Sorry, this is a looonngg post and there are definitely parts you don't need to read like the intro and the NVAX. I just wanted to make sure it was detailed and explained everything as I'm sure this sub has been riddled with posts identical to this recently.
So to start this off I'll admit that I dived straight in with no prior knowledge of investing with GME, AMC and the most stupid, a little bit of Dogecoin. I'm still hoping AMC will recover at least a little when theatres re-open as I bought at $15 lol. I sold half my $400 GME off early (bought at $320) for about $10 profit or something tiny. I still have $200 and I'm still holding on. I'm aware that this might not be wise but luckily, the one non-stupid thing I did with this is that I used a certain percentage of my profits from beermoney ventures (surveys, market research and the like) as well as my matched betting which means, that whilst it was stupid and it is frustrating to lose both my own money and potential profit due to my own lack of research, I haven't risked anything I couldn't afford to lose.
I'm getting older and busier so I don't always have time to be answering long and boring surveys anymore so I wanted to take the percentage of these profits and invest in relatively long term stocks. I've been doing some research and have purchased a couple of books and I've been looking into a variety of different stocks to start my portfolio. It's worth mentioning that I only have roughly $400-$500 to invest.
These are the shares I'm thinking/have already invested in:
NVAX:
Currently, I have $50 that I got at $211.91 a share in NVAX. For those who don't know NVAX recently developed a Coronavirus vaccine that is 89% effective, whilst this is less than Pfizer and Moderna, Pfizer and Moderna are not backed up by clinical trials and most importantly, NVAX was 89% effective against both the original and the new mutated Coronavirus. I think this will do quite well.
AAPL:
This is where the stocks I have end. AAPL is currenly at $135 which seems quite low and despite COVID, it has done really well financially. There is also mentioning of the Apple Car, Apple VR a new computer and it's increase in iPhone users this/last year. It seems like an obvious purchase but this is definitely where my lack of knowledge comes in. There have been all this stuff, huge revenues, new products and it's debt deal, yet over the past few days it's kinda stayed between $130 - $140 so I'm a bit uncertain on this one.
FUBO:
This seems like it could do very well and there's loose speculation of it being worth $200 by the end of the year. That being said, the subscription revenue isn't particularly long-term, but then, they do have a new betting service. They report earnings on March 2. I was thinking of putting in a sell order at around at some price between $40-$50 but I'm very clearly not an expert so was hoping someone might have better insight. I'm thinking that personally, this is too risky for me either way but would be nice to hear some insight so I can learn what to look out for.
SQ:
There was a bit of a dip in Square. They seem to be fundamentally quite strong since they cater to non-cash payments and for obvious reasons right now that seems pretty good. I think more importantly though, I don't want to go on about it but obviously a certain couple apps are in trouble and since CashApp now offers investing for a very similar user base it might increase. Like Apple this one seems obvious but then it's currently at $227. A optimistic look from investopedia says it'll go back up to $300. I assume there's a bit of a risk with that so with the risk and the fact that the optimistic increase would be from ~$230 to $300 I feel that now I might be a bit late.
This is the end of a very long post and thanks for reading it. I understand that it's impossible to say you should go with this stock as it's 100% going to profit but I think some tips with these stocks that I mentioned and I guess just general advice for things to look for that I may have missed in my small analyses. I find that for some reason, I'm always reluctant to invest in the big'uns like Tesla, Apple, Facebook, Microsoft as in my head they're just expensive shares that don't change much which is obviously untrue and probably a mindset of an inexperienced investor. Also, I'm aware that even over the span of a few years £400 might not necessarily make me lots but I'm using this time to come to grips with it more so that when I have a bigger income I'm more experienced. Also, I feel it's worth adding that I am a computer science and electronics student and I imagine investing in things you know/are interested in is always a good thing but I don't really know how to start with just finding a good company to invest in that isn't at least being mentioned a little.
​
EDIT: Just wanted to update this with; I have been looking through Investopedia University, Khan Academy and have started reading Intelligent Investor. I just want to hopefully make it clear that on top of this post I am doing my own research and I hope people know that I'm not trying to just copy their decisions without any thought.
EDIT 2: Removed crypto. Sorry I'm not replying to comments, they're not working atm so can only see bits of messages from phone notifications.

Source | Previous table
Note: Some of the question-taker's answers were also removed along with corresponding questions, and they have not been recovered below.

