#another stupid post by rylie | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kazoosandfannypacks · 1 year

Text

"Open to Interpretation" by kazoosandfannypacks

Chapter 3/16: Small Pairing: CaptainSwan Rating: General Word Count: (1K/24K) Summary: Emma Swan is appalled at works by modern artist Killian Jones- until a handsome stranger convinces her otherwise- and after introducing himself as the artist in question, he invites her out on a date. As their relationship develops, they find that they might not be as different from each other as originally thought. Chapter Summary: a little glimpse into the life of Emma Swan Tags: au, fluff, captain swan, modern au Author's notes: As you may notice this while reading this chapter, I haven't given Emma's cringefail ex boyfriend a name yet. as you continue with this story, you'll find that I never refer to him by name at all. This is intentional so that you, the reader, have freedom to make him whatever cringefail ex boyfriend you like. You could make him Bagel or the flying monkey, or even your own cringefail ex boyfriend, or that guy who cut you off in traffic yesterday, or anyone else you despise. That is my gift to you 💞 Taglist: @zahara @kmomof4 @jonesfandomfanatic @booksteaandtoomuchtv @jrob64 @tiganasummertree @anmylica @teamhook @undercaffinatednightmare @gingerchangeling @lonelyspectator @caught-in-the-filter @ultraluckycatnd @cs-rylie @pirateprincessofpizza @lfh1226-linda [if you'd like to be added to or removed from this list, hmu in my dms or askbox!]

Also on Ao3!

An hour later, Emma sat down on the couch in her apartment with her phone in one hand and a mug of ramen noodles in the other.

She scrolled absentmindedly through Facebook, playing the mental game of "will I see more engagement posts or birth announcements today?" and regretting friending so many people back in college, all of whom she never spoke to anymore. Once the life update posts ended, she switched to Instagram, and was only a few posts in before she realized social media was a mistake today.

It was only a week after her ex had decided they should take a break- but after all they'd gone through together, Emma shouldn't've been surprised to see him already posting a picture with another girl. Careful not to accidentally like the photo, she read the description, words about being excited to see where this goes getting blurred by the anger and annoyance clouding Emma's mind- not just sorrow over his betrayal, but frustration that she was stupid enough to let him get away with it. She should've seen this coming from a long way off, but she'd given him the benefit of the doubt all this time, only to find herself trampled on.

She unfollowed him on Instagram, then on Facebook, and was well on her way to deleting and blocking his contact in her phone- when she noticed she hadn't opened the text that Killian had sent her before she left the museum. It was just the picture they'd taken together, which she immediately saved to her phone, then figured she should probably say something in response.

"Thanks for the picture. Had a great time!"

She was half tempted to post their picture on her Instagram story, just to rub it in her ex's face that she had a date this weekend too, coupled with some caption about how it wasn't every day she met such a talented guy, but she felt it might be petty and shallow, and generally uncool to get Killian caught in the crosshairs like that out of the blue.

She turned off her phone screen and set it down on the couch, then flopped her head back.

There had to be something healthier than social media to handle this annoyance and betrayal- wasn't that why she went to the museum today anyways?

She looked back at her newspaper covered coffee table with a canvas and paint supplies all set up. It had been a while since she'd painted something with feeling, so she'd been hoping to find a little inspiration at the museum.

She picked up the canvas and a pencil and tried to sketch something out. How could she describe how she was feeling after the fallout of this week? Broken? Betrayed? Small?

Small. Believing you're someone's everything for months, then finding out you're more replaceable than a double A battery- the only thing she could call herself was small.

She sketched out a figure, a young girl, just an outline, with her head hung down. She didn't take up too much of the canvas. She then drew an outline around her, one not unlike a shadow across the corner of the page, like it was coming from someone off the canvas- and like his shadow was part of why he felt so small.

"That's got a message." she thought. She then thought about the message that Killian had included in the three paintings she'd seen with him. Maybe if things worked out well on Friday, he'd walk her through his whole exhibit sometime, explaining the story behind every painting.

She wondered how much social media presence he had for his art- his Instagram had been mentioned in one of the brochures.

"Maybe I should take a fresh look at some of his paintings for a touch of inspiration."

She opened her phone to get distracted from her painting, but found herself distracted from that as well- Killian had replied to her text.

"You're welcome. Did you make it home safely?"

She smiled, endeared at the concern for her in those words.

"Yup. Thanks for asking." she texted back.

He replied almost immediately.

