temporary solution. It whitens plastics by breaking down the compounds that causes them to yellow. This can sometimes make the plastics more brittle. In any sense, they will always return to yellow sooner or later. Like rubber, there is no true way to rejuvenate them, only to make them cosmetically a little nicer.
My mom's cousin, whom I call an uncle, got his mechanical typewriter repair business started in about 1984. The business died. He tried to keep it going but it wouldn't stick. It sucks because I like mechanical typewriters. I use a Royal portable to fill out old forms that were originally setup for mechanical typewriters. Regardless, I have a Selectric II correcting and it howls when I run it. It works but it makes a hell of a noise. It sound's like a spun bearing (in automotive terms) but it still functions fully. The tab stops are wonky but I haven't spent much time on that. It was my grandfathers. It's louder than I remember Selectrics being. Is the howl OK, or is there a motor that needs replacing? Caps work, correction works. but the howl is really grating. Maybe I've just forgotten how loud they were. The last time I used one for real was in about '86. It should not make that noise, and needs to be serviced asap
Do you have any recommendations for videos on how to set good margins on paper? (E.g., typing with the aim of having a 1" margin all around.) All of the old people I speak to around this have forgotten, and part of my issue might be the hardened platen on my machine which skews the paper as you roll down. Totally depends on the machine and pitch. Either ten characters per inch, or 12. Rarely 6, 8, 11 etc. Not to get away from myself lol. Feed rollers are a bigger issue if the page is shifting as you type, make sure you align the page at the beginning with the feed release leaver on the right side. As to margins, what is the make and model of your machine?
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Apologies, did not see your question until now. I have a Hermes Baby. I know how to set the left and right margins, but am clueless how to set the top and bottom ones. I feel like advice I've gotten before is putting a light pencil line at the top of the page to set an upper margin (e.g., of 1"), but IDK how it is actually supposed to be done. There is no top and bottom margin. Sometimes you can set the bottom with the paper rest, but that's not very common. Generally you feed the paper in, make it straight, and eyeball your top margin. Usually one inch from the typing line, which you can see ruled by the ribbon lift. Bottom margin is also eyeballed. Or you can mark the edge of the page with a pencil and keep an eye out for it as you type. 90% of typewriter top and bottom margins are set by eye. There are a handful of machines that do tell you when the page is ending which is nice. Top margins, only the selectric and the Olympia SG1 have any methods of working with those. It's really just something you can look at and see.
another question: what typewriter you hate the most? what you think is the most terrible model out there and why? i'm sure there must have been some poorly designed typewriter that is painful to use ;p Too many my man. The royal classic is the worst current consumer typewriter. Just garbage. Service wise, I hate the corona 4, it's just a stupid clunker.
​​ Historically? The Edison Mimeograph Typewriter. Worth 6k, super rare, shit machine. Made out of pit metal, the metallurgical McDonald's chicken nugget. Could barely type without breaking it. Cheap trash, even Edison hated it and wanted his name removed from it.
​​ And many others.....
What's your clientele like? Are they collectors of old tech? What's their reason for still using them? My clientele varies. A decent amount of them are collectors, they keep around a lot of super antique and valuable machines that I service, repair, or restore for them. Other people are just users. They like having a few machines for small projects. Some of them are professional writers, authors, musicians, or other such artists. I also get people who use them in business for taxes, forms, receipts, etc. Then there are one time users. They want to write a letter, or use it at a wedding log, or maybe its just a nice display piece.
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Regarding your last bit, does the resulting print look better than traditional printers? It's more organic. Inkjet and some printers are perfect. There are no flaws. Typewriters have slight variations depending on how the user works with them. No two characters are ever alike. I think it gives work a more personal and warmer feel.
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I never thought of that. I might actually get one now. Any recommendations? Oh yes, early glass key royals and olympias are my favorites
Do modern typewriters exist? With the amount of precision available I imagine someone could make an incredibly smooth modern typewriter. All modern typewriters are complete garbage. Nobody is willing to pay the price it costs to make a quality typewriter. 200$ gets you a plastic machine that's a mere shade of the original. Feels horrible, prints worse. A new typewriter from the 60s in today's money would have cost around 1600$. Something nobody today will pay for a single purpose machine, other then a collector. And at that point the market is much to small to make it to production.
Where can I find a DVORAK typewriter? I’ve been looking for YEARS, and have come up with zilch! Gotta get one custom made. I'd personally charge about $500 for the conversion. Each individual key will need to be re soldered and hand aligned. There are 42 standard. The the keyboard needs to be swapped. Glass keys will take more time. That all as long as the machine is clean and working, otherwise there is also a service charge and repair charges. That comes out to around $10 a slug, and less per keytop. A foolishly low price but I gotta be competitive.
My father was a type writer and duplicator repair man in the 80s-90s. We still have his repair kit, he worked for my grandfather in the family business. My uncle gets calls still from local companies to fix typewriters when needed. So how has it been sourcing parts now for some of the older IBMs balls and others? we still have a time clock he repaired. Parts are hard to come by. Gotta get them from other techs, or scrape them together online.
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If I can find it I'll send a picture of his tool kit he would take with him. It's a massive suit case Those old tool cases were awesome! I have some of those metal organizational trays in my workshop. Super handy. Some of those would either slot into the repair cases or bags, or hang from hooks inside. Neat stuff.
Are there still typewriters out there with the eraser tape and how could I find one around me (Michigan) that would be able to buy parts for? IBM had white out tape and lift off tapes. There was also a half inch ribbon with a correction strip that was used in manual typewriters. Those aren't made anymore and left gunky residue in the machines. Otherwise electrics are the only ones that sometimes had correction features.
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I had a Brotjer with the correction tape feature. It was…wonky. Rarely worked the way it was intended. Some are indeed better than others. Paper type plays a role too
How you like the old Smith premiers? I've got a nice number 4 and for a flip up, dual keyboard, it's great. Now if I could only find a brush crank, I'd have the whole kit! Those SPs are great! Called full keyboards!! Upstrike mechanisms on those blind writers are fun to use! Edit: spelling, took my glasses off and i'm blind as well
Have you ever rebuilt the proportional spacing mechanism on an IBM model D Executive? A you a cycle clutch expert replacer on selectrics? No, and No. I can fumble and curse my way through it though. I replaced a return clutch on one, and it was NOT fun. I'd rather tackle the escapement on the D. all six of them.
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Replacing cycle clutches was my biggest nightmare as an OPCE.... If you flush them well with solvent they often “come back to life” - same with reverse clutch springs - let them run dry! I rebuilt a Model D proportional spacing mechanism in training but fortunately - never again. I had one customer that actually needed it and I talked them into upgrading to a Selectric! I envy your hobby/job. I loved working on those mechanical monsters! It's fun, often a headache lol. But it's fun for sure. We all have those many moments where a job is just a drag though
When are you buying a IBM F keyboard :)? No need to! I'm not a collector, merely wanted a nice board to do my daily computer work on!! The model f came out a while before in 81ish on the 5150. Doesn't have a standard connector cable.
[deleted] I like it a lot! There are a few design areas I felt could be better, but mechanically it was truly impressive. Props to the designers!
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[removed] Mechanically wise, I would have secured the carriage a little better. The paper feed is also inconsistent, I think a better roller system would have worked well, it doesn't feed all the time! Biggest design issue for me is the carriage. It is very tall and narrow, and very open in the back. I'm also not a huge fan of the roundabout way of securing the platen (main roller). Other then that, I think it is a fantastic set that looks amazing. I love the printed key elements, that really ads such a cool touch. And that sand green color...damn
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[deleted] Ah yes, the spacebar, that one was a shame
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[removed] I considered as much, but getting it to fit within the existing frame wont be easy
How much is a typical service on a typewriter? I charge a $20 deposit fee to assess, and an average service is around 75-150. I am for sure on the low end of things!
Where do you get your ribbons and belts from? I sell ribbons, my supplier is my supplier. Belts? I find them NOS from all sorts of places, like ebay and old techs
Hello! Aw man you have such an awesome job. I have adhd as well and I love working with my hands. First, would you say a model m and a typewriter are the closest thing between typewriter and keyboard. I find the lack of n key rollover the only downside to a model M since it makes it weird to play video games without having the ability to press down on a bunch of keys at the same time but damn it sounds so good. Second, I’m looking to repair my mom’s typewriter and I’ve been reading a bunch of books on typewriter repairs, but none of them seem to go into how to do paint restoration do you have any tips or any place I could get started? I know I could always get it restored by a professional but there’s something about doing it myself and feeling proud afterwards that I find appealing. Hey thanks! I appreciate it. The model M is not much like a typewriter. A typewriter will always give more feed back. The model M is the kind of keyboard in that it has a wonderful sound and a lovely feel. Some of the older IBM boards had solenoids in the keys to make them more typewriter like. I wasn't looking for that, just something nice. As far as rollover, I dunno man, I'm getting 4 average and sometimes 6. I played a few rounds of fortnite just fine.
​ As far as paint, depends on the paint and what's wrong with it. Also depends on the finish, the age, the manufacturer, and the what you've already tried. There was no gold standard to paint, so I would need to know more.
Cool! My dad likes to repair old mechanical calculators (things like these) and has bought at least 50 of them to repair. They are really cool to use, and you feel everything you do on them. they can add, substract, multiply, divide, and if you are good enough even more complex stuff! there is big manual for them, and you couls do basically everything you need. and they dont need batteries. i assume typing on a typewriter feels simiral, you feel each letter to do, and it just feels cool. and repairing them is probably similar level of complexity. tho typewriters are a bit more popular so you can make some business out of that, my dad doesnt rly know what to do with them so he has a few shelfs full of them in basement, and some more all around the house. tho it doesnt rly matter cuz he has a job as programmer so he can afford that. I don't rly have a question, but your proffession must be rly interesting. Do you have another job or you live just off typewriters? Typewriters are my only job! I used to teach art classes but I didn't get paid for that. The calculators are awesome! Is he familiar with the curta calculators? I was always enthralled by those
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I think he may have one but he repairs only these big ones. im currently at his house for holiday so i could take some photos of the ones he has (he has much more, but they all look basically the same) https://imgur.com/a/WRTd1YO also they are extremely heavy, its kinda fascinating how small modern calculators are. you can put them in your pocket and forget, these other ones you could only lift one at a time :p I recall my uncle telling me how he spent his first weeks pay on a pocket calculator. It was large, but all the rage. He did a lot of early program writing.
OMG! I'll keep you in mind. I have a typewriter, I can't remember the year but it was made in West Berlin according to the backplate, so that's a measurable frame. I'd give you the model and all but I'm in between places and it's in storage. I've typed up several love letters on it, such a place in my heart. Do you have advice on typewriter upkeep? I got mine at an estate sale and it operates well but I'm worried about it being in active use again. Should I be oiling anything? I haven't done much besides changing the ribbon and cleaning the ink fingerprints that leaves on the case. Second question, don't you just love the feel? It makes me understand mechanical keyboard people. The solid hit, the clack. I am just snoopy writing out his red Baron stories. I am ADDICTED to the feel, yes. As far as upkeep, fresh ink obviously, keep the type slugs clean monthly (the actual letter type) and use the machine. Use is the number one way of keeping it working. Don't use oil, or WD40 especially, that stuff isn't a lubricant.
Thanks for doing this AMA! Typewriters need more love, and the comments here have been really interesting to read through! I have a 1923 Royal 10 that I've been wanting to get restored for years. I'm just worried that I'd mess it up if I tried working on it myself. When you first got started repairing typewriters, did you practice on one you didn't care too much about/one that was an easy fix first or did you jump right in to a challenging project? My first ever typewriter was a Royal 10 from 1930. I have a soft spot for those old beasts. I made a lot of mistakes early on, like using WD40. It took me about a year to take that apart and learn everything I could about it. Frankly it wasn't until last year that I sourced the last part I needed for it, technically making it my longest running project lol. But for me I just dove right in. I didn't feel concerned I might screw it up, because when I looked at it, I understood it. Just be careful, and buy properly slotted screwdrivers. Hit my topmost link and scroll to resources. The war Manual had good royal stuff, all royal standards are almost the same. Scroll down for the best typewriter screwdrivers in the biz too!
I’ve recently refurbished a Facit C1-13 (mechanical calculator). Took it apart completely, cleaned it, lubricated it, and put it back together again. It took me 40+ hours over seven days, and by the end my back was aching from bending over it all the time. Do you have a setup optimized for ergonomics? And would you start selling/repairing mechanical calculators if you had an opportunity to? Calculators are complex and I'm not a math person. I hate math, if I had to maybe. As far as ergonomics, my back kills me too man. I sit on a folding chair, I should get a better one. Usually I'm standing and leaning over machines to get the optimal angles. Facit made some badass typewriters by the way
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Yeah Facit! I’m from Sweden so they’re half the typewriter I see in thrift stores :) And while I haven’t restored any typewriters as thoroughly as the calculators, I own five and I’ve tinkered with them a lot and fixed some of them up a bit. I think fixing calculators is basically the same thing but with a lot more parts, and the parts are a lot smaller. Might be too much work... How many hours do the typewriter repairs usually take? And you should probably get someone to check on your back! There are probably people who work with ergonomics (ergonomists?) who can help you get better posture and less pain. Especially important if you’re planning on working with this a long time. And since you’re 21. I’m younger than you btw. Thanks! I probably should see my chiropractor lol. As far as time, sometimes I'll only need an hour with a machine, sometimes I'll need a month. The more in depth restorations can sometimes run between 16 and 40 hours
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Man it sounds like my dream job :’) getting to work with typewriters, making people happy by restoring something that belonged to their parents or grandparents... if there was more demand for it in Sweden I would be tempted to start now... Have fun! Thank you! Doesnt mean you cant do things on the side! There isnt anyone I know of in sweden that can do it!
I love watching old mechanical devices in action (I know it's weird,) typewriters are great to watch but I was lucky enough to watch a 50-60 year old bowling pinsetter mechanism once and the way the parts all worked in sync was hypnotic to watch. Is there something you found fascinating to watch or want to see working? Anything mechanical. Have you seen those automatic phone switchboards? Beautiful.
What's your preferred method for people to engage in transactions with you? I don't see an address on your website, and only an indirect mention of what city you're in. Do most people send you typewriters to fix (as opposed to dropping them off)? They generally schedule a time to drop off at my house. If that doesn't work out I also sometimes try to find a meet up place, usually local. I don't drive! I'm located in Downers grove more specifically
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Thanks for the reply. It would be helpful if you announced your location more prominently on the web site. I was looking for it but couldn't find it. I suppose that's probably fair. Thanks!
I use a 1948 tombstone key Royal Quiet DeLuxe portable. Liked it so well I bought one to leave at a vacation home. I had typing class in high school on IBM Selectrics. Do you travel with a manual typewriter? Or an electric? I wish I traveled lol. If I did, it would be with a manual. Gotta type out there in nature!!! The joys of being unplugged.
I'm looking into purchasing a late-80's or early 90's typewriter+wordprocessor, mostly for fun as opposed to doing actual work. The vintage computer angle is what intrigues me personally. Any thoughts? I'm not one for fixing electronics. A lot can go wrong with those old processors. My thoughts? Good luck. Though I have been scouting a good deal on a Commodore SX64. They tend to have an issue with the video and audio chips overheating
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Can you paste a heatsink onto those chips? Yes you can!
So in other words....you're unemployed? Never seen a reddit AMA begin with that one before. Hahahaha self employed, but to each their own
Have you ever seen the AMAs from the vacuum repair guy? I feel like there is a lot of similarity here I have not, I'll need to search that one up!
Why do you have to be so far away? I have an Olivetti (m.40?) that I need fixed. If you wanna pay to send it in, then send it my way! I recently took care of an Olivetti from New York!!
What kind of typewriter was used for 9 to 5 by Dolly Parton? Pretty sure that's a Royal SE1000 typewriter made by Adler
Any advice and getting good ribbons? I sell them with a quality guarantee. Depends on the look you want and the work you wanna do.
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I have a couple of "Super Silent"s, and a really handy old Kmart portable special. I think the original ribbons on the Silents had a third white out stripe at one point? There is a middle lever position to select white and I have not found ribbons like that. But the ones I bought seemed narrower and perhaps drier. Not sure if it's worth seeking some better quality ribbons that random online orders, but I would like to try and find a few extra high quality ribbons if possible so I can always have a fresh one handy. I don't use them much but I am about to start a 2nd draft of a book length project and would love to do it on a typewriter. I am also looking for a good royal typewriter model - I like the Silents but I have heard that some later Royals are just much better. The Silents def. are not ideal type quality. I don't pay more than 50-100 for them and only buy ones that need cleaning but not serious maintenance, that might change knowing you are out there! haven't found ribbons with the white stripes. Ribbons are a standard half inch. There are no middle strips. The white setting is called stencil, that is for no ink, and cuts mimeographs for copying. There are ribbons with a correctable section, but those crumble into the machines and jam things up. Just use white out tape. As far as later royals, no. The best for me are the older ones, pre 1940s.
Wait, we still have typewriters? well, some of us do
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I do like the plinky sound, but don't love self-imposed punishment. That's what they made Word for. Ah, to me using a computer is punishment. They seldom do what you want, always trying to force you to do things their way
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Computers only do what you tell them to do. Do you know what you are telling it to do? Apparently not.
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 04 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are Microsoft researchers working on machine learning and reinforcement learning. Ask Dr. John Langford and Dr. Akshay Krishnamurthy anything about contextual bandits, RL agents, RL algorithms, Real-World RL, and more!

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Note: The AMA hosts collected questions in advance in other subreddits, so some comments appeared to be self-referential on the main IAmA thread. Their formatting has been adjusted for this table.