Questions	Answers
What is a typical day in your life like?	I get up at 4:30. I watch some YouTube, do some email, work on my writing or similar. I head to the gym at 7, shower and start my day around 8. I work in my home office or shop/lab, code and work on stuff, throughout the day. I could be busy all the way through to 8-9PM if I'm wrapped up in something, but not usually that busy.
the below is a reply to the above
You get up at 4:30 AM? Wow. Have you always been a morning person? Are other people on your team morning people so you decided to start early? I’m asking this because it seems like a lot of successful people wake up very early and work out before starting their workday.	No, I never was until my neck injury. While recovering I couldn't sleep more than about 4-5 hours max and just got into the habit. Since it was so productive for me, I just kept it up!
the below is a reply to the above
Thanks for sharing. I wish you good health.	Thanks!
Did you create Robocopy, or know who did? I use that very regularly and much more efficient than using the GUI.	The secret dirt is that Robocopy was first written by MS colleague Kevin Allen, and he started sharing copies around in 1994ish. From there, and after many iterations and heavy-duty real-world feedback, robocopy ended up in the Windows Resource Kit, and then later merged into the core Windows package. In the beginning, Kevin was a very experienced programmer, but new to the Win32 API; so robocopy was one of his projects to educate himself about Windows programming. Later on, ITG used robocopy to routinely transfer many gigabytes of data around MS global offices, every night; it became very robust and battle-hardened. It is a long time now since Kevin was involved in the robocopy source code at all; it is maintained by the Windows team.
Did you create Microsoft Clippy? Will Clippy ever make a come back?	Noooo... but I was around at the time. We have Clippy now in the form of Siri and Google Assistant and Cortana, but there's no picture. That's all it was though, an early digital assistant.
I read on a Microsoft devblog that when windows got ported to 64bit pinball 3d was not ported because of bugs and the developers not being able to understand the code/not having enough time. It's a shame, because it was such an awesome game and I spent many hours playing it as a kid. Was the code messy due to being ported from Sam and do you think it could have been ported given enough time and expertise?	Basically what I did when I ported it was to maintain the central code "logic" loop of the game unchanged so that it would play just as it did on other platforms, and then "hooked" functionality coming out of it and going into it. So I rewrote the drawing code that did the actual drawing, but not he original code that wanted to do the drawing, if that makes sense. I changed the how, not why.
	That meant, though, that at the very core of the game was a big bunch of code that we didn't touch or monkey with, because it 'just worked'. Apparently sometime after Vista, in 64-bit, there was a collision detection bug in Pinball.
	From what I read, Raymond Chen looked at it and got the general idea of what was wrong but didn't want to touch the fragile old code. Raymond's one of the best debuggers I've met, so it wasn't a question of expertise but of time and resources.
	Anyone on the team could have trivially fixed it I'm sure, but it sounds like no one "owned" the game anymore after I left, and it was more than just a random little bug to fix, it would have required a dev to be assigned to it, and there likely was no one free.
What is your favourite colour please?	Well, I have four cars with blue interiors and I'm wearing a blue shirt and a blue watch and blue jeans. So probably blue.
If my son expresses interest in serious computer programming, where is a good place to start? C for Dummies? (I'm joking and I know terribly little about the topic, only enough to know backend is where it's at)	Python, then Javascript. Build a website!
Hi! Just wanted to say, I still use MS-DOS regularly, on many of my older machines in my collection. Also Win3.x, Win9x etc How do you feel about computers becoming extremely dependent on 'cloud' services? I can still set up an old machine, install an old OS, install old software and have it all up and running within an hour or so, while modern software essentially requires cloud services for literally everything. What happens to that software once some random person out there decides that they don't want to support it anymore? Those cloud services go away? Are you concerned that future generations will not be able to experience anything from this era of computing? Considering computers were designed to be able to continually run the same software over and over as necessary, how can that apply if the bulk of this is lost when the cloud disappears? Or maybe this isn't a concern at all, and I'm just crazy...?	I already have hardware that refused to work because the cloud service that backs it has been abandoned or the company has gone out of business.
	I worry that things become dependent on externals that aren't reliable long term, and I know what you mean... but fortunately Windows, once activated, runs perfectly well offline forever, really.
I'm a fresh graduate with some experience and reading the knowledge you all have in the comments has made me feel very inferior. I only started coding in my university and I don't do it in my past time. Am I doing something wrong? I do enjoy programming but I try to keep a work life balance. Is that a thing in software development? Also did you ever approve a pull request by Bill?	No, as long as you DO enjoy it when you're doing it, you're fine. There's an entire "spectrum" of people in the world and some of us have "special interests" with which we're a little obsessed, and tend to "hyperfocus". I'm one of those people but it's by no means the only way to do it!
	I knew many great programmers who (a) didn't program in their spare time at home and (b) didn't continue to program recreationally after leaving it as a job.
	If you can work regular 40 hours a week as a productive programmer, you'll be set!
the below is a reply to the above
Thank you so much for this! Are there any tips you'd like to give to fresh graduates like me?	If you get a job at a large company like Microsoft, and decide you're not happy, try moving INTERNALLY before looking for another job. You could work for 5 different companies over your career and they could all be Google, for example. Culture goes through and through, but every team has its own.
the following is a later reply	If you can put in a 35-40 hour week of solid work, you'll be fine. There are three buckets: the obsessives, like myself, who work as much as they can. Then the solid pros, who can turn out a ton of quality stuff in 40 hours. And then you have the slackers who surf Facebook at work and read reddit when they should be coding. As long as you're not in that group you're fine, and a balance is important. It is indeed a thing the successful people achieve it. It's not about how much code you write, it's about how much MORE time you spend coding than you want to, and that should be zero!
	Lots of people are in careers they don't practice in their free time, in fact most. So it's a bonus if you're that way, but most people are NOT, so don't despair! You're normal!
If you're still answering, how much of the original Task Manager still lives in the modern Task Manager? Anyway, thanks for the AMA! You're a legend!	I don't know for sure, but from looking at the app, and not the code, I'd expect about 60-70% of it?
Hopefully you’re still taking questions. I get a lot of crap by my peers about command line. Power shell is badass but I’m a cmd guy myself. I know we can do pretty much everything that cmd does in powershell and more, but idk. I like what I like, you know? Where do you stand on this?	Honestly I'd be a CMD guy as well, but I'm really starting to lean towards using bash under WSL.
	Have you ever looked the help for SET and FOR under CMD? It's where we put every piece of extra functionality, since you can't add keywords that might collide with people's script names, etc...
I didn’t use windows after windows 7 for about 5 years. Back in august 2019 I finally rebuilt and upgraded my old PC and installed windows 10. The task manager in windows 10 is so amazing and powerful. I would imagine it’s something you wanted to implement in the 90s but didn’t have the tools or time. Right?	Indeed, I'm a big fan of the current task manager and what they've done with it! I wish there was a Dark mode, I wish it handled file lock tracking, and I've always got wish lists, but they've done a great job with it!
CIA_grade_LSD: Why does the file transfer time remaining progress bar start at like 15 hours and then drop to two minutes and then stick at 99% for five minutes? (An exaggeration I admit. I know you and your colleagues do your best, but I am curious why this hasnt gotten much more accurate over the years.) androidethic: Yes, we need a justification as to why the windows file operation estimations are so random/inaccurate!	They're the worst estimate out there, except for all the others.
	Mac is just as bad. It's a hard problem. I worked on it briefly, and to help solve it I kept track of the average time it had taken for a whole range of operations, like creating, moving, deleting, renaming a file, or moving a block of N bytes, etc. Then multiply by the number of those operations that remain. But even that can be wildly off in degenerate cases.
Do you ever get laid?	Not since your Mom kicked me out.
Why has windows task manager never had a true force quit?	End Process is a true force quit.
What was your team's opinion on linux at the time? And what's yours opinion too?	I like it a lot, I was an early adopter back in 1993-1994 and tried to contribute some code for parsing IIDs, though I don't know if it's still in there. I hope it is, becaue then I'd have code in Windows, Mac Office, and Linux. I'd be everywhere :-)
	Now that we have WSL 2, though, I do most of my Linux work under Windows!
How much of the original DOS code is still in modern OSs?	None whatsoever. In fact, the only commonality at all would likely be the PGM header on disk still traces its original layout to MS-DOS.
	But rest assured there's NO code from MS-DOS inside NT, for example. It was a complete clean-slate design.
Was it you responsible for the atrocious naming conventions in WIN32?	Your username is dhbt12 :-)
What current developments in the world of operating systems are you watching with eager anticipation? File systems and LLVM seem to be the rage right now, at least from where I sit.	Containers are cool to me, like Docker! That's really the biggest development of recent years I think!
the below has been split into two
* What's your compensation?	- Zero, since I'm retired and there's no pension.
* Have you met Bill Gates?	- Yes, a number of times. When I was first hired he had me and a few other recent hires over to his house for burgers and beer and it was quite nice!
What's your opinion of free and open-source software? Broad, I know. I saw your response about WinRAR saying you like to license your software, but do you hold a similar sentiment in tossing a coin to the devs of foss software you might use?	I love it, I just don't have any illusions that making a piece of code open-source somehow leads to higher quality. It makes it more available to me, which is great, but in reality, on a typical project there are going to be 1-5 people who really look at the code and then a dozen the sort of know it to make changes, and then consumers of the code who just call it. I don't see that those 1-5 people are any brighter than the people who'd be responsible for a product in a proprietary environment.
	Now at a certain scale, like the Linux kernel maybe, you've got enough eyeballs looking at it that it makes a difference... that I could see!
What's the idea behind SYSKEY?	As I understand it, its function is to encrypt something called the SAM (Security Account Manager) database. This database stores hashes of user passwords, and is used to authenticate users when they supply their password.
Hey Dave, what do you think the future of the windows OS will be? Is a cloud-based OS possible, potentially limiting computer hardware?	As a total guess, I imagine our experience will eventually be just a UI device locally and everything else happens in the cloud on server hardware. So as you say, at some point your client hardware is "good enough" and then companies compete on the merits of their back-end services.
Do you know Mike Toutonghi? , he used to work at Microsoft, now he started a new blockchain project called The Verus project.	By name and email but not well enough to recognize him at the mall today, I'd say!
If you had to redo windows, what would you most like to change? What do you regret most? What do you like most?	The Format dialog needs to be redone! And Task Manager is likely my favorite...
Android or iPhone? Beer or wine? Ginger or Mary Ann?	iPhone. Beer. Can't it be both? It's an island, after all.
the below is a reply to the above
