Month: March 2014

REDDIT — The Nigerian Electronic Army, now in possession of a deadly “zero day” exploit for Reddit, has defaced several popular Reddit subforums with demands they be paid in dogecoin and bitcoin in exchange for release of the exploit. Among the defaced sites are a forum for Android smartphone users and League of Legends gamers.

Styling themselves, perhaps, after the infamous Syrian Electronic Army (SEA), the Nigerian Electronic Army’s (NEA) choice of targets seems far removed from the political or tactical targets of the SEA. The NEA’s defacement was somewhat reminiscent of LulzSec’s prank on PBS, but without the jokes or publicity for their Twitter account. LulzSec earned well over $180,000 in bitcoins with their antics, but only one of the hackers remains on the lam. The group disbanded after only 50 days.

Until Nigerian Electronic Army can increase the humor value of their defacements and grow an audience on a major Twitter account, they will probably find themselves in possession of only a very few dogecoins or bitcoins.

INTERNET — Workers on the set of of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos reported what some called a “demonic possession” which overtook the pop scientist.

“He was frothing at the mouth, his eyes opened wide. I saw pain shoot across his face, like he was being whipped. Neil declared something like, ‘I am the source! I AM Dark Energy! I AM THE DARKNESS! The white man’s voice is the demon. I am the demon,’ and he flung himself at the camera crew, smashing one and giving a cameraman a black eye,” said one anonymous witness, who added, “He didn’t specifically say anything about the devil, but I was afraid for my life. He passed out and when he woke up he had no memory of what he’d done. He’s never used that voice before or since.”

Dr. Angstrom H. Troubador, expert in psychology, dismissed the episode as meaningless, saying, “Tyson was under a lot of stress from all the compromises he had to make to appease producers who wanted the show to be more entertaining. The hot lights of the studio have long been known to trigger such episodes, even in the most mentally healthy and stable of us. Anyway, there’s no such thing as demons.”

The following story is perhaps impossible to believe — nobody knows this more than I — but I swear every word of what I relate is true. Were I to tell this story and associate it with my identity, I’d be ridiculed or put in a mental hospital. But I have to tell this story or my silence will drive me insane.

I met her on OkCupid, a free dating website. In retrospect, I think her profile was designed to attract me. I’d been really beefing up and lifting weights. I visited a forum on Reddit every day called The Red Pill, and I learned that women like men who are assholes. It made a lot of sense, back then, and it even worked.

The guys on The Red Pill never agreed on the topic of marriage. Some saw it as slavery, others saw it as settling down. I thought it was natural and acceptable step for the aging man, and a necessary kind of economic and reproductive evil. I figured any power a woman might have over me was totally evil, so I’d been fucking multiple women and ditching them if they even hinted at more. We called it “spinning plates” on The Red Pill.

But I loved her. At The Red Pill, men talked about finding the girl of their dreams, that “unicorn” that can’t really exist. Love was just a cocktail of chemicals pumped out by some gland, and even newbies knew better than to fall for that trick of evolution. But it happened slow enough that I didn’t notice it. Usually I’d pressed women for pictures or a meeting in real life almost as soon as I’d introduced myself, but she’d been far too interesting to forget about. The one picture she did share only showed her mouth, and it had been more than enough to convince me she was a perfect 10.

I know she must have done her research because she knew everything there was to know about me. She had seen all my favorite movies, read all my favorite books, and played all my favorite video games. It was a month before she showed me a picture of her face, and at that moment I realized I’d been in love with her for some time. I couldn’t think about The Red Pill or worry about what they’d think of me, and I stopped visiting the forum. I spent days lying in bed as fantasies of Scarlet — that was her name — played through my head on repeat.

I met her for the first time at the Smithsonian, and we walked through an exhibit on hominids and other human ancestors. She kept giggling, and I suppose it makes sense now, but she would not explain what was so funny. I was terribly upset that she may have found me somehow stupid or silly looking now that she’d met me.

After coffee, we went to her small apartment and laid in her bed. She stared into my eyes, and for a moment I knew I could never think of love as some bogus chemical cocktail that just gives women power. But as soon as I’d felt that, her eyes seemed to grow and grow until nothing was left of my world but the blackness of her pupils. It was as if the warmth of that love I’d felt so strongly had just inverted into an empty coldness. In the next moment I was looking through her tears, crying in involuntary pain as he raped me. He giggled, like he had in the Smithsonian, and strangled my neck as I struggled to escape. The words he growled I can hardly remember, but he told me he was immortal, that he liked owning my body, and that he hoped I enjoyed being a woman. He said these things because it got him off, and just before he choked me into unconsciousness I expected to wake up, sweaty from the nightmare. I woke up just a few minutes later, bruises on my neck, blood and spunk between my legs. The body thief was gone, off somewhere living my life.

I think Scarlet’s life is in many ways more fulfilling and happy than my previous life but for one thing: I look for the body thief’s face in every crowd, so I stay at home more than I should. I am sure I have seen him behind many eyes.