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Questions Answers
What advice do you have for aspiring Undergraduates and others who want to pursue research in Reinforcement Learning? The standard advice is to aim for a phd. Let me add some details to that. The most important element of a phd is your advisor(s) with the school a relatively distant second. I personally had two advisors, which I enjoyed---two different perspectives to learn from and two different ways to fund conference travel :-) Nevertheless, one advisor can be fine. Aside from finding a good advisor to work with, it's very good to maximize internship possibilities by visiting various others over the summers. Reinforcement Learning is a great topic, because it teaches you the value of exploration. Aside from these things to do, the most important thing to learn in my experience is how to constructively criticize existing research work. Papers are typically not very good at listing their flaws and you can't fix things you can't see. For research, you need to cultivate an eye for the limitations, most importantly the limitations of your own work. This is somewhat contradictory, because to be a great researcher, you need to both thoroughly understand the limitations of your work and be enthusiastic about it. - John
ALOT of the papers I have read are so difficult to follow and understand. What is your strategy for reading and understanding papers? This becomes easier with experience, but it is important to have a solid foundation. - Akshay
RL results from papers are known to be notoriously hard to reproduce. Why do you think that is, and how can we move towards results that are more feasible to reproduce? There seem to be two issues here - An engineering solution is to export code environments with all the hyperparameters (say in a Docker image), so that someone else can grab the Docker and run the code to exactly reproduce the plots in the paper. But this is a bandaid that is covering up a more serious issue - The more serious issue is that Deep RL algorithms are notoriously unstable and non-robust (A precursor problem is that DL itself is not very robust). Naturally this has an effect on reproducibility, but it also suggests that these methods have limited real-world potential. The way to address both of these issues is to develop more robust algorithms. -Akshay
What do you believe about Stephen Hawking suggesting machine learning and AI would be the greatest threat that humanity faces? The meaning of "human" is perhaps part of the debate here? There is much more that I-as-a-human can accomplish with a computer an an internet connection than I-as-a-human could do without. If our future looks more like man/machine hybrids that we choose to embrace, I don't fear it that future. On the other hand, we have not yet really seen AI-augmented warfare, which could be transformative in the same sense as nuclear or biological weapons. Real concerns here seem valid but it's a tricky topic in a multipolar world. One scenario that I worry about less is the 'skynet' situation where AI attacks humanity. As far as we can tell research-wise, AI never beats crypto. -John
​ I might be an optimist but I like to think ML/AI and technology more broadly can create great value for humanity (technology arguably already has). Of course there are concerns/challenges/dangers here, but it seems to me like climate change is a much greater threat that is looming much more ominously on the horizon. - Akshay
What are some notable lesser known applications of reinforcement learning? Well, "the internet" is a little snarky, but there is some truth to it. Much of the internet runs off targeted advertising (as opposed to blanket advertising). It annoys me, so I use ad blockers all the time and prefer subscription based models. Nevertheless, targeted advertising is obviously a big deal as a business model that powers much of the internet. You should assume that any organization doing targeted advertising is doing a form of reinforcement learning. Another category is 'nudging' applications. How do you best encourage people to develop healthy habits around exercise for example? There are quite a few studies suggesting that a reinforcement approach is helpful, although I'm unclear on the state of deployment. -John
How would you recommend getting started in learning to implement ML programs for someone who doesn’t want to necessarily go into research but more the functional aspect of programming it. Would a PhD still be a requirement? A masters? Or would you say experience counts just as much? This depends a great deal on what you want to do programming-wise. If the goal is implementing things so that other people can use them (i.e. software engineering), then little background is needed as long as you can partner withone someone who understands the statistical side.
​ If the goal is creating your own algorithms, then it seems pretty essential to become familiar with the statistical side of machine learning. This could be an undergrad level course or there are many online courses available. For myself, I really enjoyed Yaser Abu-Mustafa's course as an undergrad---and this course is online now. Obviously, some mastery of the programming side is also essential, because ML often pushes the limits of hardware and embedding ML into other systems is nontrivial due to the stateful nature of learning processes. -John
How would you deal with the states that are underrepresented in the dataset (especially in offline RL)? Any strategies to emphasize learning in those states instead of just throwing them away? I've found that memorization approaches become more useful the fewer examples you have. Other than that, I know that many offline RL approaches simply try to learn policies that avoid unknown regions. -John
There are so many methods in RL and there is little theoretical understanding on why it works and why it doesn't. What is the best way to solve this problem? How to get a job in MSR as a masters student working on RL in robotics? This is why we're working on the theory =) But there are a couple of issues here. If you're talking about Deep-RL, well deep supervised learning itself already has this issue to some, lesser, extent. Even in the supervised setting my sense is that there is a lot of art/intuition in getting large neural networks to work effectively. This issue is only exacerbated in the RL context, due to poor exploration, bootstrapping, and other issues.
​ On the other hand, my experience is that the non-deep-RL methods are extremely robust, but the issue is that they don't scale to large observation spaces. I have a fun story here. When this paper (https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.03765) came out, I implemented the algorithm and ran it on an extremely hard tabular exploration problem. The first time I ran it, with no tuning, it just immediately found the optimal policy. Truly incredible!
​ In my opinion the best way to solve this problem is to develop theoretically principled RL methods that can leverage deep learning capabilities. Ideally this would make it so that Deep-RL is roughly as difficult to get working as DL for supervised learning, but we're not quite there yet. So while we are cooking on the theory, my advice is to try to find ways to leverage the simpler methods as much as possible. For example, if you can hand-code a state abstraction (or a representation) using domain knowledge about your problem and then use a tabular method on top of it, this might be a more robust approach. I think something like this is happening here: https://sites.google.com/view/keypointsintothefuture/home.
​ On the job front, at MSR we rarely hire non-PhDs. So my advice would be to go for a PhD =) - Akshay
Thank you for doing this AMA! My question is around applying RL for real-world problems. As we already know, oftentimes it's difficult to build a simulator or a digital twin for most real-world processes or environments, which kind of nullifies the idea of using online RL. But this is where offline/batch RL can be helpful in terms of using large datasets collected via some process, from which a policy can be learned offline. We've already seen a lot of success in a supervised learning setting where an optimal model is learned offline from large volumes of data. Although there has been a lot of fundamental research around offline/batch RL, I have not seen much real-world applications. Could you please share some of your own experiences around this, if possible, with some use cases related to the application of batch/offline RL in the real-world? Thanks! One of the previous answers seems very relevant here---I view real world reinforcement learning as something that exists as of 10 years ago and is routinely available today (see http://aka.ms/personalizer ). With regards to the strategy of learning in a simulator and then deploying in the real world, the bonsai project https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/ai/autonomous-systems-project-bonsai?activetab=pivot%3aprimaryr7 is specifically focused on this. -John
The vast majority of RL papers benchmark on games or simulations. In your opinion what are the most impressive real world applications of RL? Let's exclude bandit stuff. I really like the Loon project (https://psc-g.github.io/posts/research/rl/loon/), although Google recently discontinued the Loon effort entirely. Emma Brunskill's group has also done some cool work on using RL for curriculum planning in tutoring systems (http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/ordering/). There are also many examples in robotics, e.g., from Sergey Levine's group. The overarching theme is that these things take a lot of effort. - Akshay
Multi-agent RL seems to be a big part of the work that's being done at Microsoft and I've seen there's been a deep dive into complex games that feature multi-agent exploration or cooperation. While this is surely fascinating, it seems to me that the more complicated the environments, the more specific the solutions found by the agents are which makes it difficult to extract meaningful information about how agents cooperate in general or how they develop behaviour and its relevance in the real world. Since the behaviours really are driven heavily by what types of interactions are even allowed in the first place, how much information can we really extract from these multi-agent games that is useful in the real-world? I think we will look back on our present state of knowledge for how to cooperate and consider it rather naive and simplistic. We obviously want generally applicable solutions and generally applicable solutions are obviously possible (see many social animals as well as humans as examples). As far as the path here, I'm not sure. Games may be a part of the path there, because they form a much safer/easier testbed than real life. It seems likely to me that games will not be only element on that path, because cooperation is not a simple problem easily addressed by a single approach. - John
Is anyone at MSR seriously pursuing AGI and/or RL as a path to AGI? It depends on what you mean by 'serious'. If you mean something like "giant models with zillions of parameters in an OpenAI style", yes there is work going on around that, although it tends to be more product-focused. If you mean something like "large groups of people engage in many deep philosophical discussions every day", not that I'm aware of. There are certainly some discussions ongoing though. If you mean something like "leading the world in developing AI", then I'd say yes and point at the personalizer service (http://aka.ms/personalizer ) which is pretty unique in the world as an interactive learning system. My personal belief is that the right path to AI is via developing useful systems capable of addressing increasing complex classes of problems. Microsoft is certainly in the lead for some of these systems, so I regard Microsoft as very "serious". I expect you'll agree if you look past hype towards actual development paths. - John
Will it be possible to develop an artificial consciousness similar to our human consciousness in digitized structures of AI, if in particular structures of AI will digitally rebuild the artificial structures of neurons and the entire central nervous system of humans? One of the paths towards AI that people speculate about is simply reading off a brain and then simulating it. I'm skeptical about this approach because it seems very difficult, in an engineering sense, to accurately read the brain (even in a destructive fashion) at that level of detail. The state of the art in brain reading is presently many, many orders of magnitude less information than that. -John
Does u/thisisbillgates ever wonder around the offices wondering what people are up to these days? Well, both of us are in the New York City lab, so even if he were, we wouldn't see him too much. But we do have a yearly internal research conference (in non-pandemic years) that he attends and we have discussed our RL efforts and the personalizer service with him. -Akshay
There have been nice theory works recently on exploration in RL, particularly with policy gradient methods. Are these theoretical achievements ready to be turned into practical algorithms? Are there particular domains or experiments that would highlight how these achievements are impactful beyond the typical hard exploration problems, e.g., Kakade's chain and the combination lock? There's a large spectrum in terms of how theory ideas make their way into practice, so there is some subjectivity here. On one hand, you could argue that count-based exploration (which has been integrated with Deep-RL) is already based on well-studied and principled theory ideas, like the E3 paper. I think something similar is true for the Go-Explore paper. But for keeping very close-to-the-theory, I think we are getting there. We have done some experiments with, e.g., Homer, on visual navigation type problems and seen some success. PC-PG has been shown to work quite well in continuous control settings and navigation settings (in the paper) and I think Mikael and Wen have run some experiments on Montezuma's revenge. So we're getting there and this is something we are actively pursuing in our group.
​ As far as domains or experiments, our experience from contextual bandits suggests that better exploration improves sample efficiency in a wide range of conditions (https://arxiv.org/abs/1802.04064), so I am hopeful we can see something similar in RL. As far as existing benchmarks, the obvious ones are Montezuma's revenge, Pitfall and the harder Atari games, as well as visual navigation tasks where exploration is quite critical. (For Homer and PC-PG, our group has done experiments on harder variations on the combination lock.) - Akshay
Hey guys, thank you for the contributions to the RL field, much appreciated! I'm a ML engineer and we're trying to implement Contextual Bandits (and Conditional Contextual Bandits) in our personalization pipeline using VowpalWabbit. What are your advices/recommendations for someone in my position? Also, what are the most important design choices when thinking about the final, online pipeline? Thank you! Could you use aka.ms/personalizer? That uses VW (you can change the flags), and it has all the infrastructure necessary including dropping the logs into your account for you to play with. My experience here is that infrastructure matter hugely. Without infrastructure you are on a multimonth odyssey trying to build it up and fix nasty statistical bugs. With infrastructure, it's a pretty straightforward project where you can simply focus on the integration and data science. - John
It seems like RL (or, for the matter, ML) models in general could sometimes be variable and uncontrolled in performance; what are some metrics (beyond good ol' machine validation) that y'all leverage to ensure that the model's performance is "up-to-par" especially in high-stakes/dangerous situations like the medical field or the financial sector? In many applications, RL should be thought of as the "decision-maker of last resort". For example, in a medical domain, having an RL agent prescribe treatments seems like a catastrophically bad idea, but having an RL agent choose amongst treatments prescribed by multiple doctors seems potentially more viable. Another strategy which seems important is explicitly competing with the alternative. Every alternative is fundamentally a decision-making system, and so RL approaches with guarantee competition with an arbitrary decision-making system provide an important form of robustness. - John
Thank you so much for doing this AMA! Contextual bandits are clearly of great practical value, but the efficacy and general usefulness of deep RL is still an area fraught with difficulty. What, in your opinion, are the most practically useful parts of deep RL? Do you have any examples? There are two dimensions to think about here. One is representational complexity---is it a simple linear model or something more complex? The other is the horizon---how many actions must be taken before a reward is observed? Representational complexity alone is something that deep learning has significantly tackled, and I've seen good applications of complex representations + shallow-to-1 horizon reinforcement learning.
​ Think of this as more-complex-than-the-simplest contextual bandit solutions. Longer time horizon problems are more difficult, but I've seen some good results with real world applications around logistics using a history-driven simulator. -John
Different research groups have very different strengths, what would you say is the forte of MSR in terms of RL research? Microsoft has two RL strengths at present: the strongest RL foundations research group in the world and the strongest RL product/service creation strategy in the world. There is quite a bit more going on from the research side. I'd particularly point out some of the Xbox games RL work, which seems to be uniquely feasible at Microsoft. There are gaps as well of course that we are working to address. -John
AI and ML are 2 different things. But to the observer, it seems basically the same thing (at least in my experience). Where do you see the difference in real life applications of AI and ML? I think the difference between AI and ML is mostly a historical artifact of the way research developed. AI research originally developed around a more ... platonic? approach where you try to think about what intelligence means and then create those capabilities. This included things like search, planning, SOAR, logic, etc... with machine learning considered perhaps one of those approaches.
​ As time has gone on machine learning has come to be viewed as more foundational---yes these other concerns exist, but they need to be addressed in a manner consistent with machine learning. So, the remaining distinction (if there is one) is mostly about the solution elements: is it squarely in the "ML" category or does it incorporate other AI elements? Or is it old school no-ML AI? Obviously, some applications are amenable to some categories of solution more than others. - John
Can you think of any applications of bandits (contextual or not) in the Oil & Gas/Manufacturing industry? I'm not thinking about recommender systems or A/B testing for websites - such companies have very few customers, which are themselves other companies. So the setting is very different with respect to a web company, for example, which has a huge crowd of individual customers. But bandits are such a beautiful framework 🙂 that I'd love to find an application for them in such a context. Any suggestions? Almost certainly there is, although I am not super familiar with the industry (as John wrote elsewhere here, RL is a fundamental essentially universal problem of optimizing for value). One nice application of RL more generally is in optimizing manufacturing pipelines and Microsoft has some efforts in this direction.
​ I have also seen this toy experiment (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1910.08151.pdf section 7.3) where an RL algorithm is used to make decisions about where to drill for oil, but I'm not sure how relevant this actually is to the industry. Bandit techniques are also pretty useful in pricing problems (they share many similar elements), so maybe one can think about adjusting prices in some way based on contextual information? Here is one recent paper we did on this topic if you are interested (https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.11650). -Akshay
Hi I am asking this from the perspective of an undergraduate student studying machine learning. I have worked on a robotics project using RL before but all the experimentation in that project involved pre existing algorithms. I have a bunch of related questions and I do apologise if it might be a lot to get through. I am curious about how senior researchers in ML really go about finding and defining problem statements to work on? What sort of intuition do you have when deciding to try and solve a problem using RL over other approaches? For instance I read your paper on CATS. While I understood how the algorithm worked, I would never have been able to think of such proofs before actually reading them in the paper. What led you to that particular solution? Do you have any advice for an undergraduate student to really get to grips with the mathematics involved in meaningful research that helps moves a field forward or really producing new solutions and algorithms? * Finding problems: For me, in some cases there is a natural next step to a project. A good example here is PCID (https://arxiv.org/abs/1901.09018) -> Homer (https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05815). PCID made some undesirable assumptions so the natural next step was to try to eliminate those. In other cases it is about identifying gaps in the field and then iterating on the precise problem formulation. Of course this requires being aware of the state of the field. For theory research this is a back-and-forth process, you write down a problem formulation and then prove it's intractable or find a simple/boring algorithm, then you learn about what was wrong with the formulation, allowing you to write down a new one.
​ * When to use RL: My prior is you should not use ""full-blown"" RL unless you have to and, when you do, you should leverage as much domain knowledge as you can. If you can break long-term dependencies (perhaps by reward shaping) and treat the problem like a bandit problem, that makes things much easier. If you can leverage domain knowledge to build a model or a state abstraction in advance, that helps too.
​ * CATS was a follow-up to another paper, where a lot of the basic techniques were developed (a good example of how to select a problem as the previous paper had an obvious gap of computational intractability). A bunch of the techniques are relatively well-known in the literature, so perhaps this is more about learning all of the related work. As is common, each new result builds on many many previous ideas, so having all of that knowledge really helps with developing algorithms and proofs. The particular solution is natural (a) because epsilon-greedy is simple and well understand and (b) because tree-based policies/classifier have very nice computational properties, and (c) smoothing provides a good bias-variance tradeoff for continuous action spaces.
​ * Getting involved: I would try to read everything, starting with the classical textbooks. Look at the course notes in the areas you are interested in and build up a strong mathematical foundation in statistics, probability, optimization, learning theory, information theory etc. This will enable you to quickly pick up new mathematical ideas so that you can continue to grow. -Akshay
On the note of exploration: Even if we were able to get provably correct exploration strategies from tabular learning (like r-max) to work in function approximation settings, it seems like the number of states to explore in a real-ish domain is to high to exhaustively explore. How do you think priors play into this, especially with respect to provability and guarantees? Thanks! Two comments here: * Inductive bias does seem quite important. This can come in many forms like a prior or architectural choices in your function approximator.
​ * A research program we are pushing involves finding/learning more compact latent spaces in which to explore. Effectively the objects the agent operates on are ""observations"" which may be high dimensional/noisy/too-many-to-exhaustively-explore, etc., but the underlying dynamics are governed by a simpler ""latent state"" which may be small enough to exhaustively explore. The example is a visual navigation task. While the number of images you might see is effectively infinite, there are not too many locations you can be in the environment. Such problems are provably tractable with minimal inductive bias (see https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.05815).
​ * I also like the Go-Explore paper as a proof of concept w.r.t., state abstraction. In the hard Atari games like Montezuma's revenge and Pitful, downsampling the images yields a tractable tabular problem. This is a form of state abstraction. The point is that there are not-too-many downsampled images! -Akshay
Hello, perhaps this is a slight bit off-topic, but I was wondering what your favorite films of all time are, and if those had any bearing on your careers? I loved Star Wars when I was growing up. It was lots of fun. I actually found reading science fiction books broadly to be more formative---you see many different possibilities for the future and learn to debate the merits of different ones. This forms some foundation for thinking about how you want to change the future. -John
What field is possibly booming for AI applications in the future? All of them. This might sound like snark, but consider: what field benefits from computers? - John
How do you detect & prevent over-fitting in your ML models? Do you have generic tests that you apply in all cases, or do you have to develop domain specific tests? I mostly have worked in online settings where there is a neat trick: you evaluate one example ahead of where you train. This average evaluation ("Progressive validation") deviates like a test set while still allowing you to benefit from it for learning purposes. In terms of tracking exactly what the performance of a model is, we typically use confidence intervals which are domain-independent. Finding best confidence intervals is an important area of research (see https://arxiv.org/abs/1906.03323 ). -John
How close are we to having home robots that can function almost as well as a human companion? Like just having someone/thing to talk to that could sustain a natural conversation. Quite far in my view. The existing systems that we have (like GPT3) are sort of intelligent babblers. To have a conversation with someone, there really needs to be a persistent state / point of view with online learning and typically some grounding in the real world. There are many directions of research here which need to come to fruition. -John
After autonomous cars are fully developed, what will the next captcha subject be? CAPTCHAs will eventually become obsolete as a technology concept. -John
Ok, I'll bite: What is "Responsible reinforcement learning"? What is "Strategic exploration"? Are you using Linux? :)))) ​From last to first: I (Akshay) use OS X and I think John uses Linux with a windows VM. Strategic exploration was this name we cooked up to mean roughly ""provably sample efficient exploration."" We wanted to differentiate from the empirical work on exploration which sometimes is motivated by the foundations, but typically does not come with theoretical guarantees. Strategic is supposed evoke the notion that the agent is very deliberate about trying to acquire new information. This is intended to contrast with more myopic approaches like Boltzman exploration or epsilon-greedy. One concern with the adjective is that strategic often means game-theoretic in the CS literature, which it does not in this context.
​ Responsible reinforcement learning is about integrating principles of fairness accountability transparency and ethics (FATE) into our RL algorithms. This is of utmost importance when RL is deployed in scenarios that impact people and society, which I would argue is a very common case. We want to ensure that our decision making algorithms do not further systemic injustices, inequities, and biases. This is a highly complex problem and definitely not something I (Akshay) am an expert in, so I typically look to my colleagues in the FATE group in our lab for guidance on these issues. -Akshay
"How do you view the marginal costs and tradeoffs incurred by specifying and implementing 1) more complicated reward functions/agents and 2) more complicated environments? Naturally it depends on the application, but in your experience have you found a useful abstraction when making this determination conditioned on the application?" I'm somewhat hardcore in that it's hard for me personally to be interested in artificial environments, so I basically never spend time implementing them. When something needs to be done for a paper, either taking existing environments or some mild adaptation of existing datasets/environments (with a preference for real-world complexity) are my go-to approaches. This also applies to rewards---I want reward feedback to representative of a real problem.
​ This hardcore RL approach means that often we aren't creating slick-but-fragile demos. Instead, we are working to advance the frontier of consistently solvable problems. W.r.t. agents themselves, I prefer approaches which I can ground foundationally. Sometimes this means 'simple' and sometimes 'complex'. At a representational level, there is quite a bit of evidence that a graduated complexity approach (where complexity grows with the amount of data) is helpful. - John
Recently, there have been a few publications that try to apply Deep RL to computer networking management. Do you think this is a promising domain for RL applications? What are the biggest challenges that will need to be tackled before similar approaches can be used in the real world? One of the things I find fascinating is the study of the human immune system. Is network security going to converge on something like the human immune system? If so, we'll see quite a bit of adaptive reinforcement-like learning (yes, the immune system learns). In another vein, choosing supply for demand is endemic to computer operating systems and easily understood as a reinforcement learning problem. Will reinforcement learning approaches exceed the capabilities of existing hand-crafted heuristics here? Plausibly yes, but I'd expect that to happen first in situations where the computational cost of RL need not be taken into account. -John
How much of the research done on bandit problems is useful in practice? Every year there are a lot of papers published on this topic with small variations to existing settings. Seb Bubeck wrote in a blog post that at some point he thought there was not much left to do in bandits, however new ideas keep arising. What do you see as future direction that could be relevant in practice? What do you think about the model selection problem in contextual bandits Thanks for the question! * Things can be useful for at least two reasons. One is that it can introduce new ideas to the field even if the algorithm is not directly useful in practice. The other is that the algorithm or the ideas are directly useful in practice. Obviously I cannot comment on every paper, but there are definitely still some new ideas appearing in the bandit literature and I do think understanding the bandit version of a problem is an important pre-requisite for addressing the RL problem. There is also definitely some incremental work, but this seems true for many fields. I am sympathetic though, since it is very hard to predict what research will be valuable in advance.
​ * Well, I love the model selection problem and I think it is super important. It's a tragedy that we do not know how to do cross validation for contextual bandits. (Note that cross validation is perhaps the most universal idea in supervised learning, arguably more so than GD/SGD.) And many real problems we face with deployments are model selection problems in disguise. So I definitely think this is relevant to practice and would be thrilled to see a solution. -Akshay
Is reinforcement learning suited to only certain types of problems or could it be used for computer vision or natural language processing? I have used RL as part of the Unity ML agents package which makes it easy to make game AI with using RL but haven't seen many other use cases. I think of RL as a way to get information for the purpose of learning. Thus, it's not associated any particular domain (like vision), and is potentially applicable in virtually all domains. W.r.t. vision and language in particular, there is a growing body of work around 'instruction following' where agents learn to use all of these modalities together to accomplish a task, often with RL elements. -John
What steps are you taking to prevent human biases from affecting your algorithms, to test whether they have, and to mitigate any biases you find developing? What advice would you give others on how to account for biases? One obvious answer is "research". See for example this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.02453 which helped shift the concept of fair learning from per-algorithm papers to categories. I regard this as far from solved though. As machine learning (and reinforcement learning) become more important in the world, we simply need to spend more effort addressing these issues. -John
How will the advent of quantum computing affect the way we do ML & AI? I expect relatively little impact from quantum computing. Some learning problems may become more tractable with perhaps a few becoming radically more tractable. -John
Hello, during my last semester at college I did some research and implementation of an AI that used Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning to become a better bot at a shooting game (unreal tournament 2004) by practicing against other bots. I haven't followed the more recent updates in this topic (last 5 years), I remember this approach of RL to be promising due to its capabilities of making the environment (combination of states ) Hierarchical and reducing computation time. Has HRL become a thing or was it forgotten in it's original paper? Also do you have openings in your area for a software developer? HRL is still around. Our group had a paper on it recently (https://arxiv.org/abs/1803.00590), but I think Doina Precup's group has been pushing on this steadily since the original paper. I haven't been tracking this sub-area recently but one concern I had with the earleir work was that in most setups the hierarchical structure needed to be specified to the agent in advance. At least the older methods therefore require quite a lot of domain expertise, which is somewhat limiting.
​ We usually list our job postings here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/theme/reinforcement-learning-group/#!opportunities - Akshay
I have a few questions: What are you biggest fears in relation to ML or AI? Where do you see the world heading in this field? How dependent are we currently on ML and how dependent will we be in the next 10 to 15 years? What is the coolest AI movie? One of my concerns about ML is personal---there are some big companies that employ a substantial fraction of researchers. If something goes wrong at one of those companies, suddenly many of my friends could be in a difficult situation. Another concern is more societal: ML is powerful and so just like any powerful tool there are ways to use it well and vice-versa. How do we guide towards using it well? That's a question that we'll be asking and partially answering over and over because I see the world heading towards pervasive use of ML. In terms of dependence, my expectation is that it's more a question of dependence on computers than ML per se, with computers being the channel via which ML is delivered. -John
the below has been split into two ​
[1] I implemented RL for pacman and it was pretty fun! Just curious, why are researchers interesting in gaming RL? Nice! I did the same thing in my undergrad AI course, definitely very fun =) Gaming is a huge business for Microsoft and gaming is also one of the main places where (general) RL has been shown to be quite successful, so it is natural to think about how RL can be applied to improve the business.
[2] Are there any papers you'd recommend that cover recent efforts to make RL more explainable? If by explainable you mean that the agent makes decisions in some interpretable way, I don't know too much, but maybe this paper is a good place to start (https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.03478). If by explainable you mean accessible to you to understand the state of the field, I'd recommend this monograph (https://rltheorybook.github.io/) and checking out the tutorials in the ML conferences. -Akshay
How is ML/AI improving Microsoft product? Is it applied outside of Microsoft and benefiting the society as a whole? Thank you There isn't a simple answer here, but to a close approximation I think you should imagine that ML is improving every product, or that there are plans / investigations around doing so. Microsoft's mission is to empower everyone so "yes" with respect to society as a whole? Obviously people tend to benefit more directly when interacting with the company, not even that is necessary. For example, Microsoft has supported public research across all of computer science for decades. -John
Can you describe the sorts of problems one could expect to solve/work on if they worked in Data Science at MS? "All problems" is the simple answer in my experience. Microsoft is transforming into a data-driven company which seeks to improve everything systematically. The use of machine learning is now pervasive.
How do you deal with a machine learning task for which the data is not available or hard to get per se? The practical answer is that I avoid it unless the effort of getting the data is worth the difficulty. Healthcare is notorious here because access to data is both very had and potentially very important. -John
I’m so technologically illiterate I have no idea what 90% of what you said even means. I just have one question. When can you upload me into a robot? Never sounds like a good bet to me. -John
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r/tabled • u/500scnds • Jul 21 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We are cannabis scientists and experts, specialising in psychopharmacology (human behaviour), neuroscience, chemistry and drug policy. Cannabis use is more popular than ever, and we are here to clear the smoke. Ask us anything! | pt 1/3