I figured the iPhone since you have Mac's in the lab. I figured beer also since you can't shift a 4 speed with a glass off wine between your legs. Nice garage BTW. However i wasnt ready for both, it's an island after all. Touche. I tired to compile my first bit of code from GitHub today. I failed miserably. It would install but wouldn't run. I'll keep at it.	Make sure you're in a clean empty folder. Try the code from Episode 11, I just used it so I know that works! Clone it and build it in PlatformIO with no changes, and that'll tell you if your dev environment is set up and working properly.
I cant connect to my cloud, can you download it for me?	I'd love to, but I'm out of paper. Can you fax me some?
What amazes you the most when you compare technology from the 90's to now?	GPUs!
Is it wrong of me to only ever end task manager with itself?	Software Seppuku.
Probably too many comments and very late to the game, but here it goes! I teach Comp Sci at an international school. Would you be willing to give a small webinar talk to my students? They would just be so happy to hear from you as would I! Anyway, regardless, thanks for the many, many hours of enjoyment!	Maybe after Covid, but I'm not a big fan of Zoom lectures! I just did one for the U of R, though, and if you check my channel there are two that I have done for the University of Regina that you might find useful for your students...
	You can email me at [email protected] with info about the school and what topic you would like, etc, and I can see if it's a good fit for schedule and topic!
What computers do you personally at home? Windows? Linux? Mac?	All three!
Why are processes able to hang to the point that task manager is unable to kill them?	At that point there must be kernel corruption or something going on in a driver or well below the surface, I guess. If TM can't kill it, no one can, and it's truly hung.
Did you ever meet the genius who wrote the Space Cadet Pinball theme song?	No, who wrote it? Matt Ridgeway?
Hi Dave, loved the videos on task manager Do you have any thoughts on modern C / C++ replacements like Zig and Rust (respectively)?	I think its cool if memory access is indeed provably safe but you get code nearly as optimal as C, but I've got to learn more about them!
Did you like the windows phone?	Never had one, started after I left, but I heard nice things about the very last one before it went away...
Hi Dave, Why doesn’t File Explorer automatically refresh to show new files in a folder, such as downloads? Seems such an obvious glitch! Also, how do I get the login screen on Windows 10? I push space, esc, mouse clicks, enters... and nothing happens. Then poof, it shows up. Why is this so unresponsive?	It does.
	In fact I know it does, because I have a patent on some of it!
	Not sure why yours wound't be working, your system might have a third party piece of software that has broken File System Change notifications.
Was the time on Microsoft fun?	It really was. I miss the people and the environment, and I especially miss lunch!
i’ve found 15+ 0-days in the shell32 API when doing a vuln analysis of explorer.exe. You can read my work at https://hyp3ri0n-ng.github.io! What’s it like to write really buggy code :P?	I sense that high school was hard for you socially.
I’m sure I remember owning the pinball game as a separate standalone title before it was in windows? Can you explain the deal with that? Or am I misremembering	Plus Pack!
You're a legend, can't believe I missed this. I'll post this here, if you don't answer it I'll have a good copy/paste for later. What are your thoughts on the sethc.exe / accessibility exploit? It's worked as far back as XP, and still works today in Windows 10, last time I checked. Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well. Is checking the integrity of OS files before they're executed just not a priority?	https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/222193/description-of-the-windows-file-protection-feature
Why ctl+alt+delete?	An IBM engineer (David Bradley, I think) picked that combination to serve as a hardware reset. You can't fake it, you can't get around it. The PC knows it's really C_A_D when you do it.
	Why that particular combination, you'd have to ask him!
What's the furthest you've gotten into a project that ended up not panning out? Was it something you really wanted to get working or were you relieved to move on? I'm a student studying engineering right now and reading these answers is extremely motivational; your passion for computers is awesome! Thanks for doing this.	I spent about a year on an early prototype of Media Center that I was attached to but got killed. They did do a Media Center later, of course, but I had started 2-3 years ahead, but couldn't get funding.
Why has the Windows she'll been so bad for so long?	I don't know, but I'll see you in he'll.
Do you still work at Microsoft? Do you still use only Microsoft stuff?	No retired in 2003. I use a lot of MS stuff, but my main laptop is a MacBook and I use a Mac for video.
Do you own any Apple products or use them for work?	I own all the Apple products except the new headphones, pretty much! I'm retired now though!
Is the workculture of Microsoft at the time very different than now? How much does Bill Gates' leadership impact the company? What changes had his departure bring?	It is indeed very different under Satya than Bill, and the changes are widespread. But I left before Satya started, so I'm not really qualified to speak on them!
What are your thoughts on the age old trick of "Opening Task Manager to stop programs from freezing or being slow", is there some merit to doing that or is it just a simple coincidence?	Total coincidence, honest! Task Manager, at that level, is just a windows app with a message pump. It's existence doesn't do anything that solitaire or paint would not also!
	No, but there's a great meme with the Star Wars general about how apps work better with Task Manager open because "fear will keep them in line".
	It's purely psychological, though. TM doesn't do anything by running the calc or paint wouldn't also provide!
Did you work on Windows ME? If so.. What the hell happened to that OS that made it so terrible? I had kernal errors every week.	Nope! My work on the shell would have been backported to it, but I didn't work directly on 98 or M3, other than they used our NT version of the shell code by then I think.
Did you make any contingency for when Task Manager stops responding?	Yes, lots! Check the video the "Secret Life of Task Manager" for more dirt, but there are MANY things it does to help prevent you ever being stuck with no task manager:
	https://youtu.be/f8VBOiPV-_M
If not asked yet If this is correct, as posted in Regina awhile ago iirc I saw a post saying you’re from Regina, Canada Is that true? If so that’s awesome to hear that someone from my local area made one of my favourite no internet game and the basic fundamentals of the most used OS for computers	Yes indeed, that's me!
Why is the documentation for WPA so bad and scarce? I have to refer to Bruce Dawson's years old blog to decipher some of the columns names. Are there any plans to add a comprehensive manual for it?	Windows Product Activation? Columns? Sorry, are you using WPA for something else?
Can I intern for you?	If you know how to write a Material-themed admin-style Dashboard in React, can consume a REST api in doing so, and have some experience with iPhone apps an Unity, then maybe yes!
	I was actually looking for an intern this past summer to write a phone and web app...
how did you assured code quality and readability? did you use static analyzers/ unit tests or what?	Check out the "Secret History of Task Manager" video for a description of "NTStress" and how we nightly tested, but there were professional testers, every line of code was code-reviewed, and so on.
	My understanding is it's quite different now, though!
When you say you worked on Windows activation, was it for more than a day?	That's an odd question. Can I ask why you think it might have just been for a day? Clue me in to what you're hinting at and I'll fill you in on the rest!
Why do I need to press 3 buttons and 1 click to open task manager?	Because you choose to fail!
	You can do it with two clicks or one simultaneous multikey press!
Do you think WPA was a success?	I think so! It helped stem casual piracy, wasn't "cracked" for at least 18 months after we released it, and didn't unduly inconvenience users too often, I hope.
	We were really aiming for the 95% case. Trying to catch the 95% of piracy that is people sharing keys, reusing their own keys on too many machines, getting keys off the web, that sort of thing. I think it accomplished that.
How did you feel about windows 8?	Same way you do.
Who invented the blue screen of death?	John Vert. He said:
	"Back in 1991 I wrote the original code for Windows NT 3.1 that put the video screen back into text mode and the routines to put text on it (and a truly gnarly bit of code it was!). I used the white on blue colors for two reasons.
	* The MIPS workstations we were using for the MIPS port had firmware that presented a boot option screen in white on blue, so it made sense that the bugcheck screen would match.
	* I (and many others) were using SlickEdit as our text editor and at the time its default color scheme was also white on blue.
	I believe Mark Lucovsky wrote the original code that dumped a bunch of text to the screen. This was a bugcode and a stack dump, resulting in a bunch of useless hex numbers which product support would occasionally dutifully transcribe from the customers and include in the bug report.
	There was no "typesetting" as we used standard VGA text mode on PCs.
	I don't know the history of the Win3.1/Win9x blue screens, I think the fact they were the same color is just coincidence."
But can you make sick stick figure death match animations in QBASIC?	No, but I do a mean Bill the Cat ascii art!
How could you?	Sometimes you just gotta say WTF.
	https://youtu.be/a0p7rJsYisw
What are you working on these days?	Mostly on programming tutorials and nostalgic "Windows War Stories" on my youtube channel:
	http://www.youtube.com/c/davesgarage
[removed]	That's me! Went to Miller high, worked at ISM and SaskTel during college, etc!
Here is my question. Im a cuban teenager (17) and my dream is work is be a developer. What kind of mini works i can do for learn programation before University?	Do as many little program tasks as you can, and make sure you complete them, and SAVE them for the future so you can look back!
	Try writing a little program to convert back and forth between roman numbers and regular numbers. Or fund the next highest multiple of 32, or count the number of it bits set in a byte. Or the real difference in seconds between two dates, that sort of thing. Real problems that you have to solve will help a great deal as they act as sort of a "forcing function" to make you get to the very end.
Do you like macaroni & cheese?	Kraft Dinner all the way. And I eat with little packets of designer ketchup.
Wait...you didn't built paint? I'm out.	Nope, sorry. But I owned calc for a while, back when we were adding infinite precision math to it!
Hi, If Microsoft wanted to, they could make it impossible to activate a pirated copy of windows using 3rd party software. So why aren't they making it impossible?	Not sure what you meant by 3rd party software. Are you saying Windows can actually be activated even if pirated? That'd be news to me, but anything's possible.
What was the criteria for “tilt” on space cadet pinball? I played that game for hours as a kid.	Spacebar would add a little "action" to the table, if I recall, and you could strike a balance of adding so much so often... but too much (ie: smash space too much) and it'll tilt.
Did you ever have to interview anybody at Microsoft? If so, what types of questions would you ask back then? What was your interview like going into Microsoft?	Oh yeah, I've interviewed dozens or hundreds I'd bet. I'd like to ask "calibrating questons" like "Give me a funtion that takes a number and returns the next highest multiple of 32" or "count the number of bits that are set in it" to see how their basic coding skills were.
	Then I usually liked to give a problem I was working on to see what it'd be like to actually work with the person.
	I interviewed three times, once as an intern, once as full time, and then once to move to the Shell group. Each as an all-day affair, and very arduous. You have 2-3 hour long interviews in the AM, then a lunch interview, then 2-3 more hour long interviews in the PM, then a supper thing, etc... it's a long day!
ImRandyRU: What have you done for me lately? Edit: it was a joke... dabigchina: NT is the foundation that all modern windows OS's build on, so a lot. Zeusifer: I guarantee some of OP's code still exists in Windows 10.	Most of it, to be honest. As a guess I'd say 75% still there.
Hey man, I had a wicked dump this morning and now my toilet is blocked. Any idea's?	More roughage in your diet.
It was so satisfying to push the 3x5 disks into the slot and have the button pop out, and make a vroom vroom sound. Ah, the old days. What's your favorite MS-Dos game from the 90s?	I actually came to the PC after MS-DOS, so I wasn't a DOS gamer... I suppose in those days it was primarily C64 and Amiga games. I do remember being fond of Sim City, like everyone, but also of a game called "Seven Cities of Gold"...