"Pleasure's all mine. See you Friday at 5:30!"

"Can't wait."

Then she opened instagram, and tracked down his art account. She tapped on the profile and viewed his story- a link to a newsletter about the benefit dinner, a snapshot of a view of the city out the window of what was apparently the apartment the museum had him set up in, a screenshot and a link of a news article about his display, the picture he'd taken with Emma….

She held down the screen so it wouldn't disappear before she read the caption.

"Always a pleasure to meet a new fan! @nolan.blanchard.art.museum"

Emma's gut reaction was a hint of annoyance at her photo being used as a publicity stunt- but it made her feel special as well. As she realized she was charmed by this and not appalled, she also realized that she would now seem a lot less petty to do the same thing. In fact, since she'd seen the story, it would almost be impolite if she didn't respond.

So, she screenshot his story, then uploaded it to her story, adding a caption of her own.

"The pleasure was all mine! It's cool meeting such a talented artist @artists.life.for.me @nolan.blanchard.art.museum."

If he was gonna get clout from their picture together, she felt no shame in doing the same.

She then went back to his profile and followed it, then liked some of his recent works.

"The 'don't like after three days' rule doesn't apply to influencers," she reasoned, so she felt it alright to like every picture of his paintings that spoke to her.

Which, though she wouldn't've expected it of herself even two hours ago, happened to be most of them.

#captain swan #once upon a time #killian jones #emma swan #ouat #cs ff #cs fanfiction #cs au #once upon a time season 6

25 notes · View notes

ryliweb · 3 years

Text

PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image

The simple, joyful, act of buying the latest console – a twice-decade dopamine hit like no other – has become a rage-inducing misery in 2020 and 2021.

Why? Because of scalpers who employ fast-buying bots to scoop up hundreds of consoles in the time it takes for your finger to press “order”.

They are using increasingly sophisticated bots to do this and becoming more organised to spot opportunities, often working in large groups. For regular gamers who want to buy a console, this has caused huge frustration and anger towards scalpers who are profiting from reselling consoles at huge markups.

But scalpers I’ve spoken with say their intentions are misunderstood and their negative public image isn’t justified.

“There seems to be A LOT of bad press on this incredibly valuable industry and I do not feel that it is justified, all we are acting as is a middleman for limited quantity items.” said Jordan, who co-founded The Lab, a private group that advises paying users on how to scalp (known as a “cook group”).

Jordan claims to have secured 25 PlayStation 5 units in January and resold them for £700. The most expensive recommended retail price for the PS5 is £450. This, he feels, is no different to how any other business operates.

“Essentially every business resells their products. Tesco, for example, buys milk from farmers for 26p or so per litre and sells it on for upwards of 70p per litre. No one ever seems to complain to the extent as they are currently doing towards ourselves.” The backlash from angry gamers has led to death threats, Jordan claims, which have been reported to police.

I put Jordan’s analogy to some frustrated gamers who have been trying to buy the Sony console for weeks. One, who didn’t want to be named, said “he is deluded. He doesn’t get he’s another layer of profiteering in his own Tesco analogy. He’s not Robin Hood.”

Bypassing security checks

Jordan’s success has been replicated by other users in The Lab. Jordan’s business partner, Regan, shared images of mass purchases of in-demand Supreme gear using a bot called Velox.

The screenshots show that not only is the bot fast at checking out (the fastest is 2.3 seconds for a Supreme x Smurfs Skateboard), but it also manages to bypass 3D Secure to make the transaction happen.

3D Secure is an additional layer of security which verifies that the buyer is the legitimate card owner. It is a requirement in the UK for all websites processing card payments (if the payment card supports it). This usually redirects buyers to another site, which is owned by the bank, for authentication. But the Velox bot used for these supreme purchases bypasses the protocol for a faster checkout.

I asked web security and performance consultant, Edward Spencer, how this bypass this works.

“I suspect the 3D Secure payments page is being by passed by using a card that has not had 3D Secure enabled. Generally, all cards provided by EU banks must have 3D Secure enabled. If you called your bank and requested that 3D Secure was disabled for your card, they’d refuse. So I would guess that they are using cards associated with banks that are from outside of the EU, and are probably pre-paid. The shops could probably thwart these guys by banning all non-3d Secure transactions”.

But there’s more to scalper success then bypassing 3D Secure. Another person I spoke with, who only wanted to be quoted as “Alex”, attempted to build his own bot to buy a PS5. But his was a website scraper that automated purchases, which, as Alex explains, isn’t quick enough.