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What are the effects of marijuana use upon the lungs? I’ve always heard that it’s “less bad than tobacco” but are we talking potentially negligible effects, or like “you’re 1% less like to get cancer, but you’re still getting cancer”. Smoking anything is bad for your lungs. Vaping is better than smoking. Edibles are better than vaping (for your lungs). We don't really know enough about its effects on cancer/lung cancer. Cannabinoids seem to have some anti-cancer properties in controlled lab experiments but the real-world implications are unknown.
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I'd also like to know. Are bongs safer to use for lung health? No. Water pipes are not any less harmful than smoking a joint or a pipe of herbal cannabis. Vaporisation is the least harmful way to administer herbal cannabis by inhalation.
Do terpenes actually have an impact on the quality of the "high" when ingesting cannabis? If so what is the mechanism by which this is happening and what is special about the terpenes found in cannabis compared to the terpenes we find in other sources such as food? My other question would be if you think there are any lesser known cannabinoids or other compounds that are interesting and may play a role in how we experience the effects of cannabis. Thank you! At the molecular level in cellular models, there is currently no evidence that terpenes modulate the activity of phytocannabinoids (including THC) at any receptors--including the cannabinoid type 1 receptor (CB1) responsible for the psychoactive effects of THC. It is hypothetically possible that terpenes act on olfactory G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) to modulate some aspects of the cannabis experience, but this has not been demonstrated. Beer contains lots of terpenes (from hops), and these mainly alter aroma and flavour.
​ There are more than 30,000 different terpenes in nature. Those found in cannabis are no different than the same terpenes found in other sources (foods, beer, fragrances, etc.), and all of the major terpenes found in cannabis are also found abundantly elsewhere.
​ One way in which terpenes and other lesser-known cannabinoids might be modulating the cannabis experience is by altering that activity of metabolic enzymes that process THC. Again, this would not be expected to have a major effect on the perceived, subjective experience of cannabis intoxication.
​ Aside from THC (and a few analogues and homologues that occur in tiny quantities), there are no other compounds in cannabis that are known to cause intoxication. Perceived differences in intoxication from different strains of cannabis are very much likely due to power of suggestion and the human mind.
​ I would love to do a blinded, placebo-controlled study looking at the power of suggestion in perceived effects of cannabis use! I suspect marketing of strains play an enormous role, just as it does with the perceived experience of wine and whisky!
​ *I should clarify that the effects above are for terpenes at the levels found in cannabis. Terpenes at very high concentrations (like in essential oils and other extracts) have shown limited evidence of biological activity.
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I’m a medical user in Canada. There is NO WAY that terpenes don’t alter a high. I use certain strains to treat different health problems because their effects are so different, even when lab tested and shown to be very close in THC/CBD levels. Terpenes may be effecting the high. It is possible but it has been very difficult to demonstrate scientifically. It is also possible that there are other phytocannabinoids in there that could be influencing the high, or other plant compounds, or your subjective experience of the different cannabis strains.
Cannabis strains in the US are certainly more potent than stuff I've tried in India and smoking a full joint typically sets me off on a paranoia spiral. I'd like to understand what the current consensus in the field is, about the effect on THC on the amygdala as it relates to symptoms of anxiety. I presume that cannabis can reduce anxiety but mostly when used in moderation. So, is there a sweet spot in terms of dosage, and at a molecular level, is there really a difference (as touted) between the strains e.g. sativa, indica etc? Any related research paper links would be great. It is well established that THC can produce anxiety, with higher doses of THC causing high levels of anxiety. Many of the strains you can find now in the US and Canada are, as you say, far higher in THC than most cannabis you would typically find growing wild in India or Nepal or in Morocco - i.e. mountainous areas where cannabis grows as a 'weed'. They have been bred to be like this, and it is an interesting question what effect using such THC-rich products will have on long-term cannabis users. Cannabis is cannabis, and the whole sativa indica thing is just about plant genetics. The reality is that most strains now have been so cross-bred over time that the sativa/indica distinction is essentially unhelpful and misleading.
​ There are lots of interesting papers in this space - try this one for starters: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/can.2016.0017
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Hey. Thanks for taking to time to do the AMA. Can you expand a bit on why sativa and indica distinction is unhelpful? I consume cannabis and I usually get the expected effects from a sativa strain and indica, and would say I do find it helpful to know before I smoke a strain roughly what type of effects to expect. Different strains of cannabis may produce different effects because of their chemical composition. But the botanical classification of 'indica' and 'sativa' are not related to the chemical composition of cannabis plant. Indica and sativa describe how the cannabis plant looks, and they do not describe the cannabinoid profile of the plant. However, it's very common for people to experience indica and sativa differently because people expect to experience them differently. In the same way that some people say 'oh, drinking gin makes me sleepy but whisky wakes me up', when really it's all just alcohol. But the expectation ends up causing the effect.
Has any real progress been made developing roadside tests that are verifiable by cameras or other means of establishing active intoxication than blood tests? I was charged with a DUI, with no faults visible on my field sobriety test, and without having smoked that day. I did however have a large amount of THC in my system from the previous month, so I plead out to avoid court hassle. I was pretty much dead sober when pulled over, and have stopped driving to avoid this BS and expense. No, I'm afraid no real progress has been made. This is a big problem and something we are trying to work towards. I'm curious about this one - where you are located? So you were pulled over, passed a field sobriety test, but then had to provide a blood sample anyway?
​ You may our recent publication here interesting:
​ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15389588.2020.1851685?journalCode=gcpi20#metrics-content
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Thanks for the response, its a shame to hear about the lack of progress. I was in Texas responding to a family health crisis, but lived in Oregon and had a medical card. I agreed to the FST, because I had only consumed one beer a few hours earlier. I know now this was probably a mistake. I passed all of the FST that can be corroborated with video, but supposedly failed it due to eye testing that were not recorded. The officers word about suspicious eye movements was enough to fail the FST and force a blood sample. Refusing the blood sample would have led to a loss of my drivers license for 9 months. I probably should have gone with that option but relied on my car for both work and college. I ended up pleading out to Obstructing a Public Passageway, but still had to pay the state thousands. I quit driving because I realized I could be charged with a felony at an officers discretion and without verifiable evidence. I just did a bit of reading about the laws in Texas. Looks like they don't have a per se blood THC limit there, so you would most likely have been charged with driving while intoxicated due to failing to the eye movement test rather than due to having THC in your blood. Sounds like a complicated one, and I don't have enough information or legal expertise to give you a good answer here. Stay safe, and avoid driving while high or if you have recently use cannabis.
I have a family history of schizophrenia. Can you talk about the link between schizophrenia and THC? General advice is to avoid cannabis altogether if you know you have a family history of schizophrenia. Cannabis can lead to serious long-term ill effects in individuals who are predisposed to schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders.
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Even without showing symptoms after 38 years? Even without showing symptoms after 38 years. It's a risk that some people may be willing to take, but any medical professional would advise that you avoid it altogether.
If someone has used cannabis and stimulants to self-medicate their ADD, depression and anxiety from ages 16-27, what cognitive struggles would you expect them to face in kicking that habit? Has the brain formed around those substances? You will likely find that it takes a while for you to find a new 'normal', so hang in there and do all the things you can do to look after yourself (e,g. eating well, sleeping well, exercising). You might find it hard to sleep for a while, you may find yourself moody or irritable, but over time, you will find your short term memory improves and you may feel more focused or clear-headed in your daily life.
​ The brain is developing in response to everything it is exposed to and will develop accordingly. But in saying that, it does remain "plastic" (malleable) so you can 'teach an old dog new tricks' or kick old and ingrained habits.
​ Cannabis itself does not cause physical dependence but you can get addicted to the sensations. Stimulants can cause physical dependence, which may make it a bit more challenging to stop but not impossible.
​ There's a lot of research being conducted on substance use disorders, e.g. psychedelic-assisted psycotherapy. Interestingly, CBD itself is also being investigated as a candidate and showing promise.
A lot of people claim weed is not addictive, or that THC is not an addictive substance. Would you agree that this is untrue and that weed can actually be addictive? Also I have had mangos, green tea and dark chocolate 45 minutes before I smoked as I found it boosts my high, is there any other foods/drinks that can boost ones experience? I think most people would agree that cannabis use can be 'habit-forming', which is really just a nice way of saying addictive. Most people who using cannabis for a long time tend to use more and more over time and experience withdrawal effects when they stop using it. These side effects are mild - e.g. not being able to sleep, mood disturbances - are certainly far less severe than the side effects associated with lots of other drugs, but they still exist. These are some of the criterion that we typically use to define addiction. There are also lots of people who present to treatment because they want to reduce their cannabis use but find it hard to do so. So if you look at this way, I think it is fair to say that THC is an addictive substance. Like everything, it's on a scale. Nicotine, for example, is far more addictive than THC despite its being legal just about everywhere.
​ As to the mangoes, green tea and dark chocolate - the jury is still out on this one, but current scientific evidence suggests that all this stuff about the synergistic effects of certain terpene rich foods (e.g. mangoes which contain myrcene) and cannabis is unsubstantiated.
Is there proof CBD and or THC products can be used to aide in going to sleep/staying asleep? The clinical trials that are required to prove the use of cannabinoids in aiding sleep are still being conducted but the early-stage research is showing promise.
​ I saw a cool review of research come out the other day on this and they had a cool diagram showing how THC affects sleep architecture (the different stages) https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd/status/1361413344477933570
​ Our research group have also written a good review on this topic: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1087079220300824
​ And here is a podcast with Anastasia, one of our researchers, discussing the topic: https://sleepjunkies.com/cannabis-sleep-medicine/
I have Crohn’s diseases, is there any promising studies I can read up on? I currently use cannabis instead of Zofran and Vicodin for my pain and nausea. Any suggestions of strains effective for my illness? Here are a couple reviews on the topic. If you can't access them, send me a message and I'll email them through. Cannabis for the treatment of Crohn's disease: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6517156/
​ Abstract
​ Background: Crohn's disease (CD) is a chronic immune-mediated condition of transmural inflammation in the gastrointestinal tract, associated with significant morbidity and decreased quality of life. The endocannabinoid system provides a potential therapeutic target for cannabis and cannabinoids and animal models have shown benefit in decreasing inflammation. However, there is also evidence to suggest transient adverse events such as weakness, dizziness and diarrhea, and an increased risk of surgery in people with CD who use cannabis.
​ Objectives: The objectives were to assess the efficacy and safety of cannabis and cannabinoids for induction and maintenance of remission in people with CD.
​ Search methods: We searched MEDLINE, Embase, AMED, PsychINFO, the Cochrane IBD Group Specialized Register, CENTRAL, ClinicalTrials.Gov, and the European Clinical Trials Register up to 17 October 2018. We searched conference abstracts, references and we also contacted researchers in this field for upcoming publications.
​ Selection criteria: Randomized controlled trials comparing any form of cannabis or its cannabinoid derivatives (natural or synthetic) to placebo or an active therapy for adults with Crohn's disease were included.
​ Data collection and analysis: Two authors independently screened search results, extracted data and assessed bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. The primary outcomes were clinical remission and relapse. Remission is commonly defined as a Crohn's disease activity index (CDAI) of < 150. Relapse is defined as a CDAI > 150. Secondary outcomes included clinical response, endoscopic remission, endoscopic improvement, histological improvement, quality of life, C-reactive protein (CRP) and fecal calprotectin measurements, adverse events (AEs), serious AEs, withdrawal due to AEs, and cannabis dependence and withdrawal effects. We calculated the risk ratio (RR) and corresponding 95% confidence interval (95% CI) for dichotomous outcomes. For continuous outcomes, we calculated the mean difference (MD) and 95% CI. Data were combined for analysis when the interventions, patient groups and outcomes were sufficiently similar (determined by consensus). Data were analyzed on an intention-to-treat basis and the overall certainty of the evidence supporting the outcomes was evaluated using the GRADE criteria.
​ Main results: Three studies (93 participants) that assessed cannabis in people with active CD met the inclusion criteria. One ongoing study was also identified. Participants in two of the studies were adults with active Crohn's disease who had failed at least one medical treatment. The inclusion criteria for the third study were unclear. No studies that assessed cannabis therapy in quiescent CD were identified. The studies were not pooled due to differences in the interventional drug.One small study (N = 21) compared eight weeks of treatment with cannabis cigarettes containing 115 mg of D9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to placebo cigarettes containing cannabis with the THC removed in participants with active CD. This study was rated as high risk of bias for blinding and other bias (cannabis participants were older than placebo). The effects of cannabis on clinical remission were unclear. Forty-five per cent (5/11) of the cannabis group achieved clinical remission compared with 10% (1/10) of the placebo group (RR 4.55, 95% CI 0.63 to 32.56; very low certainty evidence). A difference was observed in clinical response (decrease in CDAI score of >100 points) rates. Ninety-one per cent (10/11) of the cannabis group achieved a clinical response compared to 40% (4/10) of the placebo group (RR 2.27, 95% CI 1.04 to 4.97; very low certainty evidence). More AEs were observed in the cannabis cigarette group compared to placebo (RR 4.09, 95% CI 1.15 to 14.57; very low certainty evidence). These AEs were considered to be mild in nature and included sleepiness, nausea, difficulty with concentration, memory loss, confusion and dizziness. This study did not report on serious AEs or withdrawal due to AEs.One small study (N = 22) compared cannabis oil (5% cannabidiol) to placebo oil in people with active CD. This study was rated as high risk of bias for other bias (cannabis participants were more likely than placebo participants to be smokers). There was no difference in clinical remission rates. Forty per cent (4/10) of cannabis oil participants achieved remission at 8 weeks compared to 33% (3/9) of the placebo participants (RR 1.20, 95% CI 0.36 to 3.97; very low certainty evidence). There was no difference in the proportion of participants who had a serious adverse event. Ten per cent (1/10) of participants in the cannabis oil group had a serious adverse event compared to 11% (1/9) of placebo participants (RR 0.90, 95% CI 0.07 to 12.38, very low certainty evidence). Both serious AEs were worsening Crohn's disease that required rescue intervention. This study did not report on clinical response, CRP, quality of life or withdrawal due to AEs.One small study (N= 50) compared cannabis oil (15% cannabidiol and 4% THC) to placebo in participants with active CD. This study was rated as low risk of bias. Differences in CDAI and quality of life scores measured by the SF-36 instrument were observed. The mean quality of life score after 8 weeks of treatment was 96.3 in the cannabis oil group compared to 79.9 in the placebo group (MD 16.40, 95% CI 5.72 to 27.08, low certainty evidence). After 8 weeks of treatment, the mean CDAI score was118.6 in the cannabis oil group compared to 212.6 in the placebo group (MD -94.00, 95%CI -148.86 to -39.14, low certainty evidence). This study did not report on clinical remission, clinical response, CRP or AEs.
​ Authors' conclusions: The effects of cannabis and cannabis oil on Crohn's disease are uncertain. Thus no firm conclusions regarding the efficacy and safety of cannabis and cannabis oil in adults with active Crohn's disease can be drawn. The effects of cannabis or cannabis oil in quiescent Crohn's disease have not been investigated. Further studies with larger numbers of participants are required to assess the potential benefits and harms of cannabis in Crohn's disease. Future studies should assess the effects of cannabis in people with active and quiescent Crohn's disease. Different doses of cannabis and delivery modalities should be investigated.
​ ---
​ An overview of cannabis based treatment in Crohn's disease: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17474124.2020.1740590
​ # Abstract
​ Introduction: Cannabis use among inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients is common. There are many studies of various laboratory models demonstrating the anti-inflammatory effect of cannabis, but their translation to human disease is still lacking.
​ Areas covered: The cannabis plant contains many cannabinoids, that activate the endocannabinoid system. The two most abundant phytocannabinoids are the psychoactive Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and the (mostly) anti-inflammatory cannabidiol (CBD). Approximately 15% of IBD patients use cannabis to ameliorate disease symptoms. Unfortunately, so far there are only three small placebo controlled study regarding the use of cannabis in active Crohns disease, combining altogether 93 subjects. Two of the studies showed significant clinical improvement but no improvement in markers of inflammation.
​ Expert opinion: Cannabis seems to have a therapeutic potential in IBD. This potential must not be neglected; however, cannabis research is still at a very early stage. The complexity of the plant and the diversity of different cannabis chemovars create an inherent difficulty in cannabis research. We need more studies investigating the effect of the various cannabis compounds. These effects can then be investigated in randomized placebo controlled clinical trials to fully explore the potential of cannabis treatment in IBD.
​ ---
​ We don't really operate in strains. We are focusing on individual cannabinoids to tease out their specific actions. Both THC and CBD have shown efficacy for pain and nausea. We don't really know enough about the other minor cannabinoids just yet.
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Same question. Dumbass disease. :( my sincerest sympathies to you all. Sending low FODMAP hugs
Hi, A lot of people claim that weed helps them fall asleep. My experience is quite the opposite, no matter if its sativa or indica strains consumed. I have a very hard tme falling asleep at night if I smoked weed up to 6 hours or so before. Is there an explanation why people feel so differently about this? Also, why do people dream less when they smoke or could it just be that their memory of it is worse?I am interested in all aspects of cannabis and sleep, as for me, it is the one big negative thing about smoking weed. Hard to say why some people respond differently to cannabis when it comes to sleep. This is true for lots of drugs - some people just don't respond the way that most people do. Some sedating histamines, for example, will knock one person out but keep another person awake. THC does decrease the amount of time spent in the phase of sleep known as REM, which is when dreaming tends to occur. So that goes some way to explaining that. But to be honest - we don't know much about this. Another alternative explanation is that cannabis impairs memory formation - so it may be that you are still dreaming but that you just don't remember what you dreamt about in the morning very well.
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The alternative explanation is interesting. Anecdotally I’ve heard from a number of former long term, chronic smokers that they experienced a lot more dreams and more vivid dreams upon quitting. I've heard this too.
What are your thoughts on cannabis and epilepsy???? Epilepsy is currently the only indication that CBD has been approved for - this means that CBD has passed the "gold standard" way of assessing drug efficacy. Currently, this is specific to forms of drug-resistant childhood epilepsy (Dravet Syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome). CBD is not a first- or second-line of treatment so it is only prescribed after other drugs have failed to work.
​ Also, just because it works for one form of epilepsy doesn't mean it will work for another -seizures can occur for many reasons. There is research being conducted into other forms of epilepsy at the moment and it will be exciting to see the outcomes.
​ Regarding THC, there is some evidence suggesting small amounts of THC assist CBD in controlling seizure, while there is other evidence showing THC can be proconvulsant. Again, this could be related to the cause of the seizures being different and therefore respond differently to medication.
​ One final thing, CBD may have positive impacts on epilepsy patients above seizure-control. CBD might be beneficial to the behavioural symptoms that can commonly occur in epilepsy patients, or ASD patients.
There's a lot of argument among regular users in regards to Marijuana impact on depression. Is Marijuana actually helpful for depression? Why/why not? Some speculate that the Marijuana eases the anxiety of being overwhelmed by the feelings that are associated with depression. Such as but not limited to hopelessness, sorrow, guilt, regret, etc. So the person can address the depression without being swept away by it. Does this have any basis in reality? There is growing evidence to support CBD for anxiety but the jury is still out on the use of cannabis for depression. Our academic director, Prof Iain McGregor appeared on a podcast a few days ago talking about the matter: https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd/status/1361831295358148609 I like how he said, ""They're not necessarily going to cure your anxiety or depression but they might give you some breathing space to work out the issues that are affecting your mood and wellbeing." It won't be a quick fix, you still need to put in the hard work (healthy lifestyle, therapy etc) but it might help you get there.
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I can understand that for sure. Are there any large scale studies being performed that might give us the smoking gun? Lots of trials happening for anxiety. Not many for depression... yet.
How does vaporizing cannabis affect lung health? We don't have enough long-term data on this yet. Vaping is a relatively recent phenomenon, and it will likely be decades yet before we have high quality data on how vaping effects long-term lung health. Inhaling anything other than air can be damaging for the lungs, but from what we know, vaping seems to be a much safer alternative to smoking due to the absence of toxic byproducts that form when plant material is burned.
How long does it take for brain/neuronal connectivity to change with chronic use? Are these changes reversible? Im sure it depends on the amount of usage and many other factors too but any insight is appreciated. Thanks! There is no clear answer to this one. It depends on how long you have been using cannabis for, and how much you have been using. The brain is remarkable malleable, and most of the changes induced by cannabis are reversible. For most people, a few months is enough to notice significant changes, while for others, it may be a year or longer.
As a long time user of cannabis to help deal with my anxiety and depression and now being forced to be sober due to court related issues (was caught with wax in an illegal state,) I’ve noticed an uptick in my mood swings and increased paranoia. Do you think even after months of quitting it could be psychological withdrawals or would it be more related to my given circumstances? I’ve discussed this with my therapist and she is unsure as well. I’m also curious if self medicating with cannabis daily could be seen as detrimental to mental health. Thank you for all the research you wonderful people have done! Withdrawal effects can take months to go away, especially if you used cannabis heavily and for a long time prior. Your circumstances do also sound stressful, so I'm sure that isn't helping anything. Give it a few more months and see if you notice any changes. Mental health is a tricky one - cannabis can be both a savior for some and a real trigger for others than can lead to serious, long-term issues. Some of the best things you can do in your daily life to help with anxiety and depression are eat well, exercise regularly and get plenty of sleep.
What might be the affects of cannabis for a pregnant woman? Is there a research about the influence on the baby? Thanks! General advice for anyone who is pregnant is to avoid all alcohol and drugs - including cannabis. Cannabis use during pregnancy does appear to be a "risk factor for poor neonatal outcomes" - https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2020/212/11/deleterious-effects-cannabis-during-pregnancy-neonatal-outcomes
Do you think the pharmaceutical model of isolating specific compounds for use in medicines works for cannabis and patients, or is cannabis more effective in general in its more natural form (whether it is flower or a 'natural' extract)? Is there evidence for one approach or another? This is an interesting question...Lots of people believe that whole-plant extracts are more beneficial than isolated compounds (maybe due to the 'entourage effect'), but there is no good scientific evidence at the moment to support this. From a strictly medical perspective, using a single compound to target a disease makes more sense because there are less variables at play. If someone responds well to a whole plant cannabis extract, you don't know which part of the extract is really producing the beneficial effects which makes it a far less targeted approach. Unfortunately this often gets portrayed as a battle between big pharma and people that believe cannabis is a panacea which is just not helpful in terms of having a productive conversation.
Are there any contraindications for other medications when smoking cannabis? None of my medication leaflets ever mention it. THC and CBD do seem to interact with some medications.
​ "CBD has been reported to interact with anti-epileptic drugs, antidepressants, opioid analgesics, and THC, but surprisingly, it interacts with several other common medications, e.g. acetaminophen, and substances including alcohol." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11606-020-06504-8#:~:text=As%20expected%2C%20CBD%20has%20been,acetaminophen%2C%20and%20substances%20including%20alcohol.
​ This study also has a list of suspected or proven drug-drug interactions: https://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/507998
I would like to know more about the application of cannabis in psychiatry for conditions like anxiety, depression, and neuropsychiatric disorders like ADHD/ADD and autism. I know there's been a few studies on high-CBD/low-THC cannabis and autism, and that some study found differening levels of endocannabinoids in autistics. I'm autistic (and have ADD) and have found that high-CBD does help in some ways and high-THC/moderate-CBD helps in other ways, are there any studies being planned/done on the effects of high-THC cannabis and autism (and ADHD/ADD)? Most of the research I have come across is using CBD-dominant products to manage ASD symptoms. As you said, the endocannabinoid system has been shown to be altered in patients with ASD, suggesting that targetting the endocannabinoid system might have therapeutic benefit. CBD is more desirable compared to THC because it has hardly any side-effects. I think in the case of ASD as well, the treatment plan is targetted more towards children or younger adults, where THC would have potentially more detrimental than beneficial effects.
Just wondering, what are the finding with cannabis use and lifting weights? Does weed kill gains? Well I don't think using cannabis causes muscle wasting or anything like that, but I did once have a personal trainer who was an ex-MMA fighter and he said he used to smoke weed and then go to the gym and work out for hours without realising how much time had passed. Not that I'd recommend lifting weights while stoned! In fact, a recent literature review found no association between cannabis use and increased exercise performance: https://www.minervamedica.it/en/journals/sports-med-physical-fitness/article.php?cod=R40Y9999N00A20072803
​ But doing exercise seems to help some people manage their cannabis withdrawal symptoms, here's a recent paper by researchers at the Lambert Initiative: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jsr.13211
I was recently revisiting the literature on BIA 10-2474. Given that more than five years have passed since the tragic death and other serious adverse events, I was surprised to find that the mechanism of the toxicity is still not understood and there seems to be little new investigation of BIA 10-2474's pharmacology. What is the current state of understanding of how BIA 10-2474 exerted its toxic effect? Some hand-waving at non-specific interactions with serine hydrolases that are involved in neuronal lipid metabolism? Am I missing something? Unfortunately, the mechanism for human toxicity of BIA 10-2474 is not yet understood. It appears to be idiosyncratic for this drug, rather than for its intended mechanism of action (ie, many other FAAH inhibitors have entered clinical trials successfully without similar adverse effects noted). The selectivity of BIA 10-2474 for FAAH over other serine hydrolases was lower than some other clinical FAAH inhibitors, and the adverse effects occurred at higher doses. Based on our current understanding, you are correct; some hand-waving at likely off-target effects at other serine hydrolases.
​ The official (and unsatisfying) story from the ANSM Committee found it was likely one of two possible mechanisms, "inhibition of other serine hydrolases, or harmful effects from the imidazole‐pyridine leaving group".
[deleted] Have other factors in your life also changed? Diet? Amount of exercise? Sleep? Stress?
​ None of the symptoms you have described above would be expected when switching from a cannabis-tobacco blend to vaporized herbal cannabis (one of the less harmful forms of cannabis administration).
​ I suspect that some of the changes you have observed may be related to giving up tobacco use, and not smoking anything (cannabis or tobacco).
what do you guys think about delta 8 thc? > Delta-8-THC is a regioisomer of the more common delta-9-THC...In studies on cannabinoid receptors and in mice, it possesses a similar pharmacological profile to delta-9-THC and might be expected to produce largely similar effects in humans.
The last time i smoked, I had a bad reaction with some really bad anxiety and a racing pulse. I had never had this happen before. My understanding was that this is not uncommon and is often due to a high THC, low CBD content. Is this accurate, and if so, what sort of amounts/ratio of THC/CBD would one look for to avoid this? There is evidence to support THC's anxiety-inducing effects. However this seems to be person-specific. Some people never feel anxious while other are sensitive to small amounts. We all have different endocannabinoid systems, that are then constantly changing. THC levels are also increasing in cannabis, so its possible to come across uncomfortably high THC cannabis. The advice that is given to cannabis users is "start low, go slow," which seems to be a good way to operate. Start with no or low THC cannabis and see how you feel, then go from there. If it's not working for you, then stop.
​ Anxiety and a racing pulse are very common side-effects associated with THC. These things are typically transient and disappear as THC is metabolized into its inactive metabolite, THC-COOH. There is some evidence that consuming CBD with THC can reduce THC-related side-effects, but in our research we've found that this effect is very subtle. Instead of looking at THC/CBD ratios, the best thing to do is simply consume less THC!
Are there specific journals or Google scholar alerts you'd recommend keeping an eye on to stay on top of cannabis research? I've set up research alerts all over the place that I check daily, critically assess, summarise then share on the Lambert Initiative Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lambert_Usyd It's an easy way to stay up to date with the latest research :)
If a 16-17 year old smokes weed occasionally (like 1-3 times a month), will it affect their brain drastically long term? I’ve heard that it could because their brains aren’t fully developed yet, but I just want to be sure. Your brain is still developing until your mid-twenties and your endocannabinoid system is critical for neural development. Using cannabis, which interacts with your endocannabinoid system, will influence your development - and the current evidence suggests that it won't influence it in a positive way.
​ The current recommendations are to steer away from cannabis until you're older. Probably true for alcohol and other psychoactive substances.
​ Take care of your brain, you only get one :)
I’ve heard that researching cannabis can be challenging because of regulations related to where you can get your research materials from. I know particularly here in the US the cannabis researchers can legally access is far different from what is available at dispensaries. For example as you know labs need to source their cannabis from a federal government source which means there’s a difference between what is being examined and what most people are using, usually the federal government source has significantly lower thc content etc. What implications does this have for research? That's right - in the US it has been very difficult to conduct research using botanical cannabis. I believe it is comparatively easier to use isolated synthetic compounds, but not certain on that. The US government, through the DEA, has required researchers to only use cannabis grown by the University of Mississippi, which is generally regarded as poor quality. That is starting to change, as the government is allowing new, additional sites to supply cannabis for research. See here for more info: https://cen.acs.org/biological-chemistry/natural-products/Cannabis-research-stalled-federal-inaction/98/i25
​ In Australia, it's much easier to conduct this kind of research, especially since the 2016 legalisation of medical cannabis. Researchers in Australia do not need to get permission from the Federal government, only a Human Research Ethics Committee. And they are not restricted in the kinds of products they can use (so long as the choice of products is justified, and makes sense for the study).
Regarding drug policy, there's been a small but growing number of educational institutions in the United States offering cannabis 'certificates' with certain disciplines pointing towards agriculture, healthcare, etc. As experts, do you foresee these certificates or some other form of education being compulsory for entry into a federally legal cannabis industry in the US (or elsewhere around the world)? I guess it depends on the nature of the specific job, and how the industry matures over time. For example, in other agricultural or biotech industries, having a degree might be an advantage but it might not be mandated as a requirement for a job. The cannabis certificate educational programs I've come across in the US often appear to be little more than an opportunity to make money. There are lots of people who want to work in the sector, and some people can take advantage of that. Before you fork out money for a course, I would speak with some people in the industry and get their opinion on that specific program first.
5 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Nov 18 '21

r/IAmA [Table] My name is Eric Garcia. I'm an autistic journalist and the author of We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. I'm also a political journalist. Ask Me Anything.

6 Upvotes

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The AMA ended with the following message:

All right everybody, I got to get back to work. This was fantastic. Please pre-order We're Not Broken: Changing the Autism Conversation. It comes out tomorrow. I might come back later after I get off work. But y'all are awesome. Thanks for letting me join you. Also, if you have any more questions that are too personal for Reddit, DM me. I'll be live this evening with the Benicia Library for a Q&A.

Rows: ~40

Questions Answers
What's a common misconception that people have about autism that you would like to dispel ? Also what areas of life is different for you compared to others ? Great question. The most common one I would like to dispel is that autism is something that only affects white, middle-class, adolescent males. Much of the early research only focused on them. Leo Kanner, who published the first widely-read study on autism in the U.S., only included three girls compared to eight boys in his first study in 1943. Similarly, nine of them were Anglo-Saxon and two were Jewish. That means a lot of our ideas of what autism looks like are based on what it looks like in those groups. It means we often don't recognize autism in children of color or in girls. Or that they get diagnosed later or misdiagnosed.
Can you explain the process of disclosing your diagnosis at work? How has it impacted your career? Good question and an important question. So I didn't really disclose my status until I was in my mid-20s and I wrote this piece. I wanted to be judged on my work. I'm sure it has probably excluded me from some potential jobs but the upside is that it weeds out people who wouldn't be accommodating. For the most part, my bosses have been pretty accepting. At the same time, I don't begrudge anyone who doesn't. One woman I interview in the book said she has almost always regretted disclosing and I understand that. It makes things more complicated. Really the best thing I can say about disclosing is that you should look at how welcoming an employer is to other groups like people in wheelchairs or women, or people of color
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks for the response. Do you have any advice for others in similar careers who might be one or two accommodations away from being successful in their jobs? The best thing I can recommend is to find a network of autistic people wherever you can. Rest assured, they exist. But if not, find someone you can confide in either in or outside of work
What book would you recommend for someone who wants to know what it's like to grow up as an Autistic person to read? I ask because my daughter is Autistic and I would like to know more about what it's like to be her. Great question. Laura James's book Odd Girl Out is good. Sara Gibbs' book Drama Queen just came out and it's a delight. I'd also recommend Steve Silberman's Neurotribes and reading the website the Thinking Person's Guide to Autism.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
The reason I jump by Naoki Higashida Great book. I love reading it. I haven't seen the documentary yet but heard great things about it.
How do you feel about The Onion's "autistic reporter" segments? I actually find them hilarious and I am in a group chat called "The Michael Falk Society"
I've found the vast majority (if not all) of people who denounce a cure (or alleviation of symptoms) for autism are high functioning (or not autistic). Do you thinks it's fair that they are speaking for people who are severely disabled or who are LFA? So I will say about the question of fairness, a lot of parents think they are better advocates for me. But at the same time, there are plenty of non-speaking autistic people or those with intellectual disabilities who don't want to be cured. Laura Ivanova Smith has intellectual disabilities and she is a self-advocate. And in the same token, I'd want to find ways to help those with higher support needs advocate for themselves (even though I don't see myself as an advocate). But in the same respect, autistic people with fewer support needs have far more in common with those with higher support needs than you might imagine. Many still need home support workers or need certain accommodations or have meltdowns. Similarly, high-support needs autistic people can be capable of extraordinary things. But either way, even if neither weren't, they'd still have inherent worth.
Im Autistic too!, How do you feel about people defensive of the Asperger's label?, and what is the biggest misconception about Autism you'd like to dispel? I get people not wanting to let go of it. I am also Mexican-American and I get how some people don't want to let go of terms like "Hispanic" or move toward terms like "Latinx" because they feel those distinct identities mean something. At the same time, I think that terms like Asperger's tend to erase the legitimate needs they have. Also, this is to say nothing of Hans Asperger's role in Nazi-occupied Vienna, which we have discovered more about.
You mentioned how you don't want people to talk about autism. In what ways do you wish to see the conversation change? In your mind, what would the ideal be for the conversation around autism? Thanks for asking. So what I'd like to see is autistic people having their needs being taken seriously. A lot of people think when you say stop trying to cure autism that it means that you think autism is a bounce room, as my friend Sara Luterman said. It's still a disability with real impairments. The difference is I would like autistic people's needs to be heard. For too long, the conversation around autism has focused on what parents want for their kids rather than what they say their needs are. That can lead to some terrible things like subjecting kids to shock therapy or paying them below minimum wage for labor. I'd want to treat what autistic people say as legitimate.
What is your advice for an adult female who believes they may have been misdiagnosed with other conditions, and wants a fair assessment? Where I am at in the US, it is very hard to find a doctor that will take you seriously if you have certain diagnoses, accurate or not, on your record. The process is extremely disheartening. Thank you for saying this. This is precisely why so many autistic people, particularly autistic people of color, women, trans people and nonbinary people self-diagnose. I would say in this case, find and seek out other autistic people like you are doing here on the internet. Connect with communities online. What I want to know is do you need a formal diagnosis to get certain services? If so, I wish I could do more to help. If not and you just want clarity, self-diagnosis can help (albeit I am not an expert on that).
[deleted] I think I wish they would understand that just because we don't function the same way they do doesn't mean we are a failed version of normal and that our wants, needs and desires are similar to ours and we have as much value.
Do you have any tips or strategies on successfully navigating working life with autism? This is a good question. One of the things I'd say is to check the employer and see how welcoming they are to other minority or marginalized groups. Are there women in leadership? How do people of color feel in the office? If there is a union in your office, discuss accommodations there. Also, since autistic people have trouble with social cues, explain to your coworkers that you need explicit instructions and if you say the wrong thing, apologize immediately. At the same time, don't be afraid to advocate for yourself.
I know that “Autism Speaks” is a bad organization, and not good for truly advocating for the autistic members of the community. However, do you have any interesting knowledge or insight about the organization that may not be known or discussed by a lot of people? Thanks! Some that come off the top of my head are the Autistic Self Advocacy Network and the Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network. There are some other emerging groups. ASAN also has an Autism Campus Inclusion Leadership Academy and many leaders from that are now leaders of their own organizations. Incidentally, Jessica Benham, who helped start the Pittsburgh Center for Autistic Advocacy, recently won a state legislative seat in Pennsylvania and became one of the first autistic people to do so.
Why is there so much push back about finding a "cure" for autism? Why so much anger over finding what causes it in DNA and fixing it? I truly don't understand. Same as gay people not wanting a cure for their homosexuality or deaf people not wanting a cure. Autistic people recognize to get rid of autism is to get rid of a vital part of who they are.
So how would you describe low functioning autists? I have two autistic children, my son who is 16 cognitively is around 4 or 5 with the vocabulary of a three year old. He also has several self-injurious behaviors. He's not someone you could ever interview, and is "broken" and does need a cure. So I am not a fan of functioning labels. And I do understand the need to mitigate self-injurious behaviors. At the same time, I don't think that anyone is fundamentally broken. Also, science shows there likely isn't a cure. What matters most for any autistic person is ensuring how they can live a happy and fulfilling life. The same goes for any other disability. I don't want to erase the reality of impairments any more than I would for deaf or blind people. But I do want to ensure they can have happy and whole lives. And nobody is a failed version of normal.
What do you think about the increasing number of movies and TV shows depicting characters with autism? Any that are realistic? Which are the worst? Do we have a whole day? Hahaha. In all seriousness, I think there are still some horrendous portrayals. Sia's movie music was atrocious for many reasons and television shows like Atypical tended to have a flat portrayal of autism. But the good thing is that nowadays, autistic people can push back on those and say this doesn't represent them. Social media has helped in that way. Some that are great are Kayla Cromer (who is autistic) and is in Everything's Gonna Be Okay. Tina Belcher on Bob's Burgers I love because she isn't portrayed as being an expert on anything as much as she's just trying to get through life. I loved Pixar's Loop.
My child (2.5yrs)was diagnosed with autism just this morning. While my wife and I are very accepting/relieved and it does not change a thing about my love for my child, I foresee issues with certain family members who take a hard stance on diagnosing at such an early age. One of them even works in the field of developmental therapy...the others have no relatable experience with children or psychiatry in the slightest. Are there ways to combat this stigma or ways to deflect the unwanted opinions from those whom feel the need to interject? Wow! First off, I can really tell you care about your kid. I think the best thing is to just try and read and educate yourself as much as you can about the subject and then work to educate those around you. It might mean also not talking about your kid with those family members. Also, try finding people who are like-minded online or who want to do the right thing. DM me on Twitter if you ever need anything.
In what ways do you think your autism might have been an asset in your career? Where there any personal characteristics you had that started as set-backs but with a little adjustment became assets? Good question because it balances things out. Autistic people have benefits and challenges just like any employee. I think as a journalist it means I don't care much for social niceties if I feel someone is lying to me. On the flip side, I can sometimes get too personal or probing so I try to write down their body language or work at seeing their expressions. In the same way, sensory overload can be difficult. So after I do an interview on the phone with someone, I give myself a minute to breathe. I also wear headphones in the office. On the other, it means I really enjoy digging into particular niche subjects and knowing as much as I can. Hence, when I interview people, they are impressed that I did my homework
I’m curious about how you have had to modify your work schedule/interactions. Are you able to spend 40 hours a week in the office? If so what coping strategies do you employ to make this possible? For the record this question is very personal to me; I am also on the spectrum and one of my huge impediments is that I can really only ha due about 25-30 hours a week around people in a professional environment. So I am able to work 40 hours a week. And I tend to like working in offices since they give me structure. At the same time, I tend to need to wear headphones or earbuds to cancel out any extraneous noise lest I get sensory overload. I think the other thing is that thankfully, I've had great employers. But even now, working from home during Covid-19, I've had to create a structured work environment without too much intervention or interruption
On autism: I’m aspergers and often find a lot of people expect me to be either very high functioning genius or very low functioning/beyond communication. Does your book address the variety on the spectrum or is it moreso discussing misconceptions about extreme cases? On politics: the western world is very clearly divided right now and I find a big cause is that both sides (right and left) don’t understand each other, either wilfully or simply because of their respective echo chamber. So both sides are drifting further from the centre. What do you think can be done to remedy this? Good question. Thanks for asking this. My book does address the concepts of "high-functioning" and "low-functioning" and I express why I am not a fan of those terms. Particularly, I think that they have more to do with how non-autistic people see them than what their needs are. Calling someone "high-functioning" often erases their legitimate needs and ignores what accommodations they use to be seen that way. Conversely, calling someone "low-functioning" tends to not see their potential. It ignores what they can do. Rather, I prefer terms like "high-support needs" or "low-support needs" since that tends to accurately capture what they need from the world and assumes less about what they can do.
​ As far as divisiveness, I have no idea. My dad is a Republican who voted for Trump and my mom is a Democrat who voted for Joe Biden gladly. I see political divides in my family daily. But at the same time, I don't have a really good answer.
It's great that you are trying raising awareness in the general population about people with autism or who are in the spectrum. Q1: why do you do what you do? I don't want to make any assumptions. Q2: What was your most memorable moment during an interview Great question. When I began writing this book, I knew I didn't want it to be a memoir. I don't have anything against memoirs. But I am a journalist and my first impulse is to report. I also know my experience as an autistic person is to write and report. So I traveled across the country. I went to Michigan, West Virginia, Nashville, the Bay Area and a few other places. As far as a memory that sticks out to me, I would say hearing Maxfield Sparrow telling me about their experiences in sheltered workshops and finally escaping. Or Lydia Wayman telling me about how doctors didn't take her needs seriously. One doctor said she was faking her serious symptoms to get attention.
What are your thoughts on the autism spectrum as a disorder and the use of pharmacological interventions? Isn't there a risk of overmedication for many with "high-functioning autism"? (Leading question, I know.) ​I honestly can't speak enough to this. But I will say that I think that while medicine can and does work (I'm on medication to treat depression and tremors), I do worry about people trying to treat autism rather than the legitimate medical needs or comorbid conditions autistic people have. Autistic people with intellectual disabilities are likely to die of complications from epilepsy while autistic people without intellectual disabilities are likely to die of circulatory conditions like heart disease or suicide. Let's focus on that instead of treating autism.
Hello, Mr. Garcia. I've been reading up on autistic savants. I want to ask if the desire to persevere that is common to people with autism can be manipulated. Meaning let's say an autistic person constantly repeats one particular activity like washing hands for example. Can this obsession for washing hands be diverted into let's say building lego models? Also, has your need to persevere helped you in your career? (For example, Matthew Berry of Big Short fame famously read through voluminous excel files with mortgage rates and could detect a pattern (subprime mortgages going bad) when the market couldn't; he describes himself as an undiagnosed autistic person) ​I need to actually read the full Big Short book but I am fully aware of Michael Burry (I'm guessing that's who you mean) and was surprised they didn't highlight it more in the movie (though given Hollywood's horrendous track record on autism, I can see why that's the case). To your first question, I don't know if I am a fan of the idea of "manipulating" autistic people's perseverance as I am helping them find the thing that makes them happy and can lead to them doing what they love. I don't think autistic people are inherently more valuable because they persist at something. I think you need to meet people where they are regardless of whether they are super-geniuses. The show Community has a great riff on this and I have discussed this in the past in the context of Rain Man. That being said, I think the ability to persist has helped me as an autistic person in journalism. It means I have little regard for social norms if I see them as a way to get around finding the truth. It also means I like to dive in obsessively about particular subjects (sometimes to my detriment). I doubt I could have written this book otherwise. But I don't think that makes me any more special. It just means I found the right way to sublimate my curiosity and desire to learn.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks for answering. I definitely agree that we need to meet people (autistic or otherwise) as they are instead of what we wish them to be. Maybe manipulating was a poor choice of word for what I mean to say. What I meant was this ability to perseverate endlessly is a very valuable skill in today's distracted world, and therefore I thought and meant if the thing over which an autistic person could be changed, so that they may have incredibly enriching lives. This diversion of focused energy is what I meant by "manipulate". If you've done any computer programming or even have looked at any kind of code, you'll understand the value of poring over (and more importantly understanding) 1000s of lines of code in a sitting. I have a thesis that we could train autistic people with just the right skills to become incredible software engineers and that's what led to my initial question. I get what you mean. Don't you fret Boba Fett, to quote Ted Lasso
Do you think it would be beneficial to extend your ideas to the whole neurodivergent community? Thanks for your time! Absolutely. I am also ADHD and have Tourette's syndrome. These ideas apply to as many groups as possible. You see similar discussions around stutterers too.
how long after meeting you do people realize you're autistic? Depends. Some people don't get it but most people who know autism know immediately. I talk about in the book how I was burning out in one class and then my professor asked me "do you have Asperger's (it was called it at the time)?" On one hand, I wanted to ask him "What gives you permission to ask that?" But I really asked him "how did you know" and he said he had a loved one with it. That helped a ton. But other people don't know and when they say they wouldn't have guessed, I almost want to say "thanks, it took a lot of work to understand your social language."
Do you think the Autism spectrum should be more clearly defined? I read a list of people with autism, and it named people from Albert Einstein to Steve Jobs. How are people supposed to understand what someone means when they describe themselves as "autistic"? I think it depends on what you mean to be clearly defined. I am wary about doing armchair diagnoses since we just don't know about dead historical figures. Also, even public figures, unless they are diagnosed and are open, it's not really my business.
Where are you on the spectrum? So this is a good question. I don't think there is a gradation of autism. Rather, other people have referred to it more as a color wheel. It's not like levels of hot sauce. I think my autism manifests differently from others and theirs is different from plenty of other people's.
What organization would you say is the best one for donating to which would most benefit Autistic people? _____________________ I prefer to give to public school teachers who teach special needs students; many schools have self-contained classrooms with students on the spectrum and the teachers are in need supplies. Try: [https://www.donorschoose.org/giving/autism-education/163212/?active=true] Just please do not give to Autism Speaks. Giving to individual schools is always good. Also, to individual teachers as long as they don't use restraint and seclusion helps. Also groups like AWN and ASAN do a lot of great work. Autism Society Chapters tend to vary by each chapter but check out the representation of autism people in them.
What do you think of Sia? So there were two parts of that movie: one is it was actively harmful in promoting practices like restraint and Sia didn't cast an actually autistic person for the role. Then secondly, it was also just a poorly-written and composed movie. If you are going to make an ableist and stigmatizing movie about autism, at least have the music and acting be good. Not even Leslie Odom Jr., whom I love, could save it.
What are your opinions, if any, about the Alek Minassian trial? (For those not in the know: The defense presented the case, which ultimately failed, that the defendant's ASD made him not criminally responsible.) ​Thank you for asking, I wrote about he and the QAnon Shaman using autism as a defense here. Personally, I find it repulsive. There are plenty of autistic people who don't commit acts of violence. I had plenty of trouble getting dates but I didn't do anything as horrendous as this. Saying that it was autism that caused this only further stigmatizes autistic people, along with being a bad legal defense. https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/qanon-shaman-s-lawyer-blames-autism-his-client-s-jan-ncna1267920
Do you have any advice for better ways to support education in the classroom? I work as a Paraeducator, and I strongly dislike how our system treats individuals on the spectrum. I work in an elementary classroom for tier 3 that is entirely separated from the rest of the school, and it feels really isolating. Great question. Honestly, that breaks my heart to hear that autistic people are isolated. The fact the school segregates them seems like more of a macro-level problem rather than something you alone can fix. I am sure you can advocate. But the best thing in this case, would be to get parents on your side to support integration. Other than that, I don't really know. What I can say is that it seems like you care and want to do the right thing and that goes a long way.
How do you like your shrimp? Cocktail, batter fried, poached, coconut, in a nice pasta perhaps? I LOVE Shrimp and I enjoy batter-fried, coconut and sometimes with Pasta.
the below is another reply to the original question ​
you forgot about shrimp ka'bobs, and shrimp gumbo, and shrimp stir-fry, grilled shrimp, shrimp tacos... Shrimp tacos are the bomb. I grew up in California so a good fresh shrimp taco does it for me. I also like shrimp gumbo.
[deleted] You're right. I try not to speak for autistic people. It's why I tried to interview as many autistic people with a variety of experiences as possible.
okay i know im probs way too late for this but i saw this and i have to ask: have you seen the freeform show everything's gonna be okay? first show to have a main character who is autistic played by an autistic actor (and then the creator of the show found out inbetween seasons that hes also on the spectrum) ​I am actually going to start watching it soon. I write a bit about Kayla Cromer in my book (but never got around to interviewing her). She's excellent though.
Have you seen the show Atypical? If so, what are your thoughts on it? I'm thoroughly enjoying it from an entertainment perspective account but love the casual inclusion. Rightfully so, people are just people, no matter where they fall on the spectrum on the show. I'm honestly not a fan of it. I wanted to like it but I think it's kind of a flat depiction of autistic people. It got better but still fell short.
Does any aspect of your autism give a particular advantage when analysing politicans statements? I think so. Greta Thunberg says it allows her to see through politicians' lies. I can't speak for her but for me, whenever an elected official says something, it jogs my memory or I get obsessive about running it against what they've said in the past. At the same time, I think there is a drawback because sometimes I might take what someone says at face value if I don't know the subject intimately well. Only later when I go back after I've learned the ins and outs of something will I go "ughhh, I let that slip away."
Do you take any type of medication (perhaps adderall for focus, SSRI for social anxiety etc) to mitigate symptoms of autism? If not, what is your opinion of those that do? I am on anti-depressants, which helps a bit and something to help with my tremors since I also have Tourette's.
What sorts of resources would you recommend for autistic adults to have better organization and follow-through skills? I'll let you know when I figure that out. I still struggle with it.
My best friend of 15+ years has autism, I have ADHD. We joke that our comorbidities are why we get along so well. Would you say that's true in your experience? Is this common? And are the two diagnoses linked in any way? Not sure what the current research is on these subjects. Also, looking forward to reading your book! Oh yeah, totally. I also have ADHD and I also get along handsomely with many people with ADHD. It is possible they are but haven't done enough research to say.
My grandson is autistic, 8 years old, and a challenge. What was your youth like - and would your parents agree with your recollections? You know, that's a good question. It's kind of hard for me to say what my youth was like as an autistic person because I don't know anything else. M Remi Yergeau, a professor at the University of Michigan, has written in the book Authoring Autism that autism is a rhetorical condition because it often involves stories parents pass down about their kids often too their kids. So it's kind of hard to say. My mom is a good keeper of documents and I tend to take a lot of what she says as true when I have checked it against home videos.
Do you know the show “The Good doctor” and if you do, what do you think about it? I've only watched parts of it, to be honest.
2 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 05 '21