A user by the handle of u/WeakestBeast made a post yesterday with some helpful tips ey had gathered along their journey to 300k monthly listeners. One of these tips was to build a consistent listenership of about 10-50k people monthly before shopping around to labels — this is good advice, by the way, because a label needs to see that you're gonna make this happen with or without them before they're going invest a dime. But getting that first 10k monthly listeners can seem like an insurmountable first step, so I wanted to talk a bit about our personal journey.
—
A BRIEF INTRODUCTION
I've done this before. Shortly after our first release, we reached a monthly listenership of 50k at our peak. It's been six months since our most recent release (that first album) and we've settled into a comfortable 10-20k listeners consistently. And we do it all ourselves — recorded in my bedroom, mixed on cheap speakers with stock plug-ins, made our album art with an iPhone camera and some worklamps from Home Depot, cold calling playlisters and venues and blogs. Beyond my personal project, I'm involved in several other music projects, which range from 50-100k monthly listeners consistently. While the fact that I've done this is an important qualification to actually talking about, I think probably more important is that I've been involved in a lot of really good bands that never even broke the 2k barrier, and I can tell you why.
—
A DISCLAIMER ABOUT THE FALSE DRAW OF MONTHLY LISTENERSHIP
But there's something we need to address before we get started: monthly listenership is a red herring as far as your musical success, however you may define it, is. It is measuring something, but it has power mostly because we give it power, and an even less precise measure because of that. In all likelihood, your interest as a musician is not just getting your music in front of millions of people who will only ever listen once, but specifically to get it in front of the people who will resonate with your music. The people for whom your songs are meaningful, the people who will become fans. I suspect that for many of us, that is the truer measure of success (even if we aren't always good at shaking off the delusions of fame and influence). Monthly listenership does not measure that. These are listeners, not fans. There are many, many, many musicians with 200k+ monthly listeners out there that struggle to bring 50 people to a show. The rise of the playlist has as a side effect the tendency to render music as "wallpaper", an accompaniment to people's days and not something with which they actively engage.
Given, we and the people we want to impress (managers, labels, press) attribute quite a lot to monthly listenership. That's the second failing. Goodhart's Law tells us that once a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a useful measure. Which is to say, when we put so much emphasis on monthly listenership, it ceases to be a good proxy for the quality or actual retentive quality of your music. You can easily imagine that this number could be misleadingly inflated by fame or popularity without any regard for the quality of the music at all.
So remember that this isn't the end-all-be-all. Your goal is to reach as many future fans as you can, NOT just random people — and that doesn't always look like 500k people right off the bat. I don't doubt that there's an audience of that many people for whatever your genre is, no matter how weird. There are a lot of people, and if you like it, odds are someone else will appreciate it as well. But finding them is a much, much, much more difficult task than reaching that first 10k of passive consumers.
—
STARTING FROM NOTHING
The first question to ask yourself is what you really want. Do you want this? I know I want it, and I'm going to assume you do too. But it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be fair. If you really want this, you need to turn a critical eye to your own music and excise everything that doesn't work. Commit to making the best possible art you can. You might not think of yourself as a songwriter, but you need to understand how a good song works. You might not think of yourself as a producer, but you need to know how to make things sound good. You might not think of yourself as a marketer, but no one else is going to do it for you and you need to get your music in front of people. You might not think of yourself as an influencer, but you're selling experiences and that's the whole package. So ask yourself right now, what are you the worst at? What are you the best at? Think long and hard about these things, then hit Google and commit right now to getting better at all of it.
I am not saying this is a prerequisite. This is a continuous process. The biggest obstacle any of us will face is time, so don't wait for everything to be perfect. A musical career is just growing up in the public eye.
But I know you're all doing that already, or you wouldn't be here reading this.
So you've finished your project and it sounds good. Great writing, tight production, well-mixed, well-mastered. Nice. You've got some slick album art. You're excited and ready to drop this project.
But you're not going to drop this project yet. This is the longest part, it takes patience and it's not nearly as fun as making music. No, you're going to wait. You're going to set a release date for two months, minimum, from now. And then you're going to start planning.
—
GAINING AN AUDIENCE ON SOCIAL MEDIA
First, let's get the social media logistics out of the way. Do you have a mailing list? Are you on at least one of the major social media platforms? I recommend Instagram and TikTok, which are by far the dominant platforms right now. Make a YouTube channel. Make a Bandcamp. Make a Soundcloud. Reddit, if you want. You want people to be able to stream your music even if they aren't on Apple or Spotify. Lock down an email address. Make sure your handle is the same for all of these.
The trick to gathering an audience on these platforms is to create something of value. And that value is important because it's specific and in-line with your artistic identity. I use our Instagram as a place to keep in touch with our community — I follow and interact with other artists and collaborators, I post daily snippets from the life of the band to our story, little musical videos, I even post about what books I'm reading. People are on Instagram because they're interested in you and your life, so it's nice to see behind the curtain and into the lives of you and your bandmates. TikTok, on the other hand, seems to be entirely driven by a content-based algorithm — this can look like a lot of things: funny little videos, covers of songs you like, dances, vibey lifestyle posts, rating different things, more informational stuff (our most popular by far were about DIY audio engineering). TikTok seems to prefer videos that show your face from the front, by and large, and anything that makes use of its in-app sounds, songs, effects, and features. Just a small tip. Do some duetting and reacting, people like that. What, you're not on TikTok? Get on TikTok! It makes me feel old and out-of-touch, too, but you've got to excise that discomfort and get after it. Remember, we're committed. Facebook is useful for scheduling events, more useful if you have an older audience. But even then, I'd use a mailing list. The nice thing about email is it gets you away from algorithm-driven exposure — now you can contact people you care about directly. YouTube is a great place to do covers and gather fans from other, extant fanbases. I know that fans of Pinegrove or Death Cab for Cutie will find something to like from our music, for example, so we've spent a lot of time and effort putting together some good quality covers. I prefer to use Reddit in this way — I spent years learning a lot from this community and it's great to be able to contribute, now. And who knows, maybe you'll gain some new listeners that way, too. You're welcome to make yourself a website, but to be honest I don't think it's all that important anymore.
So you're going to spend your two+ months gathering an audience on all these platforms by posting regularly, engaging with others, and creating high-value content. Sneak in some promotional stuff for your music. TikTok seems particularly lawless — just post your song and people will start demanding you release it. This is a game of inches. It takes time. And don't be afraid to direct your friends and family. Learn how to ask, you're going to need to. Otherwise no one will ever even know you released it. But every person you gather becomes a potential vector of new exposure.
ADS
As a brief aside, if you have the money, ads can be really useful. The trick is to make it less of an ad and more of a normal post on social media. Engagement with videos is much higher. Spend some time making a short little video teaser and release video for your music. Music videos are even better! Try to spend at least $10 a day and use a targeted audience. If you've run ads before, try especially to focus people who have previously engaged with your material. You can have Instagram and Facebook promote you, you can have YouTube screen your videos before other relevant artists. And feel free to get creative with ads in the real world, too. Leave random letters inviting people to your show. Put up flyers! Collaborate with local artists to make cool merchandise and flyers!
—
PLAYLISTS, PLAYLISTS, PLAYLISTS (AND BLOGS, AND RADIO)