“There are bots that interact with servers, and there are bots that interact with the web browser – mine interacted with a web browser. So it can only go as fast as a website will let you go. It works faster than a normal human, but there are other bots that, you know, people would be selling for thousands of dollars that will beat my bot every time.”

He continued: “so I know, for Walmart, there was an open API for their stock. Some of these bots could add a PS5 to their shopping cart, and then they could purchase it from there.”

Alex is right that scalpers and cook groups are finding innovative ways to get stock before anyone else. On January 25th cook group Express Notify found a way to buy PlayStation 5 units from UK retailer Argos a full day before the official stock drop, ordering several consoles. Argos eventually shut down the loophole.

Exactly how these bots bypass safeguards, or “interact with servers”, as Alex put it is a bit of a mystery. Spencer speculates that the creators of these bots have “sniffed” the web traffic between the web browser or mobile app of an online store, and the servers.

“Right now I can open Google Chrome and go to any online store, press F12 and I’ll get the developer tools up. All I’ve got to do is go to the network tab, and then maybe add a product into my cart , and observe how my browser is talking to the server that hosts the website. There will typically be network calls to an API running on the server that reveals information – in a computer and human readable way – about products and stock levels.

“So this API isn’t intended to be used by 3rd party developers, but a 3rd party developer could use it if they worked out how. It’s reverse engineering the online store’s API. This isn’t exactly sophisticated. Sites can mitigate this with tried and tested anti-request forgery techniques but unfortunately many sites just don’t bother.”

I contacted several bot makers and cook groups to ask how their tech works, but none were forthcoming apart from those quoted in this story. If you have any information you’re willing to share, then get in contact.

Impossible competition

The scalpers I did speak with operate as a business, in some cases with full time staff. Because of the potential money on the table, the scalpers employ a lot of techniques to gain an advantage over regular buyers and other bot users. Jordan explained that because of bot competition, he has to be vigilant of opportunities.

“Our group monitors hundreds of websites waiting to notify members of restocks. The website I was able to get checkouts from was GAME, which the monitors notified us at around 10am GMT that PS5 stock had been loaded onto the backend of the website.

“It is pretty simple to set up as all the top tier bots have in-depth guides or really simple interfaces. All I needed was the product ID, a few unique billing profiles and proxies (proxies allow us access websites from different locations whether it be country or city specific). We have this all in place ready before any restocks happen to give us the best chances of purchasing. If you are slow, even with a bot, you will miss out on the product.”

GAME issued the following statement in reply to Jordan’s claim.

“PlayStation 5s continue to be in very high demand and that demand far outweighs current supply. We have strong measures in place to help ensure that our “1 per customer” statement is maintained to allow for as many individual customers to successfully purchase as possible.

“All pre-orders are subject to automatic checks and order updates such as cancellations following these checks take place after a customer will have received a valid order confirmation email.”

Jordan didn’t want to name the bot they used to complete the purchases, but they did say that “ you will have seen it plastered amongst the media recently due to the PS5 shortage.” In late January, the team behind a bot called Carnage boasted about helping users secure 2000 PS5s. The Carnage bot team could not be reached for comment.

Both Regan and Jordan say that they are, ultimately, helping people by giving them financial opportunities to resell consoles at an inflated price. “I mainly just try and help others now, that’s all that really matters to me. The whole group came about near the start of the first UK lockdown and it makes me so happy that I can help people make some extra money for themselves.

“We do a lot for charity as well. I myself or collectively as a group donate to charity almost monthly at this point. Most notably over the past month we donated a large portion of our membership fees to a foodbank local to me.” I asked for details of the food bank to confirm Regan’s donation but he didn’t provide their information.

Employing the use of bots doesn’t guarantee a purchase of any hot ticket item, but it can massively improve your chances. What this means for the consumer is that the already limited pool of available product – which has been exacerbated by supply chain issues related to Covid – shrinks even further. Regan says this means average buyers will always struggle.

“Your average person who just wants one of the consoles to use struggles to get close. A lot of these sites have very minimal or easy to bypass bot protection. They often release stocks at stupid times or without any form of schedule. A retailer I won’t name released stock of the PlayStation 5s in the extremely early hours of the morning. Which shows the lack of care on their part. The only people who will have known about those restocks will have been people with monitors inside of cook groups.”

The post PlayStation 5 Scalpers Aren’t Happy With Their Public Image appeared first on RyLi Gaming Solutions.

0 notes