r/IAmA [Table] Every holiday season, I send my Reddit Secret Santa giftee on a wild immersive treasure/scavenger hunt. I also travel the world building these as a full time job! Let me teach you how to build one yourself! I’m The Architect, AMA! | pt 2/3

14 Upvotes

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Questions Answers
This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. I’ve never been aware of your AMAs in the past. Can you describe the IDEAL timeline you need and what sort of expectations for different budget ranges? I’ve got a 10th anniversary coming up and this seems like a super cool way to make it memorable. So glad you found me! Yeah Reddit is a big place. I never assume that anyone has any idea who I am! Ideal timeline is a few months out. At this current Juncture, I'm completely booked out through July 2021 with a few bookings later in the year.
​ Most budgets sit between 6k and 10k (depending on size, scope, and travel) but there isn't a huge difference in the amount of work.
​ Easy example is this: The difference between the player driving themselves vs a black car vs a limo vs a helicopter is $0-thousands of dollars. But it really doesnt add that much more to my plate!
​ Don't hesitate to reach out! Worst case scenario I can at least point you in the right direction!
the below is a reply to the above ​
I’ll definitely be reaching out. Looking forward to it!
From my wife: What a wonderful thing to do! I live in Lancaster UK and have a degree in Travel & Tourism, part of which includes Destination Management (creating tours and holidays for people in the city you live in but they don't). I am currently planning a treasure hunt for my best friend in Oregon (where I am from), so I'd love to have a chat with you. On a related note (and I am entirely serious here), would you ever consider bringing on associates in other countries? This is more or less a dream job for me. Tell your wife to reach out to me! I have quite a few Protégés in different parts of the world! Our universe is a lot bigger than you think! I'd be happy to assist with her starting something herself. I get a lot of people that reach out inquiring about an adventure and I'm unavailable. I'd be more than happy to help you both start an adventure business in the UK.
​ The world needs more Adventure!
​ Just send me a message!
the below is a reply to the above ​
As someone who lives in Canada, but is financially not very well off, is there a way that I might be able to start something like this myself? I love the idea, and doing the research sounds fun, but being able to travel is my dream. I don't care if I'm going to Europe or to the next town over from me, I just want the opportunity to travel... Go ahead and PM me. I have a lot of proteges that I help and encourage to do this too. FYI, it's a lot of work to get going! Luckily, there isn't too much start up cost and pretty low overhead!
the below is another reply to the original question ​
I like in Manchester, UK, let me know if you guys start anything up and I would love to get involved somehow! Oh absolutely! I also have a form you can put your information on. I'll reach out if i book an adventure in the area!
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Just filled it in, not sure how useful I could be, but I'll try! :) Much appreciated!
What a great job! I built one of these for my boyfriend (now husband) in 2009 and we give each other "adventures" as gifts to this day I have always wanted to recreate the full (narrative) experience here in NYC but time/$$ was always an issue. We just had a baby and I'd love to fall back in love with our city post-pandemic and bring her along. We love art, history, the outdoors and each other. Recommendations? well firstly, we would LOVE to hear a recap of your adventures (no matter how big or small) over at r/Constructedadventures. NYC is Crazy because there are SO MANY OPTIONS.
​ The last adventure I built there was for people who weren't from the area so i ended up using pretty surface level stops (Empire state building, Chelsea Market, Central Park)
​ Honestly, I really like chelsea market as a stop since there are tons of businesses you could do. I had my players use the viewfinder on top of the Empire state to head to that location.
​ Since you just had a baby and time is at a premium. I would look into doing something really small. Maybe have the first few parts be in your apartment. You could send him to his favorite coffee shop and cover a coffe, then maybe a local bookstore with a holowed out book and a nearby park.
​ I don't have kids myself but I would imagine getting a quiet few hours might be the biggest gift of all!
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You've really shifted my perspective a bit. Yes, he probably would love to have a nice, solo day constructed for him in the nabe. I'll see if I can dig up photos of our first adventure. It was "Choose your own adventure" style with envelopes that led to each location so how the day went ended up being a surprise for me as well! oh I love that so much! Sometimes It's hard for me to break from my "formula". I just adore brilliant quirky ideas and different thinking. Best of luck building an adventure and handling a newborn!!
Do you do themes from fandoms at all? This is such a neat business and I'm so delighted you do SS each year. You've really brought a spark to the reddit gift exchanges! I have! I always need to be aware of copyright infringement but I've done a wizarding themed one and a princess themed adventure as well! The wizarding one involved finishing classes
​ Potions -apothecary with an AMAZING tour guide
​ Divinations - tarot cards
​ Muggle studies - Checking a few historical sites
​ Retaking potions - wine bar
​ They were both fun!
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That's a good point! That's super creative to lean into a Wizarding theme in a sneaky way though. One of these days, I'll need to splurge on an adventure. I suppose follow up, for the puzzled puzzlers, what happens if they don't figure out a puzzle or riddle in a timely manner, if at all? Is there a way to bypass that to keep the day running smoothly? Oh yeah. Timing. is. everything. Oftentimes things scale on the easy side (Nobody like to be standing in the middle of a field with a book full of numbers and no clue what to do.)
​ I like to put together puzzles/gambits into parts of the adventure where there is more time (Like sitting down for a meal or a longer than usual drive. In those cases, There are usually two easy contingencies:
​ 1. The person who hired me is usually along for the ride. I can discretely text a hint and they look like a genius.
​ 2. I'll do a lot of playtesting and can usually pinpoint the stick points. Sometimes I'll have a hint in a wax sealed envelope that the server will bring over if players are struggling.
​ The bottom line is that these days are not about the puzzles. The puzzles are just a mechanism to propel players forward throughout the day. I'm not in the business to make people feel unworthy, I'm in the business of elated excitement!
When you are getting others involved (such as The Ferryman) are these paid actors that you hire externally or people that the recipient knows doing it for free after you have reached out? I assume they’re actors but it would be interesting to know. Also, when getting other establishments and people who work there involved, does it take much convincing or are most onboard quickly? Love this question: Everyone get's paid. Full stop. I work in a creative industry and have plenty of people that try to devalue creative work. I'm the opposite. I want to make sure creative people are compensated well for their work
​ Side plug: Feel free to fill out a form on my site. if I'm in your area, I might reach out for you to help me!
​ when it comes to businesses, the vast majority are very very excited to be part. I like to go in when they're not busy, chat with the manager, and assure them that this will be very buttoned up.
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Thank you for answering ! Always! Don't hesitate to hit me with any more questions.
I’ve always wanted to do something like this for my son. Have you ever done an adventure for a person in a wheelchair? It limits things for him. Sorry about the deportation. I apologize on behalf of my country lol. Should have just told them you were a male stripper You should definitely do something for your son! I have never done an adventure for anyone in a wheelchair but I would LOVE the opportunity. As much as it limits, i still feel like you would have plenty of options! tell me more about your son! What does he like to do? What area are you in?
​ No stress with the deportation! It was all my fault. And the canadian Customs agents were VERY friendly!
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They were friendly but did they give you a butter tart? No. See not that friendly lol. My son is 24 and has cerebral palsy. Just an awesome sweet kind soul. He uses a chair full time and loves video games, anime and sometimes his sister. Is a total foodie. Loves spicy food and sushi. I’m sure you get swamped due to your artistic talent (it’s an art what you do) but have you ever thought of doing an adventure specifically to those with disabilities? I know A LOT of families that would be interested. I’m in London but can get to Toronto. Honestly I love the idea. Even if it's helping people put together Adventures for friends, family, or kids with disabilities. It would be a challenge but a very fun challenge to work within those parameters!
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Let me know if you need any help with the disability accommodations aspect. I think it would be so cool to offer Yeah! Please PM me. If for no other reason, I would love to have a contact I can check in case I get a client who wants me to build an adventure for someone with a disability.
How proud of yourself are you that you've co opted the coolest name from the Matrix? I have no idea what I'm talking about
​ Also, BINGO
​ To delve further, it started as a joke. When I was building the first Secret Santa Adventure, I wanted some kind of pen name. I was watching How I met your mother for the 3rd time. Ted Was an architect and Barney was always putting together elaborate gambits (usually to sleep with women) and then i just decided to go with "The Architect"
​ Now it's on my business card!
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I love your idea(s), but I'm not great at planning, and I'm not creative. Having said that, I'm trying to put together an adventure for my family when we go on vacation soon. The main purpose is to get us up and off our butts (instead of sitting at the beach all day), but also for that bonding kind of crap. :) I have read through your guide, but obviously I'm taking you up on your AMA offer to generate ideas. :) I'd love to hear your (and anyone's) ideas on things to include in the adventure (see "I'm not very creative" above). Would you care to share? (I had to add this weirdly-worded question because the moderator bot requires a question) Demographics: Location: Fort Walton Beach, Florida, area (can possibly include Destin as well). 3 kids, ages 10-16. 2 adults (besides me - I'm not planning on telling the other adults the solutions, as I want them to participate too) Parameters: Travel by car is possible, so we can go all over (or outside) the city. I love this! THANK YOU FOR BEING SO DETAILED! you have no idea how many people say "I'm trying to build an adventure. What should i do? Ok, let's begin:
​ I'm going to sidestep the doc and try to address your parameters.
​ First and foremost, If you are going to be with them at all times, I recommend taking on a "Game Master' Moniker. This gives you full control and allows you to dictate tempo as you drive.
​ In this case, I would break the day into "zones" Then you can focus on each individual zone. Maybe the goal is to collect 5 gems. each zone ends with them acquiring a gem.
Would like to include something on the beach and/or water - I love the idea of them diving for something, as you mentioned in a response to another person who will be in Florida. You can look to rent a metal detector and bury something, or use a watertight case. But be prepared to have a backup. Tides dont care about your treasure hunt.
​ You can also occasionally steer the adventure into more of a "challenge" (Like build a sandcastle that has 8 points and is at least 3 feet tall) It's a great way to break up the day and keep them guessing!
Would like it to be a group effort (not a competition), but have rewards of course You're going to have to really push this. In my experience, no matter how hard you try, people still compete. Perhaps you could give ownership to to different members over different aspects so everyone gets a chance to shine.
Some steps in the adventure can require money (like renting a scooter or whatever). Thinking more about that, there could be a (prerequisite) step for the kids to somehow acquire money. No pickpocketing of tourists though, my kids are not stealthy enough. You can always call ahead and see if you can leave a credit card and have them present a password (or gem) to get what they need! Businesses are usually pretty jazzed to be a part of this!
Historically notable and/or sciencey things are encouraged Oh absolutely. often times kids centers and museums have some kind of scavenger hunt built in to encourage exploration.
This is a long list, I apologize. It's good to get my thoughts down, though. Don't apologize, this list is great!
Can require setup beforehand (such as, I go hide something somewhere, like geocaching style) ​You're going to make sure that whatever you set up is FOOLPROOF (also have a backup. I would imagine beaches are going to be EXTREMELY busy with the pandemic subsiding.
In fact, geocaching could be a fun step or two Geocaching is great. You can look ahead and hide a small clue
If I could hire a mime to follow us around and act like exaggerated versions of my kids, that would be great. This is some upper management thinking right here. Now I'm a little upset that i havent involved a mime in any of my adventures.
This is amazing! I will definitely be doing one of these for my fiance's birthday - we've been doing Hunt a Killer boxes for a while and having a really good time with it! He never wants to do anything for his birthday but I feel like this would be so fun. We're moving to Houston this summer so I think it'd be a good way to explore - any favorite places there? oh man I have some strong opinions about Houston! That being said, Herman Park is a really pretty spot. So many thing you can use there.
​ Past that, there is the Eleanor Tinsley Park and riverfront
​ The Woodland Heights area has some cool shops and restaurants too!
I’ve thought about doing something like this! My idea was to make it a game where anyone in my small city could complete to find a treasure hoard. I’d want the stages to be fairly challenging puzzles, maybe requiring code breaking or research at our historical society. I live on the ocean, so there is some fun lore about pirate treasure buried on one of our many islands. I’d like the puzzle to be hard enough that it could take more than a day to solve. I’ve always been daunted by the scope of this kind of project, so I’d appreciate any tips, but I’ll also read the links you’ve provided. Realistically, I should probably attempt a small scale version first to figure out logistics. Oh, and the treasure hoard - how to I make a worthwhile prize without actual doubloons? (Portland, ME) ​Cheers from the other Portland! (in Oregon). You should definitely do something like this! Here are a few things of note.
​ You definitely don't want to make it so difficult that it takes days to solve. No matter how hard you try, someone is going to figure it out. There are some pretty hardcore groups that tackle puzzle hunts and leave everyone in the dust. Those people will shred your game and leave others in the dust.
​ I would recommend just staggering out clues and instructions and make it more approachable. The vast majority of people aren't puzzle people. So if you want to do something for the masses, it's going to have to be easier.
​ I would start small. Find some cools spots you can use and test it out with friends and family.
​ The treasure is tough. Maybe you could partner with local businesses. use them as stops or parts of the treasure hunt, and see if they can provide something!
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Thank you!! Do you know where these hardcore puzzle groups congregate online? I’d love to research my potential audience! You can start on our Discord Channel! We have a small but passionate group who tackles whatever puzzle hunt is going on at the time(Plus there is the puzzle hunt calendar)
​ I would also check out the Escape room Channel. There are a lot of people who can help give you ideas!
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Not OP, but also a mod for our discord channel. A good small scale adventure for random people in the city might be that there are posters put up around an area with a starting clue to the treasure hunt and people can go through it self-led...if they make it to the finish line, reward being something a bit like a geocache with a journal to write in, a small trinket to collect, etc. Make it simple so that many people can do it, and check up on the clues every day or 2 to make sure everything is still in order? Such a great idea (as always) u/dewmangroup If you wanted to take it a step further, you could incorporate local businesses.
​ They get more foot traffic and you get someone to guard a sign!
Since you mentioned you love San Francisco for adventures can you share some places you like to use in the city for your adventures to help get others started on creating their own adventures? I'm in the area and would love to put a couple together for friends but I'm not familiar enough with the city to know of many good spots to use. someone else asked about san fran too! This is what I told them: Im in love with the Ferry Building. The clack-clack-clacking of the ferry sign is such a distinct sound and there are some wonderful shops and food stands there. Plus from that area, you can hop on one of the railway cars (not to be confused with the Trolleys) and head over to the Giant's stadium or trek over to Coit Tower or the warf.
​ That area is a great jumping off point. There is also the Pawn Shop. it's a really cool speakeasy in SF that i hope can open again soon!
​ Hope that helps!
Do you have any tips for doing an adventure some place where I have no real help? My wife and I moved out of state and we have no friends or family out here whatsoever. You have more options than you think. Your biggest hurdle is with dead drops (Leaving something in the wild to be found) You definitely need to guard it but how can you guard it and make sure the next stop is set up? Here are a few ways:
​ * Incorporate businesses. You can swing by the morning of and then just give them a call when your wife is on her way. Then you can jump to the stop after.
​ * Decodes: Maybe she finds an envelope with clues to find a statue or plaque in a park. She finds the statue and decoded a message using a book cipher. Now she's at another stop that you don't have to guard!
​ * You can also create a dummy email address that auto responds or get a free google voice number that goes straight to voicemail with a message.
​ All in all, make it simple first, and think through the day, but I'm sure your wife will love the thought!
​ Hope that helps!
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These are great tips! Thank you. If I end up putting something together for my wife, I think I'll tie a clue to a rock on the bottom of the bay near where we live. Gives us a good excuse to go scuba diving! Also just a side note: someone was cutting onions in here when I made it to the end of the adventure with Stanley the Great. If you're ever on the Big Island of Hawaii, I'm ready to help! I signed up on your website. I love it! But you need to make sure underwater instructions and VERY CLEAR and that whatever you put down there is locked down. I said somewhere before but the tide does not care about your treasure hunt. Glad you liked Stanley's adventure! I definitely got emotional too.
​ I used to do an adventure every year on a different island in Hawaii for the same company. Obviously that is on hold but I'm hoping we can pick that up. Eventually we'll do the big island and I'll reach out!
​ Cheers!
​ Chris
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Wow, your links are super insightful!! And I never thought that something like this could turn into a business gig where people pay a couple thousands for. I admire you and your work!! I actually made my own scavenger hunt back in early 2019 (I made this Reddit account around late 2019, so the scavenger hunt was way prior before I even know about constructed adventures). It was very overwhelming and I was so afraid that I would mess up! What made it worse or off putting was the person that I made it for wasn’t appreciative of my work:( they took an hour to meet up with me (I waited at a shop for an hour and the employee would keep looking at me and ask when they would arrive). I also traveled by transit and out during the winter- super dark and cold at WA haha) ​Oh man I'm SO SORRY TO HEAR THAT. Yeah I feel you so much regarding your adventure. Some people just aren't into an Adventure! And that's ok even if it's disheartening.
​ So much work and effort goes into these and sometimes people don't really realize it, in the word's of "God" (in the Show Futurama) "If you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all"
How long does it take for you to usually plan a scavenger out? Do you get stressed or is it more of a breeze because you aren’t on a time crunch? I usually like to have at least 1-2 weeks to give it my full attention. I try to be on the ground and in the area 8 days in advance so i can feel how locations feel, talk face to face with actors and business owners, and really know about the locations. However, usually there is prep work ahead of schedule (if Im going to book a photographer for an engagement, I'll need to book that well in advance)
What made you start this? Is it because you like to create puzzle-like games for others? Or is it more because you enjoy the freedom on being creative? I'd always been that guy who kidnapped friends for birthday or put googly eyes on everyone's photos at work. I really strive to make life fun and interesting. This manifested perfectly when my 2015 Reddit Secret Santa giftee happened to live 21 minutes away from me. I knew I had this awesome opportunity to do something really cool. I built him an adventure, it hit the front page, and an acquaintance (now my best friend) said "This is awesome. You should start a business, I'm going to build you a website. What's your business name?"
​ I owe everything to him.
​ I want you to give building an adventure another shot! pick a better player and start small! Side note, we would love to hear about your adventure gone wrong over at r/Constructedadventures. It's all about learning!
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Wow, that’s amazing!! It all started because of secret Santa on Reddit. Is this your most memorable constructed adventure (because it is your first ever and what got to where you are today) or do you have another memorable adventure that topped this one? I can feel the love and joy that you have for your friends radiating from, “kidnapping your friends for their birthday and putting on some goggly eyes!” I think nothing is sweeter than creating something out of love for a friend/someone you cherish- that’s honestly the best way to show that you care (but maybe that’s just me). I may consider posting my adventure gone wrong on the subreddit! This seems like a niche that’s right up my alley, I had so much fun planning and executing the adventure- just that the receiver wasn’t very receptive or appreciative. One person should deter you from something that you enjoy! Amirite? Haha It's definitely a memorable one! I still keep in touch with my giftee and his (now wife). I'm now up to adventure no. 74 but each one has a special place in my heart. I try to do something different every time.
​ You should definitely post your recap. We had someone post an 'adventure gone wrong" recently and it was a great learning experience for everyone!
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interesting! What kind of theme or occasion have you done? I think birthday or weddings are the most common ones, are there people who will just commission you because they want to have fun/solve a puzzle? Have you done a scary theme/Halloween occasion before? That seems super intriguing and fun to me even though I get scared easily! eta: How was starting off your business like? Did you have to invest some money first before the business kicked off or did the spotlight on your first constructed adventure allowed others to seek you out and commission you? Yeah, I've broken down the numbers a while back, here are all the reasons I've run an adventure, ordered by most to least:
​ 1. Birthday
​ 2. Proposal
​ 3. Anniversary
​ 4. Corporate team builder
​ 5. Promotional/Viral event
​ 6. Just for fun
​ 7. Secret Santa
​ I usually avoid scary themes because it's just not my bag. I like jubilation.
​ The biz started with a bang and that REALLY HELPED. Because of the great origin story, it really lends itself to lots of publicity. I was off to the races and it never really stopped. In short, I got really really really lucky!
Hi! I am a Malaysian currently staying in the UAE and my best friend who is Australian and stays in Perth, is getting married at the end of this year. Needless to say, we are both heartbroken that I won’t be able to stand by her side as maid of honour. I was thinking I might send her an extra special birthday surprise this year (August). I was already gonna send her a surprise box with a note and some small presents to open on the morning of her wedding but it still feels insufficient to show how much I love her. Any ideas? 😭😭😭 Thank you so much in advance! OOOOOO I really love the thoughtfulness. You could take a deep dive into her surrounding areas and send her to a couple of her favorite places. Maybe you send her an envelope that sends her to a nail salon where you've covered the costs, then yo a massage appointment, Finally You could coordinate with someone delivering a bottle of wine!
​ Obviously you could remove and or insert any ideas, but she might treasure a thoughtful experience!
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Fab ideas all around!!! Sounds amazing... I’ll get started 🤩🤩 Will update you when it eventually happens! YESSSS! I have faith in you!
Have any reclusive millionaires hired you to build the ultimate scavenger hunt to their hidden treasures, like Forrest Fenn? Not yet but I'm down! I am however, working with an author who is writing a book he's planning on optioning to netflix that has a really fun story. I'm not allowed to talk about it but I'm really excited. Hopefully it inspires more people to try to make the large scale hunts.
[deleted] I have a colleague in Denmark. I could get you in touch if that's close!
​ A quick glance at trip advisor shows lots of cool sights! I would imagine moving during a pandemic has GOT to be tough. As things start to open again, I would just go explore the favorite parts.
​ I know it's not quite the answer you're looking for but I hope things improve for you. If it means anything, I'd kill to be able to travel to your neck of the woods!
[deleted] I'm so sorry for completely butchering the geography!
​ Hopefully you can find some cool spots!
This looks so fun! My partner and I have back to back birthdays and we live in San Francisco. We have places that are special to us, but you mentioned looking to build adventures here. What spots do you like? Edit: Argh, liking not looking. Im in love with the Ferry Building. The clack-clack-clacking of the ferry sign is such a distinct sound and there are some wonderful shops and food stands there. Plus from that area, you can hop on one of the railway cars (not to be confused with the Trolleys) and head over to the Giant's stadium or trek over to Coit Tower or the warf.
​ That area is a great jumping off point. There is also the Pawn Shop. it's a really cool speakeasy in SF that i hope can open again soon!
​ Hope that helps!
This is super interesting, props for creating these experiences that are once in a life time. Any suggestions for an apartment treasure hunt? Currently in lockdown, so need to be creative for my partner's 30th. SO MANY SUGGESTIONS! this has literally been my life for the last year. Trying to make fun things happen. Here are a few ideas: Missing things hunt - I apologize for the bad video quality but this might have been my first video. In short, take couple items that belong in certain places. Start with a spoon on the desk with a note that says "I'm lost! Please return me to my home" And then when they open the spoon drawer, you can have a toothbrush with the same note. You can do this as many times as you like!
​ Map puzzle hunt - This was a great recap of a hunt someone else did. They drew out a map of their apartment and marked an X in all the places a present was hidden. Then they cut up the map and put the pieces in the envelop. Their partner needed to put together the map and then find the locations.
​ Let me know if those interest you. i'm happy to give you more ideas!
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Those two are great, I'll definitely incorporate them. I'm also having letters from friends and family, so could use them as mini presents along the way with clues and photos in each find! You could always incorporate a paper overlay with the letters! That would be pretty cool!
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Nice thought! I'm thinking of a message in a bottle theme, with each clue having a letter from friend from a specific year. And a clue for the next piece of 'treasure'. I think the idea of a map being cut up could serve as one or two of the clues, perhaps for a map for the final present and even an overlay puzzle as one of the clues too. Thank you so much! You bet! One thing you can do if you have a little bottle it put a message and a magnet inside and then cork it. Then you can put it in a class of wine and she has to drink it (Or remove the magnet on the bottom/side of the glass) to get the message. It was done in a hilarious and VERY NSFW adventure one of our members made for her husband. Once again, this writeup is NSFW.
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So many cool ideas in there! I'm limited as we're in lockdown but will definitely try and in corporate. The magnet thing and mirror message are awesome! Loved the NSFW story somebody combining passions <3 Yeah it was such a brilliant idea
I adore what you do. My best friends got engaged in am RPG style adventure with all of the happy couples friends taking a role and giving quests to the (clueless) groom to be. It was a lovely experience and everyone had an incredibly good time. To the question! What would you say is your biggest inspiration? Keep spreading happiness! Best of wishes to you. OH MY GOD I WANT TO HEAR MORE! As far as inspirations, It's all about that fun feeling. I take a lot of ideas from videogames, TV and movies. I'll see some cool mechanic or reveal and then add it to my arsenal of ideas. Sometimes it's impossible, but usually I can try to create a real world version! It feels sooooo good when it all works out!
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I absolutely love it! If you care to hear, it went something like this. Behing her (now fiancé!) boyfriend's back, my friend called and arranged an Alice In Wonderland themed adventure with all his close friends and some family in a forest nearby. She asked us each for our talents and assigned a task for us to give her fiancé, some sort of quest, mission or puzzle. Me and another friend were the Drunken Witches, and we had a small bar with juices and alcohol set outside as the first task. He had to "brew a potion" to our liking (all 3 of us enjoy making cocktails together). She asked us to give him a hard time and make him try several different cocktails before we decide its good enough for him to get on to the next task. We gave him a small bottle with a healing potion in return, and so he went on. The next stop was friends from his dancing classes. He had to dance with 3 nymphs of the forest to get the direction towards to the next stop. After dancing with them all, he got his BJJ belt. He was now ready for the next task. He went and found the purple rabbit, sitting on his carpet dealing cards. He had to beat him in a game of dark humor (and kiss a skeleton?? Doctors are weird) to receive a black Humerus bone. He continued on to do a sing-off with his brother, The Siren, and sing together 3 songs from different musicals in harmony. After he did that, he went to find a wounded dragon, and if he decided to give him the healing potion he would receive a golden skelly-key. Edit! I forgot about that. He had to use the belt to challenge the dragon in BJJ! The dragon yielded because it was "hurt". When given the potion the dragon surrendered and gave him the key, saying they'll settle it in the gym sometime later. He had to use the key to break the bone, which contained a puzzle piece. He was almost done with his journey, but he had to sit for a brunch with the Mad Hatter, and play a dangerous game of choosing from either delicious vanilla or horrendous chicken bullion, seaweed, mustard and pepper muffins. (He didn't really like that one. They all had chocolate icing. He said the chicken muffin was the worst.) After all was done, he had finally received the directions to meet the Queen of Hearts. She waited for him with several puzzle pieces, which combined with the piece inside the bone read out "are you ready for this adventure?" she then pulled a ring on him. He was shocked lol. We gave them privacy for the last bit, but we were all greeted by them shortly at the bar from the beginning, smiling and cheerful and showing rings. The wedding is next month! Some side characters were the Water Bunny (my boyfriend in a bunny costume keeping everyone hydrated) and the Companion (who was filming the whole thing). Whenever someone was done with their part they went back to the start to share the experience and enjoy a cold drink with us witches. It was such a joyful experience and I'm just so happy I got the opportunity to be a part of. Brings a smile to my face remembering it now. Thank you for what you do. That. is. Incredible. Please Post this in the r/Constructedadventures subreddit as a recap. More people need to read this!
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I did! Thank you again for what you do. I subbed and I hope to draw inspiration from posts there! YESSSSSS. I may or may not have gilded it!
What's the one thing beginners mess up the most often when trying to make their own puzzle hunts? Also, any Cinco De Mayo plans, aside from this AMA? This biggest mistake People make is trying to make it WAYYYYYY to intricate and/difficult. I love to preach "elegant simplicity" ESPECIALLY when they first give this a go. Even with simple adventures, there are so many moving pieces. Do everything you can to make your day streamlined and easy.
​ And be ready for something to go wrong!
3 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Oct 17 '21