Next, get on SubmitHub. You're going to find yourself a couple blogs — as many as you can — to talk about your release. To be honest, I don't think too many people actively read blogs anymore, but you might gain a little exposure out of it. More importantly, it gives you another measure of legitimacy. People are talking about your music. You're going to share those articles when they're written, and people will be more inclined to check your music out having seen that other people are writing about it. More importantly, find a couple playlisters to add your song. With both of these things, it helps be specific about your targeting — do a little research. And it helps to have a little money for premium credits, the rate of acceptance is so much higher. But if you don't — and that's completely okay — you can earn them by rating others' music on Hot or Not. And you should add your music to SubmitHub's Hot or Not as well. Think of all the other appreciative musicians who are on there listening through Hot or Not. Someone might think your stuff is pretty hot! And then you've got a new fan as well.
But playlists. Someone commented in the other thread, "Playlists, playlists, playlists." And if you want to up your monthly listeners and maybe even gain some fans, this is the right answer. So ask yourself, who does your music sound like? Note, this is not who do you listen to, but who do you sound like? I love Frank Ocean and Theo Katzman, both have influenced my songwriting and sound immensely, and I sound nothing like those artists. But fans of Pinegrove might find a particular resonance with our music. I'm a new fan of Phoebe Bridgers (Punisher is such an amazing sounding album. I love Gruska and Mills and Berg's production, wow) but even before I liked her music I understood that others might find similar qualities. What's the strongest quality of your music? Now go forth on Spotify and find user-made playlists that have a similar vibe. Given them a listen. Now's the creepy part — and this process is long and tedious, too. Look at the user. Do they make playlists under their name? Do they have a profile picture? Great. Spotify pulls those things from Facebook. Go find their Facebook profile, friend them, and send them a message cold. Be courteous and respectful, be friendly and genuine. Let them know you've been digging their playlist. You really like X and Y artists, and because of their playlist, you found Z artists and you really dig it. You think your song might be a good fit. Send them a link and say, if you like it, I'd love it if you could add it to your playlist. This feels slimey and weird and it was one of the earliest forms of exposure we got beyond our immediate social circles.
Don't forget about Spotify's playlist submission. As long as your submit two weeks prior to release, you'll be put on Release Radar, which will let everyone who's listened to your previously know you've got a new song out. From my own experience, Release Radar can also expose you to new likely fans based on engagement, acting as a little mini Discover Weekly. Discover Weekly is where you want to end up, because Spotify will just continue shipping your song around to new fans as long as there's engagement. These things are both driven by engagement and sharing by users immediately following release, so all that work you put in above is going to be really important! And of course you can submit a song from each release for Editorial Playlist consideration, too! As always, targeting is key. Find the right curated playlist for your specific song, tailor your pitch to that playlist's vibe and content.
By the way, I recommend releasing a few singles before the project, and scheduling them to be four weeks apart. This way, Spotify will note the consistent influx of new listeners and the momentum you've built up, so it'll start doing some of the work for you. Plus, it gives you momentum to outside observers.
On a sort of related note, reach out to local radio stations! The students who run college stations are eager and have such a passion for music. They are fans just waiting to happen, and you'll find they're often friends waiting to happen as well. It is such a pleasure to sit down and chat with a couple students on the air and it costs you just an hour of your time, an enjoyable one at that. Likewise with podcasters! There are so many podcasts these days and I guarantee you know someone that hosts one. Reach out!
—
PERFORMING LIVE
Back before the beginning of the end of the world, we used to play live. Live shows remain the number one way you'll convert a listener to a fan. Try to maximize your exposure by playing venues with good foot traffic — venues with enough of a reputation that they bring their own listener base on a regular basis, potential new fans for you — and by pairing with other bands in the scene. How do you meet other bands? Be friendly and sociable, go out to their shows, listen respectfully, talk to them after, buy them a drink. You'll find your scene. Their fans will become fans of yours too, and now you two can support one another as acts! Build a community, collaborate, experiment, make new great art together. Play bomb shows together. And that extends to the people listening as well — put aside whatever discomfort you might feel and play your heart out; invite your audience to come and say hello after the show, to say hello to one another and make new friendships. They'll come to the next show, too, and bring friends.
I want you to play at least two shows, a month apart, in the time leading up to your release. More if you can travel (e.g., Brooklyn and Manhattan, separate enough audiences. Burlington VT is small enough that you don't want to oversaturate). Put together all that work for a big release show when your project drops — collaborate with other bands you've befriended, get a good Friday or Saturday spot. Hell, schedule a tour! We try not to release music without scheduling a little mini-tour for that weekend.
Okay, so maybe you don't have a band, or you don't know how to perform. I encourage you to do it anyway. Remember that we're committed here. You can repackage your music — it doesn't have to sound like the record. We recently played a live show online from my apartment. Unfortunately it's not really practical for us to play drums and thrashing electric guitars here, so we stripped it down, went acoustic, emphasized the harmonies, I play the piano. A different packaging, but I'm just trying to communicate my vision however I can. I've done videos of myself playing all the instruments. Whatever it takes. You can play out live with a laptop as a backing track. You can loop yourself. Maybe you're just a bomb musician, so you can just play and that's compelling enough. I'm not that way but I know plenty who are. You can do it! Just do it!
In my experience, colleges and DIY audiences are all really willing and invested fans. Colleges will also pay you quite handsomely!
Also the current backdrop to our musical lives is one of global emergency and live shows aren't really happening right now. There are still shows happening, but it's a bit of a different scene. Still, the above applies. Find a venue with a built in audience, find some collaborators within your scene, and put something together! Maybe you record it with your iPhone. You can get a great sound with a phone these days, just spend time getting a good placement. You can do it! Just do it!
—
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
Before our first release, I spent multiple hours doing this everyday. I would wake up, submit to blogs and playlisters on SubmitHub every four hours, cold message Spotify playlisters on my bus ride into work. I put together a show at one of the biggest, highest traffic venues in town with a couple bands from the area — friends I'd made by visiting their shows and being a part of the local scene. We collaborated with a local graphic designer to make these awesome posters. I drove around an hung them at the local universities and all around town. I scheduled a mini-tour immediately to follow, hitting some of the major cities on the East Coast. I invited everyone I knew in each city. I reached out personally! I asked them to bring friends! We filmed parts of our future ad material at these shows with the audience participating. After the show, we packed up quickly and spent time hanging out with friends and listeners, meeting the people with whom our music had resonated. I posted to Reddit. Some of those posts flopped — which embarrasses me and I'm telling you about it now because that's a reality of what we're doing and we need to accept that. It's slow. But this is a game of inches and you have to keep going, right? That's the only way forward. TikTok wasn't around yet but you can bet I'd have been posting on there everyday if it had been. I did as many podcasts and playlists as I could. I reached out to local newspapers and did interviews. My friends and I all streamed the new song non-stop on our phones. I asked everyone I knew to share the song if they liked it, telling them it was a small thing they could do for me that would mean a lot for our band. There's really no way around approaching this with humility. Remember your commitment. Excise your ego. This is music, it's a compassionate act to begin with. You have to reach out to others and connect, and it's in forming that community that you will go farther.
By the time we released our second single, a month later, all that consistent effort and momentum paid off. Release Radar did a little better. We started seeing some consistent listenership. We were finding our fanbase. Finally, by our third single, things started working for us. We got a huge bump off Release Radar followed by a huge bump off Discover Weekly. We have two songs now that routinely get peddled on Discover Weekly and that has driven us to so many new listeners and fans — all because of that hard work we put in. And I am still doing it everyday, in between producing our new record and my friends' new record and, of course, going to work. It is very possible that we will never have our tinderbox moment, the big break, and find tremendous success, but I am determined to find as many people to connect with as I can and I am going to keep working as hard as I can to make that a reality. You can do it! Just do it! It is slow and hard work and frankly it is mostly discouraging work, too. But if you want it, I promise you can do it. This will work. It will take work, but if you show up and you keep at it you will see results. Good luck!