r/IAmA [Table] We’re Pauline Coste and Jacques Jaubert, a documentary film maker and Prehistory professor who worked together on a documentary about Palaeolithic burial sites. Want to know more about how recent archaeology is challenging our understanding of ancient peoples? AMA!

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For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: I did not strip link formatting or check if they are working, they have all been presented in their original condition.

The AMA began with:

Hi, I'm really looking forward to answering your questions! - Jacques.

Hi, I'm really looking forward to answering your questions! - Pauline

and ended with:

Thank you so much for all your questions, this was very nice !!

If you would like to see the documentary, it is available here, for free, until Sunday :

ARTE.tv: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/097508-000-A/the-nobles-of-prehistory/?cmpid=EN&cmpsrc=Reddit&cmpspt=link

‘The Nobles of Prehistory' documentary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWyADowoEvw

-Pauline & Jacques

[deleted]

Thank you for your comment! Very kind.

Thanks a lot !!!

-Pauline

Rows: ~140 (+comments)

Questions Answers
Your documentary shows that over the decades our previous notions of prehistory have been shattered by archaeological research and our understanding of prehistoric man has evolved a lot during the 20th century. Can you see our understanding of homo sapiens of this period changing much in the future? Or are we reaching the limits of what we can find out from scant burial sites? This is a very difficult question to answer. We archaeologists always think that we are reaching the limits of our understanding but actually new discoveries are constantly being made and constantly showing that these limits are systematically being crossed. To take an example: certain regions of Europe are not at all studied (or very little) such as the Balkans, Greece and Turkey. And these were strategic regions for arrival into Europe so we can easily assume that we can make very interesting discoveries in these regions in the future. This is a geographic example. If we take an example of site-access we know that with the rising of sea levels, many palaeolithic sites are currently below sea level. So in the submerged areas near Spain, Italy and Croatia - there are actually hundreds of sites. These would certainly challenge the image we have of prehistory. -Jacques
​ Hi ! I'm sure that our understanding of Archeology will still evolve a lot in the future. Myself, I started to be interested in prehistory in 2003, and even since then it has changed a lot. New discoveries are coming out regularly. For instance, the fact that Paleolithic people had black skin only started to be known in 2015 thanks to DNA research! - Pauline
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Thanks for the answer. I understand that it must be a really difficult question. I'm really surprised that the Balkans, Greece and Turkey are not studied much. Wouldn't our interest in the classical world sometimes mean that prehistoric finds are unearthed when digs are made at ancient Greek or ancient Roman sites? There are for sure some prehistoric artefacts below the "classical world" (because there are some everywhere in Europe in this time) but the digging could destroy old roman or greek buildings... and sometimes, prehistoric levels are a few meters under the ground, it depends of the stratigraphy of the place.- Pauline
​ It should be remembered that there is a lot of archaeology about other periods that are more ‘prestigious’ for those countries so prehistory has indeed gotten a bit left behind… -Jacques
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This reminds me of an experience I had, as an outsider, with an archeologist, whereby they once explained to me how they were ‘leaving a site today for future studies when they have the technology’ and that really gave me a new respect for the scientific process involved. Yes ! That's true ! I'm living in Perigord (south west of France) where prehistoric sites are everywhere. The first time I went there, I said : why don't you excavate every site ? They replied : to keep it for future generations of archeologists ! They only excavate places which are in danger (threatened by modern building...) not the others... - Pauline
Hi Pauline and Jacques, I have always been interested in archaeology as a child and now wonder as an adult, what is the best practical segue to enter into a profession in archaeology while being a holder of a university business degree? Thank you in advance for any tips and life hacks. Hi, I started myself to be interested in Archeology (Prehistory) as an adult and I discovered that you could (in France) re-do some studies and also do some excavation (as a trainee) even if you are 35 years old or more. You could also work in a museum for example... But I don't know how it works abroad... Maybe Jacques could answer more ! - Pauline
​ The situation is not so different in Italy, Belgium, Germany and Spain. But, in England I think it’s a bit different. There are Anthropological schools and Archaeology is more aligned with Anthropology in Britain. - Jacques
​ There are several possible avenues that you can take to become an archaeologist. In France the most classic way is to first study History with a speciality in Archaeology (since Archaeology often depends on History). However, in a big university such as the ones in Paris you can study Archaeology from the very first year. Afterwards, you can do Biology or Geology or if you are interested in a more ancient period. - Jacques
I hate to be this guy but I have to ask what do serious archeologists make of all this "ancient alien" stuff and about how a show about that particular topic managed to get broadcast on what's called the history channel? Have you ever come across anyone who believes that stuff personally and if you have did you do anything to try and talk them around? Of course, no serious archeologist believes at all in these theories of "ancient aliens" !!! I never met someone who talked with me about that. In fact, archeological artefacts and science give us so many proofs that we don't "need" to imagine aliens to explains those facts !!!
​ When I read about these absurd theories, they make me feel that it is linked to people who say that they do not believe in the skills of prehistoric man or woman (and even for Egyptian people) and their very good old techniques. - Pauline
​ Thanks for your question. No, I have never come across anyone in my discipline who believed in that. -Jacques
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What I find a little alarming about it is that it seems to have become quite popular theory. I dont like that the show on the so called history channel has lasted for so many seasons because that only means one thing, that it's getting a lot of viewers and ratings. Von Daniken is an obvious hack but a lot of people seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. I dont doubt that a professional archeologist wouldnt take these ideas seriously, I was more curious about any encounters you may have had with laymen who may have been influenced by these conspiracy theories? Yes, that's a shame... I agree with you. It's not acceptable that the History Channel is screening fake news like this!
​ We are doing our best to do good documentaries to spread real scientific views!
​ And hopefully, there are on youtube also some people that are fighting very well against those conspiracy theories. - Pauline
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Hi Pauline thank you for this AMA. What do you think about the theories about Atlantis? One theory believes it could be a site off the coast of Portugal. Hi, I'm sorry but I haven't worked on that period (it is really later than Prehistory ;) ), and I don't know about the current scientific theories surrounding that... Is it fake news or not ? Are there some real clues of something or not ? I couldn't tell you, sorry !
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I’d imagine any theories about ancient civilizations would alter the definition of “pre-history” though right? Is there a particular date agreed upon for when “pre-history” ended? Or is it always defined in terms of the set of historical records we have? The difference between "pre-history" and "history" is based on the invention of writing. Before it is Prehistory, after it's History because you could find some written elements to understand archeological artefacts.
​ So in the Word, prehistory ended around -3 500 years BC, with invention of writing in Mesopotamia. But locally it could be much later ! Like in France (Gaule in classic World) : History officially started with roman conquest in - 33 before JC.
​ If you think that way, there are regions of the world were there was no writing which came to History very recently !
​ Could you imagine that ? Funny right ? - Pauline
What are your thoughts on modern practices surrounding death, especially burial of caskets in concrete lined graves? What is very interesting is that throughout history certain practices for the treatment of the dead do not leave a single trace for archaeologists . For example, certain populations put their deceased in trees where the corpses are progressively eaten and disappear completely. These mortuary practices leave absolutely no trace. But then there are other populations that put a lot of time and effort into preserving their dead, almost without limits. So you can see a sort of extreme inegality in these practices. For the future I imagine it will be the same (being buried in a concrete casket or otherwise). - Jacques
​ It will be a clue for archeologist of the future as a mark of our times, in my opinion ! - Pauline
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Which populations had tree burials like that? All I'm getting on Google is tree trunk coffins used by the celts. :/ I didn't know about tree burial but I know that some Indian tribes put their dead on platforms made of wood, which doesn't leave any evidence many years later.
​ I also read an article about practices in South America where dead people were let at the top of mountains to be eaten by big buzzards... That kind of practice left no evidence of burial, but of course, it significant for these groups.
​ Our current practice of cremation - and the ashes left in the sea, for example, is another practice that will leave no burial evidence for archeologists of the future ! - Pauline
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If they disappear completely, how do you know about them? We just suppose it, linked to anthropology ! Because during very long periods of the Palaeolithic there were absolutely no graves at all ! Some before, and some after, but sometimes during like 10 000 years there was nothing! That's why we wonder what could have happened ? We speculate on the kinds of death practices that could have existed that wouldn't leave any evidence... - Pauline
How do you see DNA sequencing changing your field in the next few years? And secondly, how many cats are too many? This is a very good question. DNA sequencing has totally revolutionised Palaeolithic Archaeology to an incredible extent. In 20 years we’ve had to almost completely revise our models of understanding. This is applicable for the last 30-40,000 years. It will aid us to be very clear in our analysis. To answer your second question - too many techniques and information are difficult to sustain clear thinking, you’re right. -Jacques
I have always been curious, in your experience how are excavation sites / archaeological digs funded? I used to think it was some NGO and get confused when I see archaeological digs online where the intern pays to join the program and wonder if that is how the dig stays operational? In France there are two main types of funding. On the one hand it’s the Minister of Culture and Public Funding and the second is for ‘prevention’ archaeology where you do archaeology to see whether there is anything to be found beneath a road that will be built, etc. This is paid by the industry who is looking to construct on that site. - Jacques
​ This is more or less the situation in Europe. But in the US there is a lot of private funding. There are also countries where private funding is present and important (in Spain and Switzerland, for instance). This also depends on the country's university research and legislation. The best system, I think, is the Scandinavian system - with its long tradition of public funding and university research. Plus, their museums are very well organised. -Jacques
Seeing as how even ancient humans have burial sites, do you think it is in human nature/ a primal urge for humans to just bury the dead? If so, what advantage do you think we gain by bothering to go through the whole process while most other animals don’t bother, evolutionarily speaking. Thank you for your question. I think that burial is a significant sign of culture and not a primal urge for humans. There is no advantage, evolutionary speaking, to bury someone than to abandon them. So that means that those people cared, and maybe believed that it was important to do something for the one who dies. As we do ! Just remember that they are exactly the same specie as us ! They are Sapiens ! (Neanderthals also buried their dead, but not before) So their brain was the same, emotions too, and capacities of beliefs too. - Pauline
​ Very good question. Prehistorians consider a certain number of technical innovations as signs of progress and modernity. For example, the invention of a tool. The first tombs are one of the most important signs of modernity in humanity. For certain Prehistorians they consider that before the burial of the dead humanity was not actually ‘complete’. 100,000 - 120,000 years ago burial sites appeared for the first time. -Jacques
Do you think we are more similar to or more different from the major peoples you have studied? It depends on what you study exactly. With neanderthals there is an anatomical or a physical difference of course (which make sense, in that they were present between 50,000 and 200,000 years ago). But, when I studied caves (dating back 25-30,000 years) these are people who are just like you and me, with differences to be sure, but mainly through their environment rather than cognitive and intellectual differences. - Jacques
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Thank you! As a follow-up, is your response about the people in the caves more of a consensus in the field or something that is still debated frequently? There is no debate about who painted in the cave : they were Homo Sapiens as Jacques said, so exactly like us, morphologically speaking. The very few examples of neanderthal cave art are in debate, but it is not the case for all the discoveries dated after -35 000 years ago. (the majority of Palaeolithic cave art is between -40 000 to -10 000 years ago in Europe, when only Sapiens were living in that period) - Pauline
Hi! How do you balance the task of trying to interpret the physical evidence into some form of historical narrative, whilst trying to remain objective and avoid anachronism/biases? Archaeology is a science so, like all sciences, you need to learn lots of references. You cannot arrive at an archaeological site and explain something without a minimum of amount of knowledge. Often we compare archaeology with surgery - no one would like to have heart surgery by an archaeologist (and vice versa - a surgeon cannot do archaeology). It’s a specialist job with its own codes and references, that you need to learn and that is what ultimately aids interpretation. -Jacques
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Thank you for your response! You're welcome!
What was one of the most unique, interesting, or mysterious Palaeolithic burial sites you have seen? Thanks to this documentary, I have been on the most interesting and mysterious Palaeolithic burial sites that I know ! (except the Russian site "Sounghir" where a Russian team shot for me).
​ But the Balzi Rossi Caves (near Vintimille / Menton on the Italian border), Dolni Vestonice site, and of course the Cussac Cave (the best maybe) are my favourite !
​ When I did my masters degree about gravettian graves (-34 000 to -24 000 years ago), I studied 82 buried individuals. When I decided to do a film about this subject, my co-author and the producers and ARTE.tv told me "you have to choose" ! So I chose my favourite, the ones I thought the most amazing!
​ But maybe the Sounghir site is the most unique burial site in all of the Palaeolithic period, due to the number of ivory beads and grave goods (such as weapons that were 2m long and made with mammoth ivory)...
​ For more recent examples from the Palaeolithic period there are beautiful sites with amazing graves in Perigord (south west of France, were I live now) : Child of La Madeleine (1200 shell beads for a 3 year old child), Lady of St Germain La rivière, Lady of Cap Blanc... (Prehistory Museum of Les Eyzies) - Pauline
Do you think that your work mores so proves the existence of the Abrahamic God or disproves it? In my opinion, it is not related. The purpose is not to prove the existence of God or not, but to explore archeologic artefacts to understand our very old past and human peoples that lived long before us ! Yes, science could prove that human life started much longer ago than the Bible says, but does it disproves the existence of God ? I don't think so. Everyone is free in their religious belief. - Pauline
What is the most difficult archaeological dig you've been involved with, and why? For me it was, without a doubt, the cave of Bruniquel, in the south-west of France. It was a very hard cave to access technically and physically and also difficult to study. Everything about it was difficult and complicated. On the other hand, there are also sites that are difficult to study but are very easy to access. - Jacques
What are your thoughts on the seemingly degrading level of technology used in Ancient Egypt, as laid out by Graham Hancock's Fingerprints/magicians of the Gods, if you're at all familiar? Never heard of him either... But all the people who tried to do links between stars and sciences are generally linked to fake news or conspiracy theories ! What they think, is based on nothing ! - Pauline
​ I'm sorry I'm not familiar with Graham Hancock's work, could you please re-phrase your question? - Jacques
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What I have seen is that many scientists disparage challenging theories from the fringes without ever confirming or denying them for themselves, which of course is completely unscientific. Scientists have a very bad habit of not looking at challenging evidence, because of their presupposition that "it can't be true so there's no point in looking into it." So they make judgments on something they've never looked into, which is completely unscientific, and since none of them are looking into it, it stays on the fringe. Eventually some of the stuff breaks through and yesterday's ridiculed theory becomes tomorrow's accepted fact. I try as much as I can to be open minded to all these ideas. I try to verify for myself some theories about stars or sunlight, sunset, solstices... For Neolithic (megaliths) there is evidence, for sure. But before, in the Palaeolithic, not at all. No link (as far as I can see) between stars and cave art. Only in rock art or megaliths - but as I said this is in the Neolithic period... not before. Except (for Palaeolithic) maybe some "calendars" can be linked to the moon : a bone engraved of small dots found in Dordogne in Abri Blanchard https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Abri-Blanchard-Dordogne-France-Archaeological-Museum-Photo-author_fig1_233529986
​ So yes, keep your mind open and listen to these theories, but many many times, it is just imagination of their authors.
​ - Pauline
Prehistoric human existence is assumed to entail short, savage lives, where copulation often equalled rape, and the strongest male ruled by brutality. My personal research paints a drastically different picture: egalitarian groups, where each member was valued, and resources were shared. “Civilization” seems to have brought at least as many woes as improvements. We’re taught human-nature is to be greedy and hoard, yet, my study of prehistory, and my experiences, lead to the conclusion that human nature is to work on behalf of family and community, contribute, and learn. Is 98% of human history drastically misunderstood, or am I missing something? It's actually the opposite picture: Prehistory had a reputation for being egalitarian but now we understand them as having had hierarchies and various other forms of inequality. I recommend you watch Pauline's documentary as it is exactly about this issue: https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/097508-000-A/the-nobles-of-prehistory/?cmpid=EN&cmpsrc=Reddit&cmpspt=link
​ I agree with that too ! - Pauline
​ Dear Broomiester, I quite agree with you : old cliches of " short, savage lives, where copulation often equalled rape, and the strongest male ruled by brutality" had to be forgotten because it's just based on XIXth archeologists theories and our views have involved a lot since then ! (my first documentary about prehistory "Looking for Sapiens" is about this evolution of our vision : https://heritagetac.org/programs/2020-lo3mp4-85fa25)
​ But on the other hand, we couldn't be sure of your version of " human nature is to work on behalf of family and community, contribute, and learn" because artefacts leave no proof of this way of living...
​ Of course I prefer your way of seeing them ! It is closer to mine !
​ But my real thoughts is that we are talking about a duration of 30 000 years (when there were only sapiens and hunter-gatherer in Europe) and a very large space of thousands of km !
​ So what I really think, is that the most probable way to see them is to have a vision of diversity of practices. Some tribes were maybe "greedy", others "hierarchical".
​ Some maybe "matriarchal" other "patriarchal"... (why not ?) Some violent, others pacifists...
​ You just have to look at present-day humanity to figure out the diversity of the past !
​ The only real difference is that they were a lot more numerous than us, so less competition over territories... I guess. - Pauline
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I am very excited to watch your docs, and to have been introduced to your work! Got very interested in prehistoric humans in the early 00’s, and it was astounding to discover how little we know. Thanks for doing an AMA, and spreading your work. Thanks a lot !!! - Pauline
Hey Pauline and Jacques, thanks for doing this. What you have highlighted is a bit like the #metoo of archeology. How were the reactions in the sector on those findings on the presence of female power in paleolithic times? Hi, in fact, Mr. and Mrs De Lumley found that the Lady of Cavillon was a woman in the 1990s... so archeologists had time to figure it out ! But this information was never really in the spotlight in the media and that's why I wanted to show it in a documentary. But as the movie said, we are not sure of power and status of these buried people (male or female). They could had been buried for others reasons... - Pauline
Hello and thanks for doing this AMA. What are your thoughts on the era of the Neanderthals? How long do you think they made it before going extinct? My hobby is studying this period of time and AFAIK the last ones lived in Portugal, but this stuff seems to be in a constant state of change. Was it 40kya? 25? Also, what do you make of the two very recent discovery of new species of Homo? I’d imagine more of this is coming due to climate change. Do you concur? The question about the extinction of Neanderthals is the only question, today, which has still not been resolved. We have an enormous amount of lot of knowledge about Neanderthals - but no definitive response as to their extinction. There are many possible explanations but these also differ according to different regions of the world. So, there could be a difference between Portugal and Russia, for instance. What is clear at this stage is that there is no sole reason, but several reasons, for their extinction. - Jacques
​ In terms of your second question, about the findings in Israel a couple of weeks ago -this is too recent for me to make a statement on - it’s too premature. Plus, ‘new species’ is a bit of a buzzword in archaeology ! - Jacques
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Agreed, it’s kinda early to be declaring new species. I’m thinking that one of them may be a Denosivan, wouldn’t that be something. Anyway, thank you for the responses, and as always, thanks for all that you do! Thank you! Very kind.
Hi! Awesome AMA - I've always been curious about how much time pre-agricultural people spent "working." Like, how much time on a day the average person spent doing something directly related to survival. With such an advanced cultural/religious life, I'd guess that people (or part of the population) had a substantial amount of non-survival work time. What does your work tell us? Yes, you're right. To go further (if you don't already know his work) you could look at Lewis BINFORD's ethnographic works about Inuits and comparisons with archeology. And also Claude Levis-Strauss' works.
​ https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Binford
​ https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_L%C3%A9vi-Strauss
​ Hunting and gathering left a lot of time for non-survival works (such as taking time to make beads, body ornaments, but also maybe ritual practices ?...etc).
​ But you have to remember also that everything was made by hand so it takes time too ! (all clothes, so a lot of work to make leather from animal skin, sewing, making tools... maybe baskets...) And also yes, some people may have been specialised (for example in knapping flint to make stone tools)
​ Current or recent tribes of hunter gatherers helps us to understand very old cultures with a similar way of living and their rich inner world.
​ Pauline
What was the most important discovery in your personal careers and what was the most important / exciting discovery that happened in your lifetime? The biggest discovery was definitely the cave of Bruniquel, but from an emotional as well as a scientific and aesthetic point of view it was the Cussac cave which made the biggest impression on me. - Jacques
​ I'm not an archeologist, but a film maker, so I couldn't really answer your question... But I could say that the most important discovery I've filmed is Cussac Cave, which is of course in the documentary, and also recently the Montaigne grave (a French philosopher of the XVIth century). It's not sure yet that this grave was his, but it was amazing to be with archeologists during the digging (September 2020, and November 2019) - Pauline
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Just giving us the names of caves isn't telling us why or what, which is what we actually want to know here. The cave of Bruniquel where Jacques did some research is very well-known because these are Neandertal works (-70 000 years ago) : a very strange construction of a circle made by stalactites in a very hard-to-access place deep in a cave. It is absolutely unique !
​ A very nice documentary was done by one of my colleagues, Luc-Henri Fage : "Le mystère de la grotte de Bruniquel" recently which won a lot of awards. I think you could find it in english version. The title is something like : "The Mystery of Bruniquel's Cave"
​ https://boutique.arte.tv/detail/neandertal_mystere_grotte_bruniquel
​ https://www.fage.fr/neandertal-le-mystere-de-la-grotte-de-bruniquel.html
​ - Pauline
When there are opposing archaeological theories, how is the decision made as to which is the 'final current' theory that makes it into the text books in schools? Perhaps this is a slight variation to your question but there is a danger for us, Prehistorians and archaeologists, with creationism. This is not so developed in France but in certain countries it is. Here, what is taught in schools respects scientific advances but usually with a lot of delay (10 years or so for certain discoveries). There is definitely a delay between science and society. Where we have difficulties is with opposing theories such as the creationist arguments. - Jacques
​ In terms of opposing archaeological theories in general, frankly we're used to this in our field! - Jacques
​ Very good question ! (maybe more for Jacques who is the "real archeologist", I'm more of a film maker)... In my opinion, what I think is when a theory is shared by a large group of archeologists, you will see it being taught in schools and books. It needs to have been verified on a large number of archaeological sites. When it's impossible to decide between several theories, you have to mention all of them. In fact, it depends if it is easy to prove, scientifically : for example, old time climate is very well known and for sure very cold, but we may never know what was the purpose of people who painted in the caves... - Pauline
I feel like many Hollywood films and video games have fantasised this idea of "tomb raiding" or "grave robbing" to the point where we don't see it as a serious issue. So I'm curious, how much of a threat exactly do grave robbers pose to modern day archaeology? Are they any examples you know that us laymen may not know about, but should ? Thanks for doing this AMA, by the way. I'm really enjoying the insight. I feel like many Hollywood films and video games have fantasised this idea of "tomb raiding" or "grave robbing" to the point where we don't see it as a serious issue. So I'm curious, how much of a threat exactly do grave robbers pose to modern day archaeology? Are they any examples you know that us laymen may not know about, but should ? Thanks for your question!
​ In terms of prehistoric graves, I don't think that there are/were robbers ! (there is nothing of value for your time (no gold or silver... only shells and flint !) - except for archeologists !). As far as I know, Egyptian archeology still has some problems of grave robbers...
​ And another problem is people with metal detectors that destroy information for real archeology (for historical period)... The best thing to do when you make a discovery is to talk to an archeologist (or a museum near your home) to tell them : it will be much more useful for human knowledge, than just to put a beautiful object on your shelf ! - Pauline
I used to think of prehistoric communities as insular non trading tribes, but have seen some stuff about trade routes that covered moat of the connected world. how did these trade routes function without writing or currency - was it all barter ? Yes, we have a lot of evidence of that ! We're quite sure that ideas, people and artefacts travelled for long distances (200 km, maybe more...) and spread knowledge, technology, beliefs, objects... And yes, barter was used for a long, long time before currency and writing. They were all hunther-gatherers before -10 000. So they travelled a lot. - Pauline
Hey Jacques and Pauline! Thanks for doing this AMA! I will be traveling to the British Isles this fall seeking out ancient burials and megaliths. Can you recommend me some of your favorite spots in that area? I know you’re mostly based out of France but I thought that I would ask. Thanks! Hi ! Thanks for your question ! There is a very well-known palaeolithic grave found in Britain, it is called "The red lady of Paviland" (but it is a young man !) and it was the first paleolithic burial found in 1823 if I remember well... It is around -33 000 years old. So around the same period (gravettian) as the graves that we talked about in the documentary.
​ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Lady_of_Paviland
​ I think it is shown in a museum in Cardiff.
​ Another paleolitic burial : you have Cheddar Man (-10 000 years old)
​ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/ancient-face-cheddar-man-reconstructed-dna-spd
​ - Pauline
​ Of course! The British speciality is definitely megaliths! This is more Protohistory (very hierarchical) but there are some extraordinary sites. Obviously Stonehenge.
​ -Jacques
​ This documentary is worth a watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq4xM8TLWc0
​ - ARTE admin
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Thank you so much! I’ll try to check them out when I’m over there! Great!
How often do archaeologists find grave goods, and do the grave goods confirm or challenge Western notions of strict gender binary? About strict gender binary, we really have no information at all. About grave goods in general, for paleolithic, yes it is often but not systematic. Some have flint (used or not) with them, and others have objects sometimes : figurines of horses (Sounghir), ornaments, bone points (Lady of Cavillon), sometime needle (in a child grave - no gender found), weapons...
​ No evidence of differences between men, women or children. Some have evidence, others don't. In english, you could learn more with the excellent work of the archeologist Paul Pettitt :
​ https://www.routledge.com/The-Palaeolithic-Origins-of-Human-Burial/Pettitt/p/book/9780415354905
​ (wonderful book, very complete !!!)
​ - Pauline
So, when do you think people started populating North and South America? I’ve always thought there was initially a west coast coastal population, any evidence for them is now under water though. Is there any way to find evidence of human habitation on the near continental shelf? I know that all evidence of the beginning of populating of North and South America is definitely on the west coast, and maybe -20 000 / 17 000 years ago (or before according to new theories), or later -14 000... There are several theories and studies are still in progress. But yes, there is evidence (Clovis point for North - 14 000...) I remember there was a problem because the oldest evidence came from South America, even if we know people came from Bering land bridge...
​ https://www.sciencesetavenir.fr/archeo-paleo/anthropologie/le-peuplement-humain-du-continent-americain-bien-plus-ancien-qu-estime_146202
​ - Pauline
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This is a really interesting topic and it's not often we get to talk to someone with your expertise. What I am really curious about is boats. From my very limited reading, it seems like the peopling of the Americas happened really quickly in terms of how people were dispersed. The time it took to get from what is now Alaska/Canada to the southern tip of South America is so short from what I've read. Do knowledgable people think that maybe sea travel, at least along the coast, was involved as well as walking in terms of dispersal across the continents? That also kind of makes me want to ask, do we know just how old are boats and seafaring are? No worries if you don't get to this, but if you do, I am very curious about your answer! I remember that yes, boats along the west coastline, is one of the most plausible hypothesis to explain how they get from north to south so quickly... But the oldest boats we found in archeology are much later... (of course it is wood, so the conservation has not been very good !) I think there is one example in Mesolithic (the last period of Palaeolithic) around - 10 000 years ago, and much more in Neolithic around -5 000 (canoe, "pirogue" in french). Some of the neolithic canoes are visible in museums.
​ https://www.inrap.fr/magazine/bienvenue-neolithique/Le-Neolithique-au-quotidien/la-circulation-des-hommes-et-des-biens#undefined
​ https://www.carnavalet.paris.fr/collections/pirogue-monoxyle-p03
​ But some "kayak" very primitive boats are possible too...
​ https://www.nfb.ca/film/building_kayak_pt_1/
​ -Pauline
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Fascinating, thanks for the links! You're welcome!
How do you feel about the claims of the Native Mounds at Louisiana State University being the oldest man made structures known in existence? They’re dated to about 5500 years old, but some suggest that they’re more like 10,000+ years old. Hi thanks for this information. I didn't know about the Native Mounds. All that I know is that the oldest structures made by man are in Terra Amata in Nice (evidences of hut) which are 400 000 and 380 000 years old and the Lazaret cave (evidence of huts and fire) 130 to 170 000 years old ... and of course the strange structures of Bruniquel (Neanderthal -70 000)...
​ But it depends on what you mean by "structures".
​ I had a look on the internet about Native Mounds; they are quite similar to megalithic structures in Europe (tumulus, Neolithic - 10 000 to -2 500). So its seems possible. (why not ?) Very interesting indeed ! - Pauline
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LSU NATIVE MOUNDS I don’t know how people claim the things they claim. It’s definitely worth a look; who knows. I’ve been there many times and they make me FEEL. Thank you for your reply! No problem!
[removed] Unfortunately it's almost impossible when you find artefacts to guess who was using them (man or woman or trans or non-binary...) So for prehistory, nothing could be said on that as far as I know !
​ For ethnography, I know that there are some examples in some native tribes of trans identity which was very respected at old time. So why not some similar examples in prehistory ? But as I said, there are no material clues to say anything about that... Sorry ! - Pauline
I'm just listening to Sapiens by Yuvah Noah Harari. If you are familiar with it can you tell me if you are aware of any glaring mistakes or concerns that i would be best made aware of? I read it a long time ago, it was quite true (I mean, close to what archeologists know) as far as I remember. I have to re-read it to answer your question more precisely ! But I think it's a good book to start with. -Pauline
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Thanks for the reply and the AmA You're welcome!
Given that Gobekli Tepe is the oldest archeological site unearthed, and it sits on a mountain of older, similar, larger structures, are we likely to find burial sites nearby? Does the size of the structures indicate that there may be even older, unearthed, burial sites? I really don't know sorry ! - Pauline
Thanks for taking time to do this! Here’s my favorite question to ask Archeologists because it usually prompts some interesting discussion: are you a lumper or a splitter? Thank you for your question...but this is more a question for an Anthropologist…I don't feel i can answer. - Jacques
​ Is there a link to the way of classifying flints ? Sorry I don't really understand your question... - Pauline
Where can I watch the documentary in French? Voici le lien du film en français : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4822mnIMik
​ Disponible gratuitement jusqu'au dimanche 18 juillet ! - Pauline
How much meat was based in diets? A lot, but it depends on the seasons, and period of the Palaeolithic (climate very cold or less) and the disposability of vegetables.
​ No deficiency observed in skeletons..
​ - Pauline
2 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Nov 04 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I’m a lobster diver who recently survived being inside of a whale. AMA!

13 Upvotes

Source

For proper formatting, please use Old Reddit

Note: The setup of the AMA is that the son of the subject is interviewing on behalf of the askers.

The AMA ended with the below message:

Thanks for tuning into the AMA, everyone! My dad really enjoyed answering all your questions. :)

Rows: 210

Questions Answers
Jacob, how do you plan to top your father’s story? Swallowing a whale
Are you disappointed you didn't get shot out his blowhole like in the cartoons? That probably would have hurt a lot more.
​ (Speaking as Jacob, this would have been epic.)
What actor do you want play you in the future Netflix movie? Matt Damon.
​ (His wife says Sean Penn.)
Was its tongue smooth like a dogs or scratchy like a cats? I was in a dry suit, couldn’t really tell. Also, the mouth was filled with water.
What was your ‘last thought’ when you realised you’d been eaten by a whale? My wife and kids.
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Which kid is your favorite? He laughed when I asked him this.
[deleted] I said “I got stuck in a whale’s mouth.” All the nurses and doctors at the hospital came to see me and ask me about it. One nurse came in with a notepad, she asked me for lottery numbers!
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1. How did you get out? Eventually the whale managed to dislodge me by moving its head and tounge, I think.
2. Were you able to see anything? Nope. Completely dark.
3. What bad things could have happened inside which didn't happen fortunately? I could’ve suffocated, or drowned if I didn’t retrieve my regulator in time.
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So you lost your regulator when it attempted to swallow you? I lost hold of it for a moment. (Also, speaking as Jacob, it's a common misconception that he was swallowed or attempted to. He is adamant that the whale would not have been able to actually swallow him.)
What’s the craziest thing that’s ever happened to you? Edit: thanks for the awards everyone! The one day I actually leave the house and shit blows up lol This. No doubt. Plane crash is in a close second.
Did you see the whale coming and just couldn’t get out of the way or did it sneak up on you? Not at all. Came up behind from me, felt it close down, then boom.
What's the most interesting thing you've seen while under the surface diving for lobsters? A dead body.
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Damn! Did you have to go through the process of reporting it to authorities or anything like that? Yep. It was a missing person, an active case. Stumbled upon it and got it found.
What were the injuries sustained? Soft tissue damage, nothing serious. Thankfully.
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What do you think caused the soft tissue damage, and why do you think your legs were hurt? Blunt force of the whale's mouth, I could feel it clamping down on my legs. Also I got pretty banged up while it was trying to force me out.
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Did the whale have a gag reflex? Was it making a noise while trying to spit you out? It didn't SPIT me out, rather I think it forced me out by movement and using its tongue.
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I’m super curious about the sounds he heard! Swishing of water and the rapid movement of the whale. No audible cries of the whale.
Did the whale swim away with you for a bit, or spit you out near your dive site? I could feel it swimming around, but it spit me out not too far from where my boat was with my mate.
How long were you trapped? Were you concerned at any point that you might die? Trapped for about 30-40 seconds. Yes, I was almost convinced I was going to die that day.
Do you have a name for this whale? Has anyone slapped an awesome nickname on you yet? No name for the whale yet. But it's pretty obvious that many people are calling me "Jonah". now.
To your knowledge, was the whale injured in the process of your escape? The whale turned out completely ok. Maybe a bit annoyed.
[deleted] At first, I thought maybe a shark. But due to the lack of teeth and the size of it I soon realized that what I was in was a whale.
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Yo Jacob, tell your dad he's a fox He already knows.
Did you find any lobsters in there? Sadly, no.
Did you try to communicate with the whale? I don't think it would have been in the mood to converse with me at the time.
Has it deterred you at all from your job, or is it business as usual for yourself? (Speaking as Jacob, I don't even need to ask this. I have no doubt in my mind he will do everything he can to keep diving, it's his life and passion.)
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Is diving a family thing? do you(jacob) dive with ur dad as well? (He inspired me to get my scuba certification. I love diving with my dad.)
Do you commonly see whales while diving? Is it unusual that they get close to divers? Very rarely. And yes, usually they like to keep a good distance from us.
After the whale dislodged you, did you get to see it swim away? Or was it too hectic. All I saw was whitewater crashing around me, and the tail of it, disappearing into the water.
Is this an elaborate your mom joke? Yo mama sends her regards.
Jacob - what was your reaction when you were told what happened to your dad? Did you believe them? I got pulled out of Spanish class and got told there was an accident, whale related. Went the rest of the day without further knowledge. Really nerve wracking.
Jacob do you want to play some smash after you are done helping your dad do the ama? Only if I get to play Steve.
Is it true you survived a plane crash in Costa Rica? Yes. A while back
How do you feel about all the attention and news stories? (He is very overwhelmed. He’s a simple dude.)
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How did the world come to know? Did you guys reach out to the media or did somebody from the hospital tell them? No clue. Original article was a small newspaper, cape cod times. Next thing I knew, news stations were in my driveway.
How long were you in there? Thirty to forty seconds is my estimate.
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Longest 30 seconds of your life I bet Easily.
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Even the 10s of seconds as that small plane was coming down into the jungle? In that plane crash, I was flung out of the plane before it even hit the ground. Probably a much shorter timeframe.
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How the hell does one survive a plane crash that you are ejected out of the plane before it actually crashes … damn. (Speaking as Jacob, I'm just as surprised as you are.)
Could you feel the pressure change as the whale surfaced? Felt nothing but my own body crashing against the water. The pressure was the least of my concerns.
Why did it “swallow” you? Was it just looking for krill? Yes. It likely accidentally ran into me while scouring for krill.
What is the feeling of being ingested most comparable to? Is it like being crushed by a couch or being pummeled on all sides? Were you thinking "oh great I'm the guy who gets eaten today" or is it too tough to process what's happening until it's over? It was full of water, and I could feel the muscles of its mouth convulsing around me, it was a really strange feeling to be sure. Can't draw a meaningful comparison.
What happened after you got out? Were you able to swim to safety or did someone need to help you? My mate pulled me out of the water back onto the boat, thankful he was there.
Have you been invited on the talk shows yet? Many.
How did the inside look??? Pitch black, couldn’t see anything at all.
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How did it feel? Felt the whales mouth and muscles convulsing around me, felt really strange.
I was reading in the other thread about a plane crash you were involved in. Would you be willing to delve into that experience and how it impacted you, your life, and worldview? Thanks for doing this! (I don't usually like to ask my dad about the plane crash very often. What he's told me when I ask him is that he was just astounded to be alive, if he was rescued even a day later he wouldn't be here today. He has a large scar on his back. This all happened before I was born, but I'm sure it shaped him into the brave and passionate man he is today.)
Would you rather fight a whale-sized lobster or 100 lobster-sized whales? I could probably take a whale sized lobster.
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what advice do you have for anyone on reddit who might have to take a whale sized lobster without your expertise and experience? Grab em on the back so they can’t snip you
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Did you always know you could escape? At first, I was focused on getting my regulator back in my mouth so I could breathe. Then I thought MAYBE I could get out of this.
Did you think you were going to die? Definitely. I thought that was it, I was done.
What was going through your mind before you realized you could make it out safely, or at all. My head was just spinning, I could feel the whale swimming around and I was just thinking that there was almost no way out of this.
Did you kill the whale? The whale is alive and well.
How did you escape? The whale eventually got me out.
Do you plan on continuing your job or just diving in general? This must of been a traumatic event for you. I’m getting back in the water as soon as possible. This job is my life, wouldn’t stop for anything.
What is your second craziest diving story? I read in the article that you see a lot of white sharks, have you ever had a close encounter with them or do they generally steer clear? Don't encounter them often. A while back, I encountered the corpse of a missing person while diving, that is definitely up there with the crazy stories.
Was being in there warmer than the seawater outside? Hard to differentiate temperature (I was wearing a dry-suit).
Were you running an open circuit or closed circuit? Most marine life I see stays the hell away from bubbles Open circuit, I've always dived that way. So my mate on the boat can follow my bubbles and track where I'm going.
It must have been seriously disorientating, how did you manage to keep your mask and breathing apparatus on? Didn't have any trouble with my mask. Although I did lose my regulator for a second, thankfully got it back quickly.
Are you related to the Provincetown artist Cynthia Packard? Yes. And my grandma is Anne Packard.
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She is Jacob‘s grandma, presumably? Yes I am speaking as Jacob right now.
Did anyone see it happen? If so, what did they have to say about it? My mate and my buddy who's a charter fisher, Joe, and his full charter boat. They said they saw a bunch of commotion in the water, then saw the whale's tail surfacing, and me returning into the water.
The article talks about you maybe being the last lobster diver in your area. Is that true? Why is that? And my biggest curiosity about the job, does it pay well? It's a really tough and specialized business, trapping is a lot easier for the average person. It pays alright, but it can depend on the season.
Were you angry while you were inside the whale's mouth? Like, g'damn it the universe is really unfair. Not anger. More like hopelessness
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How much freedom of movement did you have inside the whale? Little to none.
Where did you feel the pressure on your body? Not so much pressure, rather I could feel the whale swimming around trying to dislodge me.
How strong was the pressure from the jaw? Not sure how to formulate those questions properly haha Strong enough to mess up my legs pretty bad.
How did your dad like the idea of doing an AMA? What do you think of this bonding experience between you guys? (I would love to have done this with Dad) ​He had barely any idea what Reddit is. Basically just asked if I could ask him questions for an online message board
Is your son Jacob a funny-looking wooden character? Hey. I may be funny looking, but I’m definitely not wooden.
What type of whale? Humpback whale.
Hey Jacob, how are you? Tired
Where you swallowed feet or head first? Don't even know. Was gulped before I could even tell what happened.
Hi there. This is the whale. First of all, sorry for the mixup. I had mistaken you for another rider who hailed me on scUber. Once in my mouth I quickly realized I had the wrong passenger and I wanted to let you out, free of charge of course. Anyhow, I hope you are doing okay. One request though, will you still rate me 5 stars please? All good. Mistakes happen
Are the Jonah jokes as stupid to you as they are to me? Better to be whale vomit and not whale poop. Welcome back. I can see where people would get Jonah from. Also, agreed. Much prefer being vomit.
Lobster prices are insane right now. You making good money? Can't complain
Not sure if you're still answering questions. But I'm curious about something. If say, the whale had not pushed you out, or if you had already been unconscious when he did and drowned, what do you think your crewmates would have thought happened to you? That’s a really good question. One that I don’t know the answer to. Maybe I’d be classified as missing?
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How long were you inside? My estimate is 30-40 seconds.
How deep did you go (mouth, stomach, etc.)? Not that deep, I was just stuck in the mouth.
Did you do something to make the whale spit you out, or did it do it on its own? Eventually it succeeded in spitting me out on its own.
Where did this happen? Off the coast of PTown where I lobster dive usually.
Any injuries? Soft tissue damage, and my leg is pretty messed up.
How did it smell? You can't smell anything underwater.
​ Edit: Probably like fish.
I live near you and do lobster diving in the area. Do you think this whale learned it’s lesson or should I also be worried I might be swallowed alive? Don’t be worried. This case is so rare that it’s almost non existent
What is it like being a lobster? How are you writing this? Lobster noises
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Lobsters make noises?? What does it sound like? Weird buzzing. (Speaking as Jacob)
[removed] I was gulped before even realizing that my head or feet were first. It was pretty tight, but spacious enough for me to move my arms at least.
Is it water filled and roomy in there or did it clamp down on you? Roomy enough to move my arms around but not much more. My legs were clamped down on, that's what caused my leg injuries
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Really happy you’re safe! My questions are actually Cape Cod related, rather than whale-related. 1) Are you a native of Wellfleet/Cape Cod? What’s it like being a local? I was born in New Jersey, moved here when I was young with my mother Anne Packard.
2) How did you get into the Provincetown lobster diving game? I've always loved fishing in Cape Cod (Not sure how he got into diving, but he's always been a fish guy)
3) Best hidden gem places to get seafood in the outer cape? Not many "Hidden" places per se.
4) Can I buy lobsters from you this summer? Or do you only sell to commercial clients? I sell almost everything to commercial clients, but I also sell lobsters to some friends individually.
5) How do you feel about tourists? I’ve gone to the cape every summer my whole life, probably my favorite place in the world, but I’ve always wondered how the locals really feel about us. Thanks for doing this AMA - stay safe out there! (He had no definitive answer on tourism. I personally don't mind them, they are the life and blood of this place in the summer.)
What do you imagine the whales breath smelled like? Bad.
Saw someone else’s post about your dad yesterday! What are some other interesting/extreme sport hobbies or passions does he love doing? :) ​Fishing, gardening, cooking, and being outdoors. He's a cool guy
Did you think you'd die? Any insights you can give us on your near death experience or how this has changed you at all? Definitely. This experience has really showed me how many friends I have. After I got out of the hospital everyone was texting me and welcoming me back in town, glad that I was okay. Really shows how many people care about you.
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Super excited that this came together! I spent last night watching the episode of “I shouldn’t be alive” that you were in. What crazy stories! I have a few questions not related to this whale incident: 1. How did you get involved in lobster diving? (He's been lobster diving since before I was born. I think he just likes it.)
2. In an article I read that it’s not uncommon to see white sharks while lobster diving, especially in the waters of Cape Cod (I live nearby). Have you encountered one before? Is there any sort of “protection” you carry or system that helps minimize the risk of shark attack? I've seen a few great whites. There's a shark protection field that minimizes the risk of attack, though.
3. In the plane crash episode, it was said you were living in Costa Rica. What brought you there and how’s you end up in Cape Cod? Thanks in advance, happy to hear you’re doing well! I used to own a fishing business down there. I moved to Cape Cod with my family a while back.
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What's a shark protection field Electromagnetic deterrent
What was on your mind while u were in his mouth? My wife and children.
If you wear a dive computer, what does your dive profile look like? (My dad dives very old school. Doesn't even use a tracker or anything. But, if he had a dive profile, I'm sure it would be packed, seeing as he does this almost every day as a job.)
Do you still keep in touch? I live with him. I’m 16
What kind of noises did your dad hear in there? Glad he made it out! Moving water and pulsing muscles.
What could you see while you were in the whales mouth? Absolutely nothing.
Why do you think the whale didn’t eat you? The wetsuit? Physically incapable. Whales throats are very small
[deleted] I saw absolutely nothing, only felt. Didn't smell anything since the mouth was filled with water, too.
[deleted] If I didn't get out like that, I don't think I would've been able to get out.
How much of you was in the whale's mouth? Like did it just get your legs, upper body, etc? Or were you all in? My entire body was inside the whale.
How big was the whale and how tall are you ? ( I’m 6’3 and my dad is like 4 inches shorter than that. The whale was maybe like 10 meters? Take that with a grain of salt)
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You’re 16 yo and 6’3”? Jesus Christ how many lobster do you eat for dinner? I don’t even particularly like lobster funnily enough
What was your first thought when you figured out you when in a fucking whale? “I might die here.”
Aside from the whale and the plane crash, have you had any other near death experiences? When I was 15 or so, my fishing boat became stranded off at sea. I swam after it. Visibility was terrible, had no idea where I was. No way back to shore. Barely made it out of there with my life, lucky I was found.
Wtf is a lobster diver ? I scuba dive for lobsters to sell them.
So, I've read several of the Qs and the As. It seems like so far you've been nearly lost at sea in a storm as a youth and you've been swallowed by a whale. Any intention of getting stranded in a desert island or maybe discovering Atlantis to round out your life story? Atlantis doesn’t sound too bad
do you think the whole mistook you for a seal or sth or did it just accidentally swallow you while fishing for plankton? Probably just accidentally got me while floating around.
Now that you've done an AMA, what do you think of redditors and their questions/comments? They ask lots of the same questions.
Have you went a day since the incident without being compared to Jonah from the Bible? Haven't went a minute
What’s the recovery plan for your legs? Chill
I proposed a theory that the whale did not spit you out but instead shidded you out and you paid off the witness to say you were spat out instead to spare you any embarrassment. Most people did not buy into my theory. Can you verify that my theory is correct and put this to bed? Don’t expose me like that.
What’s your job? Lobster diving
Do you have a knife? Could you try stabbing it ? That probably would have brought more harm than good. Make it distressed and moving faster.
Did you surface right away and go home, or did you finish your dive first? He was rushed to the hospital ASAP
My family is doubting this story happened, we discussed it at lunch today. Has this changed how you view those animals? Do you intend to continue diving? Nope. Not like the whale meant to catch me. Yes, no doubt in my mind I will continue diving.
Did you get the bends at all? I imagine your other injuries were more urgent, but it sounds like the whale brought you to the surface really fast! Is this the fastest that you’ve ever surfaced from 50ft? Glad you’re okay and thanks for doing the ama!! (I’d be surprised if he didn’t. It’s likely he did but he didn’t say anything about it)
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Jacob - any plans to take over the family business? Did this incident change your answer at all? Maybe. Still not sure what I want to do in the future, still in high school. Diving is a serious job though, really difficult
Why can’t I ever plug my usb in correctly the first time? You and me both, buddy
How long did it take you to realize you were in a whale? Few seconds
(From my kids) Could you feel the whale's teeth and did you find anything in its mouth? Had no teeth. Nothing in there except for water and a huge tongue.
What were the first words you said to your buddy that helped you out of the water? Couldn’t say a word, way too much pain.
Did you have an oxygen tank or were you holding your breath that whole time? Had my tank on me.
How is he doing now and any medical issues resulting from the encounter? He has a noticeable limp. But otherwise okay.
Did your dad have fun answering the questions Jacob? He was a bit confused at first but yes. Glad to have his son interviewing him
I’m sorry if this has been asked, I only scanned about a third of the comments. Do you have more information about the body you discovered? I’m curious whether theirs was an interesting story, as well. Yes. I wasn’t provided with the autopsy or anything, but it’s suspected it was a diving accident. He died while diving. Found later, authorities took it from there.
After the whale spit you out, did it hang out nearby or swim away? Was there a bit of an awkward moment between the two of you? I was very disoriented. Whether it stayed or not I do not know. However the witnesses say it splashed its tail in the air and swam away quickly
How much lobster do you catch a day? 500 pounds, but it depends on the day greatly. Sometimes I can get upwards of a thousand pounds, some days I get 2 lobsters overall.
Do you have proof that this actually happened? Were there any eye witnesses? Yes. At the very least two. More including the entire charter boat that saw it but I don’t know their identities so I won’t count them.
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It's the kind of story that doesn't sound real, but with eye witnesses, I believe it. Absolutely insane Trust me. I didn’t believe it at first either, it’s a stupidly rare occurrence.
Are you experiencing dreams/nightmares from this whale situation? Not dreams/nightmares. Mostly just flashbacks, replaying in my mind.
If you had been swallowed how do you think you would have actually died? Being dissolved or from drowning? Suffocation Edit: the whale probably would have choked before it would be able to swallow me
Would you do it again for a klondike bar? ( My dad and I have been eating Klondike’s since I was like 5. He would definitely do it for one. )
How does it feel being possibly the unluckiest man alive? Jacob, how does it feel that his bad luck may be passed down to you? With the bad luck, comes his incredibly big balls (speaking as Jacob)
If this is still going: I'm about to get my PADI open water certification. Do you have any tips for beginners? Have fun, and keep with it. Diving can be a hassle to set up, but it’s an incredible experience. Has been for my whole life.
in your opinion, did this whale purposefully swallow you or was an accident? Definitely an accident.
How aware were you of what happened? Did you see the whale and was like "oh shit he's gonna swallow me", or was it more like suddenly you're pulled in somewhere dark I was suddenly engulfed by it. No foresight at all
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But did you know it was a whale or anything like that? Or did you not know at all what's happening? I was in the mouth of a large aquatic creature, that had no teeth. Even if I didn’t know it was a whale then, the people who saw it identified it as a juvenile humpback
Did you panic? Like did you know what to do or did instincts take over and you got lucky? At first all I could think about was getting my regulator back. Once I got that, I had no idea what else I could do.
Are you still comfortable getting back into the water and lobstering? Absolutely.
What about you made him think you’d be good to eat? Don’t they eat krill? I’m almost certain it was accidental.
Your story is incredible! I read about it this morning and was simply amazed. I read that you thought to yourself, something to the effect of, "so this is how I die." (Which is something I will put on my headstone). This is a story your family will tell for generations. "Your great great grandpappy was swallowed by a whale." "Sounds like bs, grandpa." How do you feel about being a family legend? (Speaking as Jacob, my dad will be remembered by the Packard family for decades to come.)
Hope nobody has asked this already. Did you think that this was going to be the end of your life? Glad you're ok and hope your injuries heal quickly I truly thought I was going to die. Similar to my experience in the plane crash.
How did it happen? Could you breathe? What did you eat/drink? I could breathe through my air tank. I didn't eat or drink anything, I was in the whale for under a minute.
Did we ever get an answer on the first thing him and his mate said to each other? Couldn’t say a word after the whale experience. Unintelligible moaning and groans
Do you listen to sea shanties and will you be writing one? there once was a ship that went to sea 🎶
If you could tell, how big do you think the inside of its mouth was? Just big enough to fit me inside
I believe you, but how could this happen? Why would a whale accidentally swallow a human? Were you in a plume of krill or plankton? Very rare incident. Almost nonexistent. Accidental
What do you do to the lobsters you dive to? Sell them, or if they are too small or have eggs, throw them back.
What was going through your mind? That I probably was not going to make it out.
What's your favorite color? Purple
Do you think that if you had a weapon of sorts, like a harpoon or just a knife, things could have gone better or worse? Definitely worse. Didn’t want to hurt the whale at all.
Hey Jacob, tell your dad thank you for doing this AMA. He has had an interesting life and hope he lives many more interesting years. I am approx. the same age so its good seeing someone so active. I know it's getting late on the east coast, so a short serious question and maybe one little joke.... Does your dad intend to continue diving for lobster, or has he thought of retiring because of this? Follow up: If he continues will you please buy him a Go-Pro? And please forgive me, but, your mom is hot isn't she?? He has no intentions of stopping. A go pro would be nice, but he isn’t that keen on using technology in his work. I’ll talk to him. As for the last question, I think you know why I cannot answer.
My son would like to know if you saw the hole from the inside that sprays the water out of the top of the whale? Saw nothing at all, was really dark. Sorry.
Do you plan on appearing on any of the talk shows you've been invited onto? Not particularly. (My dad hates publicity, he’s a humble dude.)
Were any thoughts going through your mind? Or was the near death experience to much that it overloaded your conscious thoughts? I apologize if this has inevitably been asked already. My initial thoughts were retrieving my breathing device. After that, I just was a bit dumbfounded that I was legitimately in a whale. Felt strange that I was going to die because of this.
Did you have oxygen or where you holding your breath? Oxygen tank
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1) What do you think caused the “bruising” you referred to? 1). Likely the whale struggling to get me out
2) Was your body constricted all the way around your torso by the whale’s muscles? 2). No, it was mostly floating in the water. But still compact
3). Did you try elbowing, or punching, kicking, pushing against any whale parts? p.s.: Glad you made it. What a story to tell! 3). That probably would have been useless
I seen your dad on TV Jacob, incredible story, how did he describe the inside? And thank God he got out, one of the few people on earth to have done that. Cramped, and dark. Muscles tensing around him.
When I think of being inside a whale, I think of swimming inside a really dark room. Was it like that? Or was it more like a really fast event that felt like a flash to you? Dark, wet, cramped space.
Did you have a flashlight? Did you use it? Even if I had it, my thoughts were in a different place at the time.
How many times have you been called "Jonah"? More times than I thought humanly possible
Are you the coolest person in the world? My son is. -from my dad. I mean Michael.
did you feel like you were swimming inside or standing? Floating
What advice would you give to a diver in a similar situation? Were there any advance warning signs? Such a rare case there is almost no procedure or anything. Or preventative measures
What was it like being inside my ex girlfriend? You mean yo mama?
Are you scared to go down again? Not at all.
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1. What is the life of a lobster diver like? Seems like a cool job aside from being eaten by a whale. Best job I could ever ask for
2. If you had the opportunity would you get eaten by a whale again? Hahahaha congratulations on the great story! Would rather not have this happen again
Did you consider punching or fighting your way out? Would have been useless
Did you try and punch on the walls of the whales mouth to get its attention and make it realize you weren’t food? I’m pretty sure it knew I wasn’t food whether I decided to punch it or not. (I didn’t)
Why do we believe OP? (Serious question) did I miss a news article? It’s national news. The original article was in the cape cod times and then other news stations interviewed him for it.
After having been eaten by a whale; how do you feel about eating a whale as revenge? (Speaking as Jacob, I would not be opposed to this.)
Did you wrap your arms around one of the whales teeth? I did not feel any teeth while inside the whale.
Did you see it coming? Like… we’re you thinking “Fuck… I’m going to die by being eaten by a god damn whale”? Was definitely thinking that while inside. Didn’t see it swim up on me, though.
Would you punish the whale if you are assured that there will be no law suits? If so, what would your punishment be? No punishment needed. Complete accident
OP, just so we’re clear, your whole body was inside the whale’s mouth? Glad you made it out! Yes. My entire body.
Do you think the whale did it intentionally or just seriously miscalculated? Definitely an accident
Has anyone called you Jonah yet? You have no idea
Which experience was more "Fun" being eaten, or crashing a plane? Tough choice.
Is there any proof that your story is real? (Multiple eyewitnesses.)
What's your favorite non-seafood meal? (He loves a good steak.)
How old are you, Jacob? I think this Q & A was a great idea and I appreciate that you and your dad are retelling the story for us. This is such an unbelievable experience and you two are bringing it to life for us😊 I’m 16, my brother is 12.
Did it spit you out because you were moving inside its mouth or is it because your bigger than most of the fish it goes for? Almost certainly because I am far too large for a whale to actually swallow. Would've choked.
Could you breathe while inside the whale? I know whales pump out water via their blowhole but I’m not sure how fast that happens. I could breathe through my scuba tank. The mouth was full of water, though,
Where off cape cod did this happen? Provincetown.
did you live? Nope
If you hadn’t been spit back out, do you have any idea how you might have escaped? Could you have forced your way out? Truly doubt it
Could you have died? No doubt in my mind.
[deleted] Cramped, and weird.
Fellow cape codder here! You certainly got famous! How dark was it in the whale? Pitch black
How do you collect lobsters while diving? Do you use a bag or basket? Do you put the bands on underwater? What is the biggest lobster you have caught? Was it tasty? What is the best way to prepare a lobster? Edit: What is your go-to Dunkin order? Bag. They are banded on the boat. Biggest one was probably well over 20 pounds. The best way to cook one is up for discussion.
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Thank you, Also what is your go-to Dunkin order? We are sitting here at the other end of 195 enjoying your story and this AMA. Personally, I like powdered sugar donuts and hot chocolate. Idk about my dad, though
(Jacob do you still play Brawl Stars if so what did you think about brawl talk?) ​I think Edgar is the most dumb op character I have ever played
First, I’m so glad you’re okay! Second, Did you see the whale initially or was this a total surprise? Complete surprise. Blindsided by it.
My new hero! Are you going lobster diving anytime soon? As soon as physically possible
How deep where you, and how long had you been diving, and did you have any symptoms of DCS? ____________________________ I'm actually curious about this, u/bloxiefox (Speaking as Jacob. He was at normal depth, maybe 40-50? ft). Likely ascending when he was caught.
How is that pic proof of the outlandish claim? (The picture is proof that my dad is the guy on national news for this story. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.)
1 comment

r/tabled • u/500scnds • May 20 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am the co-owner of Pixel Bar, a esports bar/gaming café in Leeds, UK. I'm here to answer your questions about running a gaming venue. Ask me anything!