Physical copies are now available everywhere!
Just like with the release of 'The Marshall Mathers LP2', 'SHADYXV', the 'Southpaw' soundtrack, 'Revival' and 'Kamikaze', we also have a Megathread for 'Music To Be Murdered By', including links to different types of content.
And remember, just like every SotW post or previous Megathreads, we want this to be an open thread, so feel free to discuss everything 'Music To Be Murdered By'!
Music To Be Murdered By On Official Channels:

• Spotify
• iTunes
• Amazon Music
• Apple Music
• Google Play Music
• Smarturl
• Merch Store

Album Cover - Alternative - Second Alternative | Album Back | Booklet
Announcements: Eminem: Twitter - Instagram - Facebook Paul Rosenberg: Twitter - Instagram Denaun: Instagram Royce: Instagram
Released Singles:

• Darkness: Music Video | Audio | Lyrics - Lyric Video | Spotify / iTunes | Cover
• Godzilla Ft. Juice WRLD: Music Video | Audio | Lyrics - Lyric Video | Spotify / iTunes | Cover

Other Releases:

• None (Yet)

Reactions/Responses From Other Artists/Celebrities:

• LL Cool J
• Big Sean
• Westside Gunn
• Machine Gun Kelly
• Joe Budden / Podcast Album Review
• Peter Rosenberg
• Redman / Alternative
• Busta Rhymes
• LeBron James
• Swae Lee
• Lloyd Banks
• Kid Ink

Music To Be Murdered By on other subreddits:

• Music
• Hiphopheads

Live performances:

• None (Yet)

Interviews:

• Crook's Corner: Exclusive Interview w/ Eminem
• Eminem | Hotboxin' with Mike Tyson

Videos:

• Instagram live
• Hello, Darkness, my old friend...
• These bars are only meant for the sharpest knives in the drawer
• MTBMB promo trailer
• Eminem - Darkness (Official Spotify Music Video)
• Behind the 'Godzilla' with Cole Bennett

Pictures:

• Inspired by the master, Uncle Alfred!
• New Profile Picture
• Now that's what I call advertising
• Darkness, my old friend...
• Album Photoshoot
• For you to go against me, it's simply insane, you will die
• It's your funeral, prepare to die. This is music for you to be murdered by
• Gentle Listener
• THE TIMES SQUARE BILLBOARD IS UP!!
• Who do you think Eminem just buried?
• From the Booklet Photoshoot
• From the MTBMB photoshoot
• A collage of album concept covers that were taken into consideration
• Possibly New Photo
• First look from Eminem's upcoming interview with Crooked I!
• Eminem x KXNG Crooked
• Legends! 3 Goats.
• Didn't see this posted yet
• New BTS Photo
• Queen Mathers

Discussion Threads:

1. Premonition - Intro
2. Unaccommodating Ft. Young M.A
3. You Gon' Learn Ft. Royce Da 5'9" & White Gold
4. Alfred - Interlude
5. Those Kinda Nights Ft. Ed Sheeran
6. In Too Deep
7. Godzilla Ft. Juice WRLD
8. Darkness
9. Leaving Heaven Ft. Skylar Grey
10. Yah Yah Ft. Royce Da 5'9", Black Thought, Q-Tip & Denaun
11. Stepdad - Intro
12. Stepdad
13. Marsh
14. Never Love Again
15. Little Engine
16. Lock It Up Ft. Anderson .Paak
17. Farewell
18. No Regrets Ft. Don Toliver
19. I Will Ft. Kxng Crooked, Royce Da 5'9" & Joell Ortiz
20. Alfred - Outro

Extra:

• Fan art by ObeseButCute
• 4K Wallpapers by frdptrs
• Doodle made to celebrate Em’s new album by colleendoodles
• EMINEM x HITCHCOCK
• MTBMB Phone Wallpapers by lilcatfriend
• Phone Wallpaper by SHADYP00L
• MTBMB Eminem portrait drawing by SheepsGraphics
• Fanmade Promo Poster by BenJoshTobiasAlJoel
• Hogwash by aaka98
• Godzilla fan made cover by pewdxepie
• 11. / Alternative by BenJoshTobiasAlJoel
• Just a fan art I made by Gemini_salt
• Who's enjoying Music to Be Murdered By?! by ShadyAir
• More fan art by ObeseButCute
• Alternate digital album art by @thibaultjohnmcclane
• Hall Of Fame by Sevenmillyn
• Infinite - MTBMB
• MTBMB Custom Art
• MTBMB Custom Art #2
• I made the MTBMB album cover out of the other 10 Em albums. by dyajiv
• Custom MTBMB Album Art by GraysonGoodwin
• The album we REALLY wanted... by sjamie2204
• MTBMB Fan Made Poster.
• This is my drawing and i'm very proud of it, it took me a long time but it paid off. I honestly didn't expect it to turn out well :) bu FuzatoSoldi
• Eminem (Feat. Juice WRLD) - Godzilla by _nukedesign_
• Alternative album cover for MTBMB inspired by a VHS box cover by CargoDesigns
• EMINEM artwork (Godzilla MV) by Andreir999

Reviews:

• Forbes
• Medium
• The Guardian
• The Telegraph
• Melon
• Rolling Stone
• Variety
• NME
• EW
• HipHopDX

Other:

• Eminem new tweet
• HAPPENING
• It’s s fan diss track
• Please don’t give us another 10 minute dictionary freestyle with no beat
• I can’t wait for the inevitable merch drop to disappoint y’all
• Please tell us she ain’t joking
• I bet Em is watching us right now going crazy
• Activity from Em draws my full attention
• ILLA ON THE BEAT
• What is happening?!
• I'm perplexed
• Eminem’s longtime producer comments on The Tweet
• Kamikaze 2, the album where you reply to everybody who didnt like the album where you reply to everybody who didnt like the previous album
• This might be a reach.
• Fredwreckla IG story
• Saw an Eminem fan account point this out on Twitter. Hmmm...
• Am I the only one who don’t want a Kamikaze 2 album? Kamikaze was good but he needs to move on and do something different
• Crooked responds to the Em tweet
• 7 Indicators That Point To A New Eminem Album
• We made the news guys!!!88! - Source
• Eminem sent 50 a new song to jump on recently
• Is this the problem em was talking about?
• He ain't denying it
• REAL923 on Instagram: “@bigboy was in the studio with #DrDre yesterday and he listened to some new unreleased music from him and #Eminem!!”
• 50 Cent Confirms Eminem is Working on a New Album and He’s Featured on It
• Dr.Dre is mixing new Eminems album!
• 13/12?
• Bizarre just tweeted this - managed to screenshot before it got deleted
• This post should excite you.
• Logic thinks Kendrick could be dropping rather Em.
• Royce in new Sway interview: "I'm mad at Nick Canon, because he's distracting my friend." Distracting from what 🤔
• Y'all really think there is an album on the 20th?
• XXL Tweet rumour that a surprise project is coming from a big name rapper
• FRED WRECK JUST POSTED THIS!!!
• FRED WRECK WITH A PRODUCER WHO WORKED ON RELAPSEv!!!!
• AND ANOTHER!!! It’s happening.
• So what do we know about the new album?
• Ok it's happening!
• Fredwreck took the E off his story, posted a pic of Snoop in Detroit
• Full list of Dec 20th Album Drop Hints
• What if this is our Friday superstar release? Let's not forget this image.
• Boner!
• Producer S1 ('Nice Guy' 'Normal', 'Caterpillar', 'Bad Guy') Confirms Work With Eminem, Says He's Been Recording A Lot Recently
• Eminem after Kamikaze does well
• 300k views in 30minutes, no trending page nothin'.
• Royce produced You Gon Learn and Darkness
• This sub rn:
• It's crazy to think everyone here probably has their headphones in and listening to the same thing lmao.
• Ight imma head out this coffin and listen to the new Em joint
• Joe Budden Listening to Eminem Ft. Slaughterhouse
• Mike Saputo, Eminem's cover art designer shares details about MTGMB
• Can’t wait for buddens next podcast
• Music To Be Murdered By has reached #1 on US iTunes (Albums)
• Eminem criticised for lyric about bomb at Ariana Grande gig
• "Got no plans to retire, im the same man that you admire"
• Juice actually did record the hook specifically for the eminem song, his photographer posted this on his instagram story.
• Respect to The Telegraph for not holding a grudge with Em’ like Forbes and Pitchfork.
• Godzilla is #1 on Trending!
• Interesting. It seems Em owns the masters to this one.
• First week sales predictions
• Official MTBMB logomark by Eminem's designer Mike Saputo
• A historic moment in the legacy of Eminem
• MGK on the album
• Eminem is the face of New Music Friday on Spotify
• “From one master to another, Marshall.”
• All 20 tracks from 'Music To Be Murdered By' have entered the top 100 on US Apple Music
• #1 in 48 countries in just 8 hours. With no promotion
• Most streams for him in a day on Spotify
• MTBMB vs KAMIKAZE vs REVIVAL first day streams on Spotify
• 50.5 million streams first day
• This guy, Keith P. Rein predicted MTBMB album concept back in 2016
• Eminem - Darkness (Behind The Scenes)
• Music To Be Murdered By Action Figure
• This is what’s at stake stans - Don’t quit!
• MTBMB gun cover without parental advisory
• Yep, Song of the Week
• MTBMB is the #1 album on Amazon Music
• Full Youtube Banner Image
• MTBMB surpasses Mac Miller's 'Circles' on U.S. Apple Music
• Eminem will have #1 album in 3 different decades and top 3 in 4 different decades.
• The photo without the weird CD effect on it
• Eminem’s ‘Music To Be Murdered By’ On Track For Historic No. 1 Debut
• Radio singles of Music To Be Murdered By - Do You Agree? What would you have preferred?
• Paul confirms the original cover was too innapropriate for retail
• 100K US SALES
• And that makes MTBMB best reviewed album since TES
• Godzilla sold 100k units in the US!!
• Nathan Mathers Instagram story.
• Google play top charts right now
• Prepare to be blown, like an old nintendo cartridge
• MTBMB is currently the 4th highest rated Rap album ever and top Eminem album by user score on Metacritic
• Godzilla has reached #1 on the Spotify UK Top 50
• Forbes trashed Ems album when it dropped but now their review Im looking at is praising it. What's up with that?
• Was trying to find White Gold on twitter and found this gem.
• That would be sick!
• Joe Budden wants Em to stop dissing him.
• MTBMB passes TPAB, GKMC, and MBDTF on Metacritic user scores. It is now 2nd highest rated user album of all time. Damn fans are loving this shit
• It is official, MTBMB is the highest ranked eminem album.
• We weren’t the only ones surprised
• Let's take a moment to appreciate what we are getting is due to this
• Rolling Stone feature on MTBMB's producers
• MTBMB Being Review Bombed: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
• Eminem heads for #1 as first figures defy critics
• [NSFW] I just found out that Eminem actually sampled the gun sounds from the Mandalay Bay shooting in Darkness
• Day 1-5 streams for MTBMB
• Alfred Hitchcock promoting Eminem's new album more than him
• Eminem claims #1 on the US chart after one week since Music To Be Murdered By drops!!
• Real talk!
• Those Kinda Nights has sold 100K units
• Godzilla confirmed 2nd single!
• Finally something
• Did not know this
• #1 IN THE UK! 10TH CONSECUTIVE #1 ALBUM
• GODZILLA NUMBER ONE IN UK! THE DOUBLE IS HAPPENING!
• Damn...
• Eminem is a memer now
• Eminem is officially the first artist with ten consecutive #1 debuting albums in US history!
• Sydney Australia P R O M O
• MTBMB Sales Numbers
• Album booklet
• So the album was supposed to drop on February?
• Think this picture must be from the booklet
• Music To Be Murdered By is dedicated to the memory of Juice WRLD and CeeAaqil Allah Barnes (Eminem's bodyguard) R.I.P.
• He is coming again
• Paul congratulating Em on 10 Consecutive #1 Albums
• Hell yeah! That crazy son of a b*tch did it!
• Godzilla debuts at Number 3 on Billboard Hot 100!
• No.1 in the uk (Godzilla)
• Ahh sweet sweet irony
• Eminem landed 12 songs on the Hot 100
• Billboard has finally been updated
• Eminem Scores Historic 10th No. 1 Album on Billboard 200 Chart With 'Music to Be Murdered By'
• EMINEM is releasing his new album (Music to be murdered by) for free listen on YouTube
• After streaming the new album for a hundred times, i can finally hold in my hands
• Clean image of all the #1 albums by complex.
• Picture behind disc
• First person ever to have 7 albums with 1 billion streams
• Dundas Square
• Spotify Ad
• Spotted in Geneva
• dont worry guys, the album still doing its thang
• Melon Defends Eminem from Haters!
• me browsing through this subreddit
• Hollywood
• 415K Units Sold in it's 1st Week, Worldwide
• 275k in first week in the US.
• Godzilla is gold already
• Berlin has plenty of these now
• 3 weeks later.. FINALLY EM!
• Most Page Views on Genius in the month of January
• Godzilla has now surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify!
• Em on Snapchat as a ad. Let’s go
• It is what it is
• Promo is on roll here in India
• Eminem MTBMB Promo in Berlin w/ gun and axe
• What do you think about this?
• MTBMB tops global album carts for 2nd week
• Madonna shows respect to Eminem
• 12 entries for Em
• Ad for MTBMB in Germany
• Eminem dominating the Genius charts as usual!
• MTBMB just went gold
• Alright I think this should clear things up for the rest of you
• Biggest daily Spotify Streams in 2020.
• Godzilla has sold over 600,000 units!
• Godzilla Music Video is coming!
• GOLD!
• Finally made it to #CrooksCorner to talk #MusicToBeMurderedBy and a lot of rap with @CrookedIntriago!
• Biggest opening weeks for albums of 2020 on Spotify / Second
• Spotted at London Underground, Angel Station. First time seeing the poster in London.
• Eminem used #godzillaiscoming the music video is near!
• @Eminem and Juice WRLD's "Godzilla" has now sold over 1 million units in the US.
• Mike Saputo explains the meaning of Shady 416 on the back cover
• May of been posted already but more BTS
• They used more than 2000 cds to do that shot in Godzilla video
• MTBMB is certified Gold in USA
• CERTIFIED GOLD

My name is Alice. I need to write that down before I forget it. I don’t know how much time I have before he comes back, so I’m going to try to write this down as fast as humanly possible. We’re all so terrified. There’s about 10 of us, and he hasn’t finished his collection. I need to stop him before- I don’t know. Sorry, let me calm down and start over.
I’ve always been a loner. No siblings, not many friends. I guess I’ve always been more focused on my work. I’ve dated guys, but none of them stick around. They always said I’m too “detached”. I didn’t mind then. I lived in Manhattan, and I always had work to keep me busy. That is, until my parents died unexpectedly. Car crash. I was upset, sure, but I wasn’t very close to my parents if I’m gonna be honest. So imagine my surprise when I got a call from my family’s attorney saying that they left me the house. My childhood home. In the middle of east bumb-fuck nowhere. I begrudgingly packed up my shit and moved down there, hoping I could sell it quickly and get back to my life.
My hometown is very small, an “everybody knows everybody” type of place. So it was very unsurprising that all of my neighbors took extreme interest in me moving back home. The first couple days I was home I was bombarded by neighbor after neighbor pounding on my door, wanting to see “how I was doing” or “what I was up to”, which very quickly became borderline unbearable. It wasn’t until the third day I was there that my childhood friend, Ray, knocked on my door.
“Alice- hey!”
“Oh my god Ray, is that really you?” I’m not a hugger, but when he went in for one, I didn’t pull away.
“Yeah! I heard you were in town, so I figured I would stop by! I’m really sorry about your parents…”
I didn’t really know what to say, so I muttered a thank you. We stood there for a moment, an awkward silence permeating the air. Eventually, Ray spoke again.
“Hey… do you remember that carnival we went to as kids?”
“Oh my god, yes!” I laughed, “Those were always so fun! God, I’m sure there’s about a million cheap stuffed animals from the ring toss stuffed in a box somewhere…”
Ray laughed heartily, “Oh my god, yes! You killed that game!”
“Yeah, I always beat you!” I laughed, and he put on an offended face, clutching his pearls.
“Well excuse me! I was going to ask you to go with me tonight, but apparently I’m not good enough for the ring toss queen, so I’ll just be going…” He joked, dramatically turning around, pretending to leave.
“Wait! The carnival is in town?”
He spun around, a stupid grin on his face. “You bet it is! What do you say?”
I laughed. This was the most interesting thing to happen to me since I got back. “Yeah, that would actually be great! Meet you at 8?”
“Deal!” He smiled, before jogging back to his car and driving away.
We spent the entire evening talking and laughing. I beat him at ring toss (again), and after stuffing our faces with funnel cake, we took a lap around the fair. We stopped in front of a structure I had never seen before.
It was a worn tent in a red and black striped pattern. One flap of the tent was pinned open, the darkness inside almost permeating the air. I shuddered. I don’t know what it was, but something about this tent seriously creeped me out. A large sign was staked into the ground, written in a very floral font, matching the tent in coloring.
Mr. McCallister’s Odditorium
“Oh I heard about this place!” Ray exclaimed, breaking me out of my fog. “It’s a freak show, you know, bearded ladies, conjoined twins, that kind of stuff. Let’s go in!” He said, grabbing my arm and dragging me to the tent. I stayed still, pulling my arm out of his grasp.
“Um, I don’t know Ray, I don’t really feel okay with gawking at people’s deformities…”
“Come on, Alice, it’ll be fun!” He said with a tight lipped smile, annoyance in his eyes. Something was off with him. I shook my head, and he grabbed my arm so tight I could see the blood beneath his grip drain from my wrist.
“Alice, let’s just go!” He forced me toward the tent, but I stood my ground, pulling against him, before eventually yanking my arm from his hold.
“Ray, seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you? I don’t want to go in!”
He rubbed his hand over his face, frustrated, before sighing at looking at me.
“Sorry. I just really wanted to go in, it was actually the reason I wanted to come to the fair. But nevermind, I’ll come back another time.” He smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“It’s fine Ray, let’s just walk around some more, okay?”
We walked around for a little while longer, before it seemed like the carnival was starting to shut down for the night. We hopped into Ray’s car and he drove me home. As I was getting out after saying goodnight, Ray stopped me, putting his hand on my arm gently.
“Hey, Alice. I.. I just want to say I’m really sorry.”
“Ray don’t worry about earlier, it’s totally fine.”
There was a strange look in his eyes. He looked almost guilty. His eyes were glistening, tears threatening to fall.
“Alice, I’m so, so sorry.”
Weirded out by his behavior, I just nodded at Ray, getting out of his car and jogging to my parent’s house.
It was almost one in the morning, so I quickly got ready for bed, suddenly really exhausted. I quickly checked that the door was locked, still weirded out about Ray, and I passed out as soon as my head hit the pillow.
At around three in the morning, I woke up to a creaking sound coming from the living room. Trying to tell myself that it was just the house settling, I attempted to go back to sleep, but the creaking seemed to get closer. Getting slightly nervous, I quietly crept out of bed, looking for any sort of weapon, eventually grabbing a decorative clock off the bedside table. This’ll have to do, I guess, I thought to myself, internally rolling my eyes at my behavior. This is a super safe neighborhood, it’s probably nothing, I kept repeating to myself, as I slowly opened the door, peeking out into the darkness. I didn’t see anything, so I quietly crept into the living room, double checking that the door was locked. I breathed a sigh of relief when it was, and just as I was about to turn around and head back to bed, someone grabbed me, wrapping me in a bear hug. He was strong. Inhumanly strong, and I could see his massive arms and bulging veins, even in the darkness. I tried to scream, but he fought me, dragging me further into the house. He held me with one arm, and I felt him reach into his back pocket, before brandishing a white cloth. He shoved it into my face, holding it over my nose and mouth. I fought, I fought so hard, kicking and screaming, but my vision quickly started to get blurry, and soon, I passed out.
I woke up in a dimly lit room, the fluorescent lighting hurting my eyes. It was bare, save for the metal table I was strapped to. I tried to move, but the restraints were tight. It was when the initial haze wore off that I realized that my entire body was on fire, like I was stung by a million hornets. I wanted so desperately to look and see what was wrong, but my head was in some sort of trap. The pain was agonizing, and I let out a whimper, trying to make as little noise as possible. A few moments later, I heard a metal door open and shut behind my head. A deep voice chuckled, immediately chilling me to the bone. Eventually, a man loomed over my head, a surgical mask covering his face.
“Well, well, well. My little treasure is awake.”
I tried to speak, but I realized my mouth was also in agonizing pain, so I kept it shut.
“You’ll make a fine addition to my collection, Tabitha.”
My eyes widened. I spoke weakly, despite the pain.
“Tabitha? You… you have the wrong person. My name is Alice.”
He laughed, his eyes dancing. “Not anymore it’s not.”
He began undoing my restraints, before eventually releasing my head from the trap I was held in.
“Wha- what are you doing?”
“Well, I figured I would let you be the first to see your new look.”
“My- what?”
He ushered me over to an object covered by a tarp in the corner of the room, before ripping it off with a flourish. I fought back a scream at what I saw.
Tattoos covered my body from head to toe. All over my face, my stomach and arms, my feet. Every inch of skin was covered. I was clad in a small leather bikini and a choker. My hair was dyed black and styled in finger waves, and my makeup was meticulously done to resemble that of the 1920’s. My eyes were electric green, and my pupils were slits, like a