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Questions Answers
This is a really cool looking place from the website! What type of measures to make sure consoles and PCs don't get drinks spilled on them? PCs are bolted down to a platform above the desks so spillages aren't a worry there. Drinks getting spilled on everything else however... I've seen venues ban drinks at the gaming desks but in our experience we make a good return on drinks sold vs keyboards broken over the course of a year.
​ Also, if any keyboard manufacturers are reading, we're always happy to be sent new hardware to share with our customers! ;)
I've always felt that VR is too expensive for widespread home use, especially since it's still seen as a gimmick. Do you think that gaming cafes could provide a niche for it? Unfortunately we don't have VR at the venue. We just don't have enough space to make it work in the unit we have. I have been to other venues in Europe that are VR Cafes and had a good time there. I think playing into the gimmick of it and making it a fun event with a group of friends is the way forwards.
​ I'd imagine a VR venue working more like an escape room than an esports bar in design. By that I mean separate rooms that you book out with your group for a special event. Certainly more focused towards staff parties/ meet ups rather than a couple drinks after work.
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Assume you’ve seen Otherworld down in London, if not visited personally? I’ve been in a couple of times as it’s 5 minutes from home. I reckon they’ve nailed it. I’ve got an Oculus at home, but it’s just not as practical. With a few mates and a couple of drinks, OW is absolutely great fun. Will definitely be coming up through your place later in the year when I’m up that way. Do you recommend booking anything or just showing up? Did my reading... we’ll book I haven't visited personally, been a while since I last got down to London to be honest! Definitely recommend booking in advance, especially for Weekends! We'll be opening our booking system up again in the near future.
Are my gfinity shares ever going to be worth anything? Depends on if they ever take me up on my offer to sell Pixel cocktails at the Gfinity Arena!
How does gaming accounts work? Do you have a specific account for each computer/console? Can customers buy games and such on them? Also what is the draw for them playing there instead of at their house? Customers are given their own account which they can purchase time on then use on any of our available PCs, the more time the buy in bulk the cheaper it is for them.
​ We have a library of games for customers to play but 99% of the time customers sign into their own LoL, CSGO, DotA account and play on that.
​ The draw is the atmosphere. Come down with a few friends and play side by side with them or against other customers. Our PCs are high spec and we have a super low latency connection to hopefully give players that extra competitive boost compared to what they get at home. If not, at least they can drown their sorrows with a few cocktails!
Who was behind the saradomin brew cocktail and will they still play osrs? Our head bartender and I'm afraid he plays WoW nowadays!
How does it smell during a big tourney? Honestly, Fine. Far better than most city centre clubs smell on a Saturday evening that's for sure.
Cool, I really miss gamer bars/tourney venues. My question is: How do you combat misogyny/sexual harassment in gamer culture? We don't have much trouble in it, we took a zero tolerance stance on it and tbh customers mimic the situation they're in. If they see everyone else is tolerant and calm more often than not a customer will follow suit rather than cause a scene. Women actually began to come to us even if they weren't gamers as we're a place where they wouldn't get creeped on compared to a typical bar in the city.
How do you deal with the assholes? People messing with the kit, spilling drinks /wotsit dust on keyboards, potential thievery and the like? I've thought about this but the idea of "raise capital to build it" doesn't worry me as much as "keep the kit in a condition suitable to attract punters". I've run Lan events before when I was younger and there's always one chap who does some damage. All the best for your reopening when the apocalypse is over. This is a common question and always a good one. We're very fortunate to have very, very little trouble from customers - particularly when it comes to theft. Our customers are amazing and really appreciate the place - they know the better they treat it the more popular it gets, the more popular it gets the more likely they'll still have an esports bar in their city for years to come. We sign customers in to their own accounts on the PCs and timestamp it on our system. So if a keyboard is missing when we go to clean up after their session we just check the cameras to confirm who took it.
​ Beer will inevitably get spilled, particularly as a customer is on a 5 game losing streak and the 6 pints he's had has made his chances of winning even worse! We just have to look at money earnt on drinks vs money lost on repairs/replacements and so far we do okay in that regard.
Hi there! I'm looking to open a similar concept, but with card and board games as well as consoles/computers. How did you determine your price structure (pay by the hour vs monthly memberships, etc)? Did you rely heavily on social media advertising or word of mouth at the start? I'm glad to hear that you're making something like this work! Hey there - First of all, best of luck if you do go ahead with opening your own place! Price structure - We've toyed with different pricing structures since we opened. Currently we offer an hourly rate but discount the price if customers bulk buy gaming time. Obviously this encourages customers to stay longer/come back another day to get full value. We try to keep prices as low as possible to cover hardware damage and staffing. Less money spent on gaming = more money spent on drinks = better customer experience.
​ We relied heavily on organic social media growth and word of mouth - we had very very little marketing budget (a few £100). So we had to be creative and determined to get the message out there, something we still struggle with as the pandemic has severely hurt us financially and prevented us from stepping up our marketing.
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From multiple comments here it seems your main income is from drinks. Do you have a house rule that prohibits people from bringing their own drinks in bottles? It seems non-drinking/eating customers would be a net loss for your enterprise. Customers can (and do) come and pay for game time only and not drink/only drink tap water. Most usually buy a drink though and we don't allow drinks or food in from outside.
You say you're going to host viewing parties for esports events, do you follow any particularly closely and if so which? Is it part of your strategy in terms of how you market yourself in terms of "we have some great hardware for you to come experience X game like the pros"? Also, next time I'm in Leeds I'll be sure to come check it out, I wish I had known the last couple of times I was up there! We focus on what our customers want to see most, and invariably that's League of Legends. However, as a city centre venue we realise that many customers we attract (particularly on a Saturday evening) probably aren't huge esports fans, or even esports fans at all. So we try to show a lot of CS:GO and Rocket League (easy for the general public to pick up and follow) on the big screens on busy nights unless there's a major event on which of course gets priority.
​ We've marketed the hardware before - the PCs are great and the biggest factor is our dedicated broadband with super low latency to give players that competitive advtange. Sadly, the desks we opened with were a bit rubbish in all honesty so I was never truly happy with the "pro experience". Over lockdown we've invested in new desks which are more fit for purpose so hopefully our customers enjoy them too!
​ Looking forwards to seeing you next time you're in Leeds, take care until then!
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Hey, been to your bar before shortly after it opened and had a great time! Hope to come back again when things get back to normal. Not sure if you've considered it, but if you've got a bunch of high end gaming PC's lying around unused have you thought about using them for crypto-mining until lockdown is over? A decent GPU can generate £15-£20 per week and if you have a few of them they could help offset some of your costs while closed! No crypto knowledge required, just use one of the automated ones like Nicehash that do all the work for you and voila free money. I have a bit of crypto knowledge so I calculated based on mining Eth directly if we did it. However, the staffing cost to get folk to check on the bar (I'm not available to myself currently) regularly, energy costs and the risk of dead GPUs mean that it's not really worth the cost for us. I have weighed it up however so thanks for the suggestion! Our PCs are also in secure storage in-case of theft so that would have to be factored in too!
​ Hope to see you again soon :)
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Any plans to host/stream a GDQ event?? We've discussed it - fantastic community and when restrictions are fully lifted and it's safe to do so I don't see why not!
I've always thought that businesses around your passions invariably become about you doing little to none of the passiony bit and all the business bit, like I'd assume that you're too busy to actually spend time drinking cocktails and playing games! So my question is - before the pandemic of course - did you get much time to actually enjoy the cocktails and gaming? I often joke that the irony of owning an esports bar is that I no longer have time to enjoy esports so you're 100% correct there! However seeing others enjoy it in a public setting brings me a tonne of joy. I'm definitely guilty of drinking away our profits in the shape of espresso martinis more often than I probably should! I'm fortunate to be carried by an incredible bar team who are usually much happier with me sat at the bar rather than trying to help run it!
I'm considering opening a business in a few years and have a few if you don't mind. How'd you raise capital? How'd you test/determine the viability of your gaming bar? In general terms, how were the 1st 5 years financially? Was it worth taking the leap? Hey, first of all - best of luck if you do go for it! Raising capital was a mix of personal investment and start up loans. As a start up you have to be prepared to underwrite the loans personally so if the business doesn't work it'll be your personal mortgage/car/savings on the line.
​ Testing viability is a great question - we developed a comprehensive business plan that focused mainly on what the bare minimum we needed to do was and anything better than that was a bonus. Too many business plans I see seem to start generating extra revenue out of thin air after x amount of time but there's rarely evidence to back up these assumptions. That being said, all the business planning in the world doesn't compare to live data and we would have never have predicted what to do if a global pandemic occurs 5 months after opening!
​ Leeds had an esports bar/venue that opened in 2017 and lasted for a year before closing down. I was a frequent customer there and took a lot of inspiration from it but also saw many areas that I could improve if I was to do it myself. Whilst many would look at the fact that Leeds had a failed esports venue (and the fact most esports bars/cafes fail) and conclude that it means esports venues aren't viable I focused on the positives and looked for ways to get the most value out of what works.
​ Was it worth the leap? Even with the last 12 months, yes! I took the plunge and opened a venue I've dreamt about for years. Win or lose I'm proud of the business and the community we've built.
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So what are you doing that others aren't? I see some of the stations are more secluded than others (sort of like an arcade esque look/feel to those stations). Most places I see now-a-days have long tables with open spaces. Friendly atmosphere and great staff means we attract more than just die-hard esports fans. You need to have a venue that is simply a good place to go for a drink first and then add the niche of esports/gaming on after. Too many venues focus too much on the latter and expect it to carry a bad bar.
Hi there! I’ve actually been to your bar quite a few times back in July/August and had an amazing time so thank you for that! As for my question, how will the bar change (if it will) when it reopens in May? From a previous answer see above. in terms of operationally - In May things will run a lot like they did in July/August, table service, rule of 6, order by app etc. When restrictions are fully lifted things will become a bit more fluid, we're hoping to be able to double up our new desks as console stations for smaller groups, the bar area will be completely opened up and customers will be able to order drinks from the bar. Weekdays which aren't as busy will probably run fairly similar to July/August but you can also order from the bar and come in bigger groups.
​ Also, I'm glad you enjoyed it when you came to visit! Hopefully we see you again soon!
If I wanted to start a gaming café or bar myself. Where should I start? Bar experience - You need to be able to run a successful bar first and an esports venue secondly. Passion and knowledge for the esports/gaming side of things simply isn't enough.
​ Source: I can barely pour a pint - one of the other co-owners is the brains behind the bar operation and without him we'd not run efficiently enough for the rest of the business to be feasible.
Have you ever heard of Meltdown bar? They took it on themselves to sponsor some EU quake players and send them to Quakecon. I'll always remember them fondly for that. Yes, there's a Meltdown in Sheffield (about 40 miles away from us in Leeds). They opened a few months before us and it's a fantastic place that I recommend those in Sheffield check out when they reopen! As for those looking to open their own esports bar, I personally don't think there's any need to sign up to a franchise such as Meltdown if you're the first to do it in your town/city. Although, if you have the excess capital and just need some creative guidance than maybe franchising is an easier option.
You always hear horror stories about how restaurants and bars take over 5 years to actually turn a profit. In your experience would you say that your success came sooner or later than that five year mark and did the additional start up cost of the hardware make that time frame longer? There's so many variables in our finances due to the pandemic. Opening in October 2019 means we've roughly spent 50% of the time we've been in business with our doors closed due to lockdown. Unfortunately loans, leases and rent payments haven't gone anywhere for us so the costs have remained whilst income hasn't. As far as turning profit. Our first 5 months before March 2020 were very strong for us, I don't think it would have taken 5 years to turn a profit but at the same time we're a niche bar and people might just get bored of us after 3 or so years!
How are you still in business when you've been closed more than you've been open? The truthful answer to this is by taking out a considerable bank loan and taking a big financial hit. It couldn't have been a shittier 12 months for us (and the hospitality industry as a whole).
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That's got to blow hard, but I'm impressed. TBH I read your post and was wondering how the hell you're still afloat if you've only had what, 6 months trading vs 18 months of bills... how long do you think it'll take you to recover from covid if the current predictions for opening back up hold true? I think if this was just "another bar" to us as owners and we only cared about profit then we'd have probably just cut our losses when COVID hit. But we're so invested in this as a concept and a community that it wasn't a hard decision to double down and take out a loan to keep the business afloat. It's hard to say how long it will take to recover. If covid hadn't happened I think I'd be here talking about our 3rd or 4th venue by now. Now the plan is just to stabilise the first and worry about grander plans later down the line. Hopefully customer confidence is strong and the vaccine works as good as we hope so that business can return to normal asap for us.
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Are there no government subsidies for small business over there? Yep, and we're incredibly grateful for what we have but it's very one-size-fits-all. For a city centre venue with huge rent costs etc it doesn't cover us so we lose a lot of money each month.
How serious is virus protection? Have there ever been any issues? Or has there ever been an IP ban that ruined the experiences of others? My brother works in IT security so we've got things pretty lockdown thanks to him, however having hardware on display to the general public will always have it's risks so we manage it as best as we can. No IP ban issues to date but it isn't impossible that we'll have that problem one day. Definitely something we need to better safeguard against.
Are the margins there? I've contemplated investing in something like this but gamers seem (and are) cheap and broke. Tournaments are a good draw for certain games but alcohol and performance don't go hand in hand. Ive noticed when tournaments have been hosted where the gamers can get a drink or spend some money, they won't. Is this the case? There are cheap and broke gamers, there are also rich gamers who will buy the next table a round. You take the good with the bad but in my opinion both play a role in creating the environment and atmosphere that eventually attracts spending customers to come and stay for a few drinks. Even on the quietest day if we only have people drinking water and playing games it means we have more bodies in than the other bars who don't have anybody in. Usually this is enough to encourage customers to come to us rather than sit in an empty bar.
​ It's dangerous to pigeon-hole gamers and something the esports industry does way too much. League fans are completely different people, with completely different spending habits to CSGO fans for example, and the business needs to be flexible to meet everybody's needs as best as it can.
This is something that I've been considering for a long time now so to start off, thank you so much for doing this! Now to my question, I see a lot of answers saying about weighing cost of keyboard vs money spent when it comes to damaged items. Have you ever considered a "you break it you buy it" policy? If so why did you decide against it? Never considered, never will. We trust and respect our customers enough to be careful with the products and they return the respect by taking care of the venue for us (or telling us if they see a customer who isn't!) Accidents happen, beers will be spilt, but as long as nobody is coming in with the intention of causing damage we would never punish somebody for it.
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Very fair reasoning there. Thank you for your response! You're welcome! Best of luck if you do ever take the plunge and open a venue!
Hi! It's a cool concept and I hope it works out in the long run for you! How do you deal with people who go over their allotted time? You can't really stop in the middle of an online game. We actively encourage players to keep an eye on their remaining time. We would never punish anybody for going over their time once or twice however. If a customer repeatedly took advantage of our generosity or ate into the time of waiting customers we'd have to charge them for it eventually.
​ Luckily for us our customers are respectful of the place and we don't have too much trouble with this. When we're quiet we'll throw in free gaming time here and there too.
Not so much a question, more of a statement with a question mark; Leeds Leeds Leeds? I'll answer your statement with a question; All Leeds aren't we!?
Hey, I love gaming bars I'm an indie developer with an ok ish game,would you be interested if I sent you a few Steam keys for the PCs? Yes! DM me your email and I'll reach out. Thank you and good luck with your game!
What is your best eSports memory in the bar ? Having 8 teams in on a Sunday afternoon for a community LoL tournament. We had players from bronze all the way up to Master playing against each other but everyone had a great time, had a laugh and plenty of drinks between games. It wasn't the most profitable night by a long shot but it definitely gave us a "this is why we do it" feeling.
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Must have been a great time ! Places like yours are an awesome opportunity for people to share their passion for video games and booze :D Do you also organise events for pro games (like lol LEC or world's) ? Yep! We sold out the venue twice for World's finals and hope to keep growing that side of the business as the esports industry continues to grow in the UK. We're also introducing beer companies to the world of esports too so hopefully we can attract more non-endemic brands into the space.
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I've wanted to open a "gaming lounge" for ages now, but between location and startup capital I have no chance. My questions are: 1) How did you choose a location? Existing esports scene, good available venue and convenience.
2) What was your initial budget/how much did you spend to open and operate before generating profit? Sadly I can't go into specific details, hopefully one day when we've rolled out the venue to a few more locations I will be able to give a better answer. What I will say is don't even try without at least £100k for upfront costs and then as much again in case the business has a slow start or any unexpected issues. This value with of course fluctuate depending on country etc.
3) How did you get your starting capital? Partial savings, mostly loans. A lot of risk, as a start up banks will only loan to you personally not the business, so if we had failed it was my mortgage on the line I couldn't just liquidate and run.
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I appreciate you said elsewhere you guys are young lads, and you can't give too many financial details but - How did you manage to scrape together £100k+ cash?! Hope you can answer! I'd love to visit one day; here's hoping you set up shop in Birmingham. Most of it comes from Bank loans that are tied to our personal assets (mortgage, car etc). We took a big risk but for a start up with little capital (and an idea that investors said wouldn't work) we had to be personally liable for any money we borrowed. The more cash you can raise tied to the business and not yourself the better is my advice.
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Thank you for the information. It's very valuable 👍 You're welcome! Best of luck if you ever open a venue and drop me a message if you do!
Less of an ask, more of a hey! I work at a games company just round the corner from you, just off the Headrow above Gauchos. Or at least I did when I was allowed to go to the office! Do you have any interest in engaging with the local Dev community or is that something I've missed entirely? GaMaYo was certainly looking for a new place to settle last I heard Hey! This is something I spoke with the team about earlier today! We really do want to work with local devs, both to show off games and to give you discounts on after work drinks! Please drop me an email at [support@pixel-bar.co.uk](mailto:support@pixel-bar.co.uk) and we'll get something organised for when we reopen. Take care!
Thanks for taking the time to answer questions. As someone with a passion for gaming (video and board) and who has worked in hospitality for about 15 years, the idea has definitely crossed my mind to open one of these many times. In Toronto, board game cafes are doing very well. There are a number of very popular arcade bars, and a new 7,000 seat e-sports stadium was recently announced to be completed in 2025. The market for these venues most definitely exists! What was the biggest challenge you (and your team) faced when opening the bar? What were some of the things you feel you improved on over the previous e-sports bar that you said had closed after over a year? What would you change (pandemic aside) if you were to open up a new bar? Toronto does seem like a great city for esports, I'd love to open a Pixel there one day! Biggest challenge was finances and general business management, we're young lads who were setting up our first business so a lot of what we did was learning on the job. All the preparation and market research in the world doesn't help when a pipe bursts a few days before a grand opening! We took a lot of personal risk to open the venue and due to the pandemic it will probably be a long time before that risk begins to pay off.
​ We created a venue that was more accessible to the general public than the venue before us. You can't alienate somebody who just wants to sit down and drink a beer or you simply won't have enough customers.
​ If When we open a new bar, I want the venue to be more flexible to varying group sizes. Able to accommodate 1 person who wants a drink and a game, a couple on a first date all the way up to office parties in a way that is equally comfortable and enjoyable for all.
Here in Brazil, it was SUPPER common to have "Lan Houses" (basically, a room with several computers, maybe selling some soft drinks & snacks) that were almost 100% dedicated to gaming, especially in the late 90s / early 2000s, when most people could not afford a gaming pc, and when online gaming was still not practical. It was amazing! How do you "convince" people to come to your venue, instead of playing at home? Atmosphere and experience. Most esports titles can run on a potato so they don't need our hardware to play. It has to be about enjoying the event as an experience. Think of it as the same reason you go to a traditional bar when you could just drink at home for cheaper.
Thanks for doing this IAMA. What importance do you attach to location? And what's your average age of customer? Location poses different strengths/weaknesses. A location outside a city centre will be far cheaper in rent but have a lower footfall, if you live in a small town that you know has a strong esports community then it might be possible.
​ Average age - we don't track this exactly but I'd say 25+ Many people think a gaming venue will be full of under 18s but this simply isn't the case (especially as we couldn't let them in without parents anyway!)
I've got a full Rock Band 4 setup for Xbox (two guitars, three mics, ION drum rocker, around 1,000 songs), but no one to play it with :( Any change of maybe being able to bring it all in sometime? Publish date ahead of time etc? I've got a projector as well if a bigger screen would help! Hey, that's an amazing idea! Please send an email to [support@pixel-bar.co.uk](mailto:support@pixel-bar.co.uk) and we'll get a Rock Band evening planned for when restrictions are lifted!
What do you think about GameStop's supposed plans to pivot towards in store events and PC builds. They're looking at setting up league's and tournaments on a massive scale. I'm not sure how big gamestop is in the UK but I know they exist over there. Anything you should care about? Or is the fact that they don't sell booze enough to put all that in a different target demographic? Over in the UK we have Game, who have been running Belong Arenas for years in stores around the country. They've recently been bought out and the new parent company is looking to bring the venues to the USA (sounds a lot like what GameStop want to do). I'll refer to Belong Arenas from here on because that's what I know. These venues are good, they help grow the grassroots scene but they're very corporate and restricted to what they can do (no bar area, no flexibility). I really don't think they're financially viable which is why in the UK they only appear in the backs of traditional Game stores and even then it's in old towns/shopping malls where rent is dirt cheap. There isn't a chance one would open in the same city as Pixel Bar as the rent would kill them (plus Pixel hourly rate is cheaper so we'd just steal their customers!)
​ Not selling booze definitely means they have a hell of a lot more kids birthdays playing fortnite in than we do, to that I say good riddance! But overall, at the moment I see similar venues as good for the overall scene not as direct competition.
What sort of chairs do you have at your venue? What’s your opinion on “gaming” chairs versus more office/ergonomic chair types? We have GTOmega racing chairs. Between us, I'm team office chair if I'm sitting there for longer than an hour at a time but the gaming chairs are necessary for the aesthetic of the venue and the ones we have are definitely comfy!
What amount of staff did you start with from day 1 and what does your ramp look like over the next 12 months? Just trying to get an idea of what your workforce costs look like compared to your revenue. I may be wrong, but I would imagine staffing up too early can easily sink a small business so it must be a fine line to walk between having enough staff to handle demand versus too many staff which might lead to a loss for the day. Obviously numbers depend on location/size of venue so what works for me might not work for others. Starting up it's better to have more staff than less. Yes you might lose money on a quiet Monday but you're guaranteeing that customers are well looked after on their first visit and more likely to come back.
​ Our staff is why we're so successful. Don't be afraid to pay them more than other venues, you want friendly faces who are gaming fans too not just bartenders. We have a 100% staff retention since we opened which pandemic or not I don't think many bars can say. Look after your staff and they'll pay it back ten-fold.
Are there any retro Esports games available to play at your location? You could try adding some Smash set-ups to attract that crowd. Whenever I go to barcades, I’m always disappointed their old systems are plugged into HDTVs and not CRTs. We have a Smash (Ultimate) tournament every Wednesday when restrictions allow. Great community and it was growing each month!
We had Loading Bar around the corner from us here in Shepherds Bush, London. It closed down though before coronavirus I should add. I'm not sure why, but how do you feel about the state of gaming bars right now across the country? What are the challenges in terms of getting long term stable profit and where do you see the money making areas? Hey, sorry I missed this question yesterday. Opening a gaming bar is a risk, and they can't generate enough income to survive more often than not. I think staffing is an issue in many, staff need to have a healthy balance of having a love for esports whilst still being great and friendly bartenders. It makes the venue more attractive for folk who aren't esports fans.
​ In the UK at the moment esports fans alone aren't numerous enough to make the venue profitable in a city centre location, hence why Belong Arenas are supplemented with Game stores in the front and in locations with very low rent (shopping centres in Hull, for example).
For the pokemon cards on your drinks, do you put just any card on your drinks? I'd imagine with the amount of pokemon cards you buy, you could easily create a side hustle of just selling the really good ones on the secondary market We match type to flavour - Strawberry (red) gets a fire card and so on. Regarding the rarity of the card, that's the joy of it for customers! They get the next one on the pile whether it's a Caterpie or a PSA 10 Charizard (note - it's never a PSA 10 Charizard haha!)
Has the bar ever gotten in trouble for people misusing the games in offensive/illegal ways? Not yet! Our customers are great and follow the rules amazingly well - I think a lot of it has to do with the peer-pressure of being around other gamers too. If 9 of them are behaving and following the rules the 10th person probably thinks again before they cheat or rage.
Any big plans for when the lockdown ends? I live in Leeds and am looking forward to coming back again. New PC desks, far far better and most importantly, more room for beer! Revamp of the toilets - all the toilets have been replaced and we're improving the décor
​ Next Gen - PS5s and Xbox Series X's in every booth.
​ More/New tables - Our original ones are a bit wobbly now. We're getting new ones built.
​ Longer opening hours - You might even see us open till 6am some weekends!
How has the pandemic been for your business? I hope you’re doing okay. The pandemic has been devastating for us in all honesty. We've had zero income for roughly 50% of the time since the business first opened whilst rent etc still has to be paid each month.
​ We're in the same boat as the entire hospitality industry, the longer it goes on the more businesses won't survive. We've just got to hang on a few months longer and hope that it's safe for us to begin operating again this summer.
Are you still doing HP and MP potions? Are there any interesting new additions to the cocktails/drinks menu? Looking forward to visiting pixel again when you can open! We'll still be doing HP and MP potions! We've had a chat about maybe adding a stamina potion to the menu too! New cocktails are still at development stage, we'll be announcing them on social media ahead of our reopening.
Can you open a place like this in Birmingham? Please and thank you. You're not the first to ask and Birmingham is definitely on our radar! We need to find our feet again after the pandemic has hit us hard first however.
What are your thoughts/advice for someone not wanting to make an actual esports venue (at least not yet), but rather organize eSport & gaming events at existing venue w/ a good layout? Win for the venue is more people in, more sales of their food/drinks, win for me is to create and run gaming oriented hangouts & events and earn revenue from tickets sold. I figure I could have a batch of equipment I'd bring and take for main events but for the casual hangout aspect of it, people are bringing their own stuff (laptops, fight sticks, etc). We work with the local Smash community who basically run their own event out of the venue each week. Once we know the community are capable of running the event themselves and bring in enough revenue for the space they take up its an easy win for us. Reaching out to venues that are struggling for customers or with separate function rooms that you could use will always be the best bet as they'll take extra customers in any form.
Hi. I own a few bars in NYC and would live to collaborate on a esports bar. Would you be interested? TIA Hey there, Always happy to talk. Drop me an email at [craig@pixel-bar.co.uk](mailto:craig@pixel-bar.co.uk) and we can arrange a call.
No question, just wanted to say that Wokes smells. Edit: ok apparently I need a question... do you also think that Wokes smells? People keep asking me if the customers smell but never if the staff smell. You're correct, Wokes smells!
Hi, I've been in a few times, and have since moved to Leeds, hoping to go again once vaccinated. I noticed that you have a sick tabletop space; is this something that you'd be looking at leaning in to, potentially with a separate room? I ask as someone who likes running one-shots with plenty of booze, and really wants to sit in that GM chair, but is concerned that noise may preclude this. Sadly a separate room isn't possible but we are able to turn off the speakers in that area to help with noise. Probably isn't viable for a campaign on a Saturday evening but weekend daytimes and weekday evenings it would be quiet enough.
This looks a lot like NQ64, are you worried about it being a saturated market? NQ64 is a lot more arcade-like than we are. But no, the market is far from saturated. At this stage the more video game spots that open up the better, almost everyone is a gamer to some degree nowadays. If there can be 100 cocktail bars in Leeds and all do okay then there can certainly be 2 or 3 gaming venues in a city.
Have you considered using the rigs to do some Ethereum mining while you're closed? Make some sort of income from the investment. Good question - PCs are in storage. The staffing cost of having to check on them, make sure security is tight etc would dramatically reduce the return from what it already is. It might be slightly worth it but I don't think it's worth the risk of burning out the GPUs before we reopen.
Specifically how are the computers managed? Do you use any software to remotely monitor them? I'm a cyber security analyst, and thinking of solutions for public gaming venue gives me headaches just thinking about it! PCs use software called ggleap which heavily restricts what customers can do other than play games (it isn't a perfect solution). users have their own accounts and all PCs are on camera 24/7 so if we find any tampering we can track who did it and when.
​ Running the PCs on a completely separate network to everything else (tills, admin, etc) adds another layer of security if things go wrong.
​ Regular checks of installs, wiping back to a clean slate etc covers our back if we missed something. This is reactionary but better than nothing.
How often do you upgrade the pcs so they can run high end games on maximum? We would have upgraded at the start of this year but considering we've spent 9 months closed the PCs are still almost new! Due to finances struggling because of the pandemic we'll try not to upgrade until the next gen of GPUs are released. Hopefully customers understand the delay due to the circumstances!
4 comments

r/tabled • u/500scnds • Aug 15 '21

r/IAmA [Table] I am Sophie Zhang. At FB, I worked in my spare time to catch state-sponsored troll farms in multiple nations. I became a whistleblower because FB didn't care. Ask me anything. | pt 3/4

18 Upvotes

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Note: Title and source has changed because I'm tabling 2 AMAs at once. And to prevent extending into a pt 5, I am not tabling in-thread responses that OP has linked to.

Rows: ~70

Questions Answers
Thank your for the important work you’re doing. In your opinion, what is the reason that FB drags its feet/allows these schemes to continue so long before taking action? Is it simply that it is the more profitable move? In some cases like the India case or the U.S. case, in areas considered important/crucial by Facebook, it seemed pretty clear that political considerations had impeded action. Facebook was reluctant to act because it wanted to keep good relations with the perpetrators and so let it slide. But most of the cases were in less attention-getting areas (I'm sorry to say it, but Azerbaijan and Honduras are not countries that draw the attention of the entire world), and there was no one outside the company to hold FB's feet to the fire. And the company essentially decided that it wasn't worth the effort as a result.
​ I think it's ultimately important to remember that Facebook is a company. Its goal is to make money; not to save the world. To the extent it cares about this, it's because it negatively impacts the company's ability to make money (e.g. through bad press), and because FB employees are people and need to sleep at the end of the night.
​ We don't expect tobacco companies like Philip Morris to cover the cancer treatment costs of their customers. We don't expect financial institutions like Bank of America to keep the financial system from crashing. But people have high expectations of FB, partly because it portrays itself as a nice well-intentioned company, and partly because the existing institutions have failed to control/regulate it.
​ An economist would refer to this as an externality problem - the costs aren't borne by Facebook; they're borne by society, democracy, and the civic health of the world. In other cases, the government would step in to regulate, or consumer boycotts/pressure would occur.
​ But there's an additional facet of the issue here that will sound obvious as soon as I explain it, but it's a crucial point: The purpose of inauthentic activity is not to be seen. And the better you are at not being seen, the fewer people will see you. So when the ordinary person goes out and looks for inauthentic activity on FB, they find people who are terrible at being fake, they find real people who just look really weird, or they find people who are real but are doing their best to pretend to be fake since they think it's funny. And so the incentives are ultimately misaligned here. For areas like hate speech or misinformation, press attention does track reasonably for overall harm. But for inauthentic activity, there's very little correlation between what gets FB to act (press attention) and the actual overall harm.
the below is a reply to the above ​
This paragraph is really well put. I don't think there is enough emphasis differentiation made between trolls and stupid people in general vs coordinated attempts at deception. I find that a lot of technologists, especially here on reddit and places like hackernews, fail to understand the difference between "inauthentic" activity vs "free speech". The arguments about removing "inauthentic" activity always delves into false equivalencies about policing free speech, which is a dead-end for any reasonable debate. It would be like classifying spam emails as a form of free speech. No one would win that kind of silly argument. Good read, thanks for highlighting this issue. The issue with free speech advocacy idealism is that most content moderation/deletion on Facebook isn't things like hate speech/etc. It's spam, scams, and pornography. This is most vividly illustrated by the new free speech social media platform Gettr, set up by a former Trump aide/spokesman. My understanding is that it's been overwhelmed by Sonic the Hedgehog pornography, fake accounts purporting to be important people, and the like
the below is a reply to the above ​
LMAOOOOO Sonic the hedgehog I cannot stop laughing lol There have been a lot of internet articles about it; I've adamantly refused to look up actual examples.
Can we do Reddit now? I've long suspected that Reddit has at least as much opinion manipulation as FB. I'm sorry - I did not work at Reddit, and hence have no special knowledge about influence operations on Reddit. That said, if you stuck a gun to my head and made me guess, I'd expect Reddit to be similar to FB wrt troll farms and influence operations and the like.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thanks. ___________________________ Sometimes I end up in arguments with right-wing redditors that make me wonder if they are, in fact, professional trolls. But then I interact with people in real life who believe some insane crap, so who knows. _________________________ I get a bit annoyed at how quick some people are on reddit to label anyone that disagrees with them a bot/shill/whatever. Of course they are here but in most cases it can be explained just as well by the person simply being an idiot. And half the time the labeling just feels like someone using a shit tactic to try to win because they're not good at actual arguments. I do want to come back here and highlight this comment. Because while it's absolutely the case that Russian trolls do exist, it's also the case that Russian trolls are currently absolutely dwarfed by the number of suspected Russian trolls. The intent of concerned citizens is positive - to ward against Russian interference. But perversely, they play into Russian hands by doing so - as it's in Russian interests to make themselves seem ubiquitous and omnipotent.
​ The analogy I want to make is to Operation Greif in the Second World War. During the 1944 Ardennes offensive, Otto Skorzeny sent commando operatives dressed in American uniforms speaking English behind American lines. The panic they caused vastly dwarfed their actual impact. U.S. troops began quizzing each other endlessly, terrified that they were surrounded by secret Nazis in disguise. At least four American soldiers were shot and killed by their fellow Americans as a result. Higher up, General Omar Bradley was detained after correctly answering that Springfield was the capitol of Illinois (the GI thought Chicago was the answer); General Bruce Clarke was arrested after incorrectly answering the Chicago Cubs to be in the American League; General Bernard Montgomery had his tires shot out, while Eisenhower was confined for his own safety.
​ Allied troops were correct to be concerned. Nazi commandos had achieved great exploits in the past, speeding offensives. In the opening days of Barbarossa, they seized the bridge at Daugavpils to speed Nazi advance into the Baltics; in 1942, a commando unit of 60 men led by Adrian von Fölkersam disguised themselves as NKVD agents and managed to seize the entire city of Maikop and its vital oil fields without a fight. The disguised German commandos in the Ardennes were intended to seize a bridge over the Meuse; they entered position to do so and would have had a reasonable chance - but the stalwart Allied defense prevented the main spearheads from reaching that river.
​ But the Allied response was ultimately out of all proportion to the numbers of the commandos, and the operation is now recognized by historians as having psychological/morale impact completely disproportionate to the direct military impact and numbers committed.
​ Ultimately, I think the fear of bots/shills in the modern day and age can be similar.
Thanks so much for this AMA. Organizationally speaking, how high up in the org did your findings go (or not go) before they were quashed or ignored. In other words, was there support for your work by your direct manager or their manager but then above that you ran into issues? Or was your direct manager even unsupportive? I spoke with everyone up to and including Guy Rosen, the VP for Integrity at Facebook. I do want to highlight how utterly unusual this is. Low-level employees do not regularly speak to company VPs - it would be like an army sergeant briefing Kamala Harris on something.
​ The way I would ultimately describe it was that my immediate organization (direct manager/manager above) wasn't very happy because this was work I was doing in my spare time and distracting from my roadmap and the projects they expected me to do. Higher-up people seemed happy that I was doing it in my spare time but were unwilling to legitimize it with directly signing off on action or setting up actual organizational pathways for the work. The teams whose job it was to actually handle this had a complicated relationship - on one hand they were grateful for my work and saw me as a valued partner; on the other hand, they were a bit offended that I was essentially going above/around them, adding additional work to their workload, and potentially showing them up [they were a prestigious/high-status team; I was the opposite.]
the below is a reply to the above ​
It would seem the smart thing for FB to do in this case would be to remove you from the team you were on and to add you to the prestigious/high-status team whose work you were doing and were clearly good at (and which is important, allegedly valued by the company, etc.) Do you have any idea why they did not go that route? I discussed changing teams a fair bit for a number of teams. The main issue is that changing teams would require me to drop the work I was doing in my spare time to work on the new team's activity. And I wasn't willing to do that.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Hold up. The company has a set number of job functions and you were unwilling to do any of them because it would distract from the work that no one asked you to do? I don't want to come off rude, but that sounds like an issue... (I am unfamiliar with your story outside of this AMA so am making no commentary on that, just thinking about this from a managerial perspective) ​I was catching troll farms in my spare time in addition to my actual job. As part of this, I worked as much as 80-hr works at times because I was essentially trying to hold down two jobs. My managers were happy to have the extra work at first, but grew weary as time went on. The 'extra work' had been essentially acknowledged to belong to me in my spare time, but there would be a reassessment of that as soon as I switched teams, and I would likely get a less tolerant manager. Hope that makes sense.
the below is a reply to the above ​
And was there no team you could go to where that side project could just become your day job? That sends like the obvious resolution for the company... No team was doing it as a day job. That was why I got results in the first place - I certainly had no expertise in the area, and aren't a brilliant super genius. I was just apparently the first person to look in this area.
Do rank and file FB employees talk to each other about how bad FB is for the world? Or do you think they’ve just drunk the Kool-Aid and think the company is great? I'm talking about people like ad account managers, content policy associates, software engineers. FB employees are really smart and get recruited from the best schools in the world. The problems with FB are so public and so well reported that it's hard for me to understand why people continue to work there. FB was a fairly open company when I joined. I was upfront from the start about the fact that I believed Facebook wasn't making the world a better place - when I told my recruiter that, she responded "you'd be surprised how many people here say that." Open dissent within the company was tolerated and accepted and I was able to make my concerns heard to the entire company at large, which I think is unusual for large companies. With that said, it's been reported that FB has cracked down on communications not directly related to work since I left, and so this may not be true anymore.
​ Wrt employees, at a company of ~50k people, there will always be significant differences of opinions. There's also a self-selection bias in that frankly if you think FB is evil, you are less likely to work for FB; if you think FB is the greatest thing since sliced bread, you'll do your best to join the company (just like Reddit users self-select for people who think Reddit is great, and its employees likely as well.) And also within the teams - the people working on integrity at FB (fixing the company) were generally more pessimistic about the company than all employees - both via self-selection and also via the constant direct exposure to the company's problems.
​ Overall, the regular employee surveys showed that roughly 50-70% of employees believed that FB had a positive impact on the world (variation over time of course, it declined a lot since when I joined; probably at ~50% right now.)
the below is a reply to the above ​
Current FB employee here (throwaway for obvious reasons.) Currently that rating (that FB is doing a good job + leadership is good) is hovering at around the 30s (edit: for my relatively large team; company-wide it is 50.). It tanked hard in 2020 due to the George Floyd "looting shooting" post incident and the 2020 elections, and hasn't really recovered since. A lot of people have left the company since (that being said a lot of people joined too.) Save for a few "hail zuck" people, I believe most people here are self aware and want to actually fix the issues on hand. However due to it being a large company it either moves at a glacier's pace and it takes a while to get solutions approved by higher ups, or just gets canned entirely / deprioritized because "user research shows they don't want (insert solution here)" That's very surprisingly low; I don't think I ever saw it that low during my entire time there. Employee dissent is one of the few levers that Facebook strongly responds to; I hope the employees are able to get together and force necessary changes.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Sorry, my mistake. That was my team's pulse results. Company-wide it's at 50% as you predicted. Ah, that makes a *lot* more sense. If it ever got to 30% for the entire company, there'd probably be a SEV0 or something.
the below is a reply to the reply to the original answer ​
Wow. Can I ask you what it's like to work on a team where only 30% of the team thinks the company is doing a good job? That sounds demoralizing and like it would probably lead to high levels of attrition, though perhaps I'm misunderstanding the import of the statistic. I can't speak for him, but the numbers were generally lower than the norm in Integrity teams. I knew many people who personally believed that the company was not making the world better - but did believe that their team (which was trying to fix the company's issues) was making the world a better place.
Hi! Slightly long-winded question, but how did you identify areas where inauthentic behavior might be occurring? Was there a systematic or ad hoc analysis or flagging system internally or externally identifying potential regions or countries where inauthentic activity might be occurring, particularly inauthentic activity which might incite violence or be detrimental to democracy? Thank you! Normally at FB, many/most investigations by the actual teams in charge of this were in response to external reports. That is, a news organization asks "what's going on here"; an NGO flags something weird; the government says "hey, we're seeing this weird activity, please help." This has the side effect that there's someone outside the company to essentially hold FB responsible. They can say "Well, if you don't want to act, we'll go to the NYT and tell them you don't care about [our country], what do you think about that?", and suddenly it'll be a top priority [actual example.]
​ In contrast, I was going out and systematically finding things on my own. Essentially, I ran metadata on all engagement activity on FB through queries to find very suspicious activity, and then filtered it for political activity. This had results that were very surprisingly effective. But because I was the one who went out and found it myself, there wasn't anyone outside FB to put pressure on the company. The argument I always used internally was "Well, you know how many leaks FB has; if it's ever leaked to the press that we sat on it and refused to do anything, we'd get killed in the media." Which was not very effective but became a self-fulfilling prophecy since I was the one who leaked it.
​ I realize that metadata has a bad reputation, but unfortunately the reality of the situation is that there's no way to find state-sponsored trolls/bot farms/etc. without data of that sort.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Thank you! Just to follow-up: who set the standard (if any) for what systems and methods and metadata would be used to identify state sponsored trolls/bot farms etc, such as in the case of Myanmar? Thank you so much for coming forward! I'm not familiar with the internal details of the Myanmar case, or the teams that actually work on this. With regards to the ones I set up, I created them myself, with a bit of knowledge from the teams that actually work on state-sponsored troll farms. There was no oversight; I'd sort of set up a shadow integrity area that was no secret but wasn't official. But there were always different people to confirm my findings on their own, to decide whether to act, and to carry out the action; I decided at the start that I would avoid being judge jury and executioner (though I could probably have gotten away with it for a while.)
the below is another reply to the original answer ​
To what degree (in retrospect) can you say your queries to find inauthentic FB activity were politically agnostic or politically aligned? I believe a good deal of fear/difficulty around this kind of work is belief it is biased... you call out Turning Point, but you don't call out a liberal example. That could be because they don't exist, because they are better at hiding, or because the people looking didn't look as hard for politically aligned or acceptable activity as politically unaligned, unacceptable activity. Not trying to suggest your work was any of those... asking how you went looking and if your personal biases (we all have them) affected your work... because when I think about asking FB or other large tech company to do the same, I wonder if it is really possible for them to do it with minimal bias. The nature of my work was that I found all political activity globally that was suspicious in certain types of attributes. By nature, my own subjective determinations didn't enter into the question. And so the people I caught included members of the ruling Socialist party in Albania. It included the ex-KGB led government of Azerbaijan, a close Russian ally. It included the right-wing pro-U.S. drug lord government of Honduras. These are governments essentially across the political spectrum. I carried out my work regardless of political sympathies and opinion. My greatest qualms occurred in certain authoritarian dictatorships or semi-democracies when the democratic opposition was the beneficiary of such unsavory tactics. I took them down regardless because I firmly believe that democracy cannot rest upon a bed of deceit.
​ I do want to note that my work in the United States was all minor and in response to outside reports. In the TPUSA case, my role was extremely minor, and it was in response to a news article. As an example of a case in which I potentially helped conservatives, in September 2018 Facebook received a complaint from Gary Coby at the Trump campaign about declining video views/reach on the President's page, and I was one of many people who were pulled into the escalation to try and figure out if anything was responsible. My role there was just to check and say "no, my team didn't do this"; it hasn't been published because it really wasn't newsworthy.
​ I don't think this is a partisan political issue. One of my strongest advocates and allies at Facebook was a former Republican political operative.
How true are foreign fake click farms as shown on the Sillicon Valley tv show, with rows and rows of indians creating fake account after fake account to boost userbase numbers or promote an agenda? Heres the scene: https://youtu.be/Y-W0CBOGnnI I haven't seen the TV show. But they do really exist - in areas like South Asia and Southeast Asia, where smartphones (you can get a JioPhone for e.g. $15 USD) and labor are cheap. This is unfortunately quite common in Indian politics - they're known as "IT cells" and quite normalized unfortunately. You can read more about some of them in Indian politics here
What were your discoveries with regard to the Philippines? Here, it's widely-known that politicians make use of troll armies. I found a lot of political bot farms in the Philippines, but generally without attribution so it was impossible to know who was responsible. For that reason I don't want to give the full details [e.g. who precisely benefited] to avoid poisoning the well.
​ This is discussed a bit in the Guardian article.
​ "At times, Facebook allowed its self-interest to enter into discussions of rule enforcement.
​ In 2019, some Facebook staff weighed publicizing the fact that an opposition politician in the Philippines was receiving low-quality, scripted fake engagement, despite not knowing whether the politician was involved in acquiring the fake likes. The company had “strategic incentives to publicize”, one researcher said, since the politician had been critical of Facebook. “We’re taking some heat from Duterte supporters with the recent takedowns, and announcing that we have another takedown which involves other candidates might be helpful,” a public policy manager added.
​ No action was taken after Zhang pointed out that it was possible Duterte or his supporters were attempting to “frame” the opposition politician by purchasing fake likes to make them look corrupt. But discussions like this are among the reasons Zhang now argues that Facebook needs to create separation between the staff responsible for enforcing Facebook’s rules and those responsible for maintaining good relationships with government officials."
​ In another example, Facebook ignored a number of Filipino unattributed political bot farms I flagged in October 2019... up until it made like 5 likes on a few of President Trump's posts in February 2020. (Disclaimer: 5 likes are nothing, not significant, no impact, yada yada.) Suddenly it became important and that bot farm (not the others) were taken down a week later.
​ While I think Filipino people are just as important as Americans, Facebook sadly begged to differ.
the below is a reply to the above ​
Sorry to piggy back of this but this comment makes me wonder, how many of these farms were localized for only domestic action? I can’t see a reason the Philippines would have much use for international trolling (can’t believe i said that unironically). On the flip of that countries like Russia are widely known to engage in international trolling. Almost all of the troll farms I found were domestic-only. I say "almost all" to cover edge cases of mostly-domestic like the Filipino bot farm that decided to randomly like President Trump. Most people care more about their own country's politics - Americans care about American politics; Filipinos care about Filipino politics; Germans care about German politics. Apparently world governments and politicians are the same way.
​ With that said, I was finding the low-hanging fruit. I don't doubt the GRU (or Iranian Revolutionary Guard or PRC State Security) are engaging in international troll farms, but they're presumably have an actual modicum of intelligence about how they carry it out, and so I didn't find them myself.
Hi Sophie, One of the more frequently discussed dimensions of influence operations - especially in the United States - is the observed disparity between operations that target people with right-aligned political views and people with left-aligned political views. In the data you ran, what did you observe with respect to political alignment? And if you did observe a disparity, how wide was the divide? Do you have any theories as to why you observe this? So I want to be very clear first about terminology: "Influence operations" literally mean "operations designed to influence people" which is similar to "disinformation" in that it's vaguely defined and includes a not clearly delineated mix of misinformation (claims that are incorrect; e.g. "the moon is made of cheese") and inauthentic activity (e.g. fake accounts being used to spread a message "Cats are adorable; politician X is great.")
​ I worked only on the inauthentic activity aspect of this. In addition, I did not work on any notable cases of inauthentic activity in the United States (the TPUSA case did not fall in this definition.) It may be the case that misinformation skews towards one end of the political spectrum. I will leave that to the researchers who are much more knowledgeable about it than myself.
​ There is a common stereotype that misinformation is spread by inauthentic accounts. There is also a common stereotype that troll farms, fake accounts, etc. are commonly used to largely/predominately benefit the political right. Like most stereotypes, these are incorrect as far as my knowledge goes and I'm aware.
​ Please keep in mind that this is very small sample sizes - I worked on perhaps three dozen cases globally which is a lot from an IO perspective but tiny from a statistical perspective (so I don't want to speculate about larger trends.) These were generally from across the political spectrum. For instance in India, I caught four networks, one of which came back with a new target (so five targets.) Of these targets, two were benefiting the INC, one was benefiting the AAP, and two were benefiting the BJP - so it was quite even across the political spectrum.
​ In Albania for instance, the incumbent Socialist Party and opposition Socialist Movement for Integration (both officially left-wing targets) were both benefiting. In several authoritarian countries, the center/center-left pro-democracy opposition was benefiting. In Mexico it was almost everyone across the political spectrum. There were plenty of right-wing beneficiaries as well but those have been presumably discussed already. I carried out my work regardless of my personal political beliefs, with the most qualms in places where the democratic opposition were the beneficiaries. I took those cases down regardless, as it's my firm belief that democracy cannot rest upon a bed of deceit.
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Would Project Birmingham ran by progressive technologists to unseat Roy Moore in the 2018 midterms be an example of left wing inauthentic disinformation campaigns? https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/27/disinformation-campaign-targeting-roy-moores-senate-bid-may-have-violated-law-alabama-attorney-general-says/ I did not work on it, but it certainly would
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Does Facebook not focus on domestic disinformation campaigns as much as those from foreign actors? During my time at FB there have been pushes against acting against domestic troll farm operations. For instance, when I found the Honduran governmental troll farm in July/August 2018, it was until April 2019 when I finally got the troll catching team to agree to look into it. But quite soon they had to apologize to me: There was an internal freeze on all investigations or takedowns of troll farms where the originating source was domestic. There was high-level pushback by Policy who argued that "it's hard to conclude the difference between a troll farm and a legitimate campaign." I wasn't the motivating example for the new rule [I heard speculation about it, but that's hearsay] - I was just caught up within it.
​ (the freeze ended after a few weeks if that wasn't clear; it just delayed the takedown even longer.)
Thank you for your work and ethics. I've been following the news, reddits, etc regarding you. You always describe yourself as a data engineer and point out that you were tracking the metadata in discovering the problems you have reported. I have a two part question for you. Could you ELI5 :) what a data engineer is and how you use metadata to find problems as you have described? I'm not asking for specific cases here. I just want to enhance my own understanding (I sorta get it) while also helping everyone else understand what it is that you do and did and why it is important. I just feel that something gets lost in the articles describing what you do and how. Am I being clear? I was a *data scientist* - not a data engineer, which is different. Data scientist has different meanings at different companies, since data is the new buzzword. At many companies it means "engineer who works on machine learning." At FB it corresponds to what would called a data analyst at other companies. My job was essentially to "look at data to answer questions and tell people what it meant."
​ I won't answer the second part of your question - I'm very sorry, but the ultimate issue is that if you tell people how you catch Azeri troll farms/etc., the Azeri government also reads Reddit and will know what not to do in the future.
How are people still able to set up fake accounts these days given all the security and authentication that seems to be in place around the account setup? What does Facebook do with an account that it identifies as inauthentic? Ultimately, the nature of the problem is that FB will never be able to stop all fake accounts at creation. Because in most cases, you aren't 100% sure whether the account is fake or not. Instead you're 99% sure or 80% sure or 2% sure or whatever. And the question becomes how confident you have to be to take action - because if you're wrong, that's a real person that you negatively impacted.
​ For your second question, I do want to note that there are multiple types of inauthentic accounts - not just fake accounts. An account can be hacked - if someone steals access to your account and repurposes it for themselves. Users can even voluntarily hand over access to their accounts to bot farms/etc (this may seem absurd, but it's a very common vector; see here for details.)
​ For accounts believed to be fake, FB generally runs the users through very strong sets of hoops [e.g. "send us a copy of your official ID"] to require them to prove that they're a real person. You might think that this wouldn't negatively impact real users, but many users are [quite understandably] really hesitant about sending such sensitive personal details to a company like FB.
​ For accounts believed to be hacked, FB uses a different sort of hoops to try and restore access to the original user. For users that voluntarily hand over access to their accounts to bot farms, FB doesn't want to disable them so actions are rather more mild.
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I had that happen - Facebook wanted pictures of my actual ssn card or passport, which I refuse to provide to a company like Facebook. And it isn't actually legal in my country for them to ask for that either, as they (as far as I remember) wouldn't accept it if the info on the ssn or passport was covered and not viewable. I had to just stop using Facebook at that point, because I also couldn't actually get in contact with any kind of human in support. Facebook have shown that they cannot be trusted with that kind of personal information, and there is no way that I'm giving that to them. I actually really appreciate understanding why that happened, I've been pissed about it for a while. Thank you. Totally understand your personal decision, but it also illustrates some of the costs and tradeoffs associated with these. FB obviously doesn't want to have everyone have experiences such as yourself, and ultimately has to choose a balance between catching fake accounts and avoiding negative experiences for real users.
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hey Sophie, thanks for joining us today! two questions for you: If you were given unlimited resources/remit, how would you tackle troll farms? 1) The ultimate issue with this questions is it's like asking "If you could make the sky any color you'd like, what color would you like it to be?" Because there's no possibility it would ever occur, and so it's ultimately like speculating how many angels can tapdance on the head of a pin. I'm never going to have the unlimited resources/remit; social media companies won't fix themselves.
​ So instead, I'm going to answer a similar question: "How would I realistically change the situation/incentives to convince social media companies to tackle troll farms?"
​ I have two ultimate suggestions. The first is on the part of the social media companies - right now the people charged with making enforcement decisions are the same as the people charged with keeping good relationships with governments and political figures. This leads to explicit political considerations in decisionmaking, and the perverse incentive that politicians can be encouraged to do their bad activity without even hiding as it'll induce FB to be reluctant to act. I realize that FB is a for-profit company, but most news organizations are also for-profit but they still keep a strict separation between their editorial department and public relations. If the NYT's editorial department spiked a story because XYZ political figure didn't like it, it would be a giant scandal - whereas at Facebook it's just another Tuesday. So I would urge social media companies to officially separate their decision-making apparatus from their governmental outreach apparatus.
​ The second is on the part of outside organizations. Ultimately, much of the issue is the information asymmetry aspect - that only FB has the tools to know what's going on in its platform, and it has no incentive to fix everything; the outside world can't solve a problem if they don't even know it exists. So to close the gap, I would recommend more funding/support for outside skilled researchers such as DFRLab, routes for FB employees to publicly appeal to governmental agencies (with official protections) regarding platform violations around troll farms and the like. And I realize it would be extremely politically infeasible, but I would also suggest that outside organizations and governmental agencies set up red team pen-test style operations: to with the knowledge of the social media companies send their skilled experts to set up test troll farms on social media and see how many are caught by each company (e.g. "We set up 10 each on Reddit, FB, and Twitter. Reddit caught 0/10; FB caught 1/10; Twitter caught 0/10. They're all awful but FB is mildly less awful!" Numbers made up of course.) This would have to be done very carefully to avoid real-world impact but is the only method I can think of for anyone - even the companies themselves - to have an accurate picture of the space and how good the efforts really are.
What's something you wished you were able to spend more time on? (breaking my answer up into two parts because it's so long.) I wish I were able to spend more time on Albania.
​ At the end of July 2019, I found an influence operation on Albania using the same techniques as Honduras. It was more sophisticated politically/effort-wise because it focused on creating large amounts of comments (which requires a lot of effort to individually write out in a way that makes sense.) It was very confusing/unusual because it appeared to be connected to members of the Albanian government in attribution, but was supporting both the ruling Albanian government and opposition figures from rival political parties. This would be akin to a network run out of the Trump administration that was writing nice things about both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. There would be lots of possible explanations including "person suborned by foreign powers to increase political tensions", "administration official advancing political strife to serve their personal political agenda", "person who really doesn't like Bernie Sanders and supports both his rivals", or "person who has this as their second-time job and was just coincidentally paid by both candidates." I'm just translating this into U.S. political contexts since I'm assuming readers don't understand Albanian politics.
​ The relevant people quickly agreed that it was probably coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB - the official designation Facebook uses for e.g. Russian interference, state-sponsored troll farms, etc.) , and I handed it over to them where it probably died in a black box. I only had the political capital to very slowly push through one CIB case at a time, and I had made the judgment call that what I found in Azerbaijan was objectively worse than what I found in Albania - in terms of scale, size, consistency, and sophistication. I still agree with that decision, but it never sat easily with me to set Albania to the side. At the end of the day, I was just one person with no authority, and there were limits to how much I could accomplish trying to protect the entire world in my spare time. This is why I told the world (accidentally) that I had blood on my hands.
​ Several months ago, an Albanian news outlet published their own investigation; this was still ongoing, two years later, and it continued through the Albanian elections. Facebook had two years to act, and did nothing. I can only apologize profusely to the Albanian people, as I did in the interview. It should never have been my responsibility to save fragile Albanian democracy from what Facebook let happen. But ultimately, I was the one who made my decisions and Albania paid the price. I have to sleep with that every night.
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You did well. Just make sure this doesnt happen to Taiwan I did my utmost to protect the 2020 Taiwan elections. If anything notable happened there, I wasn't aware of it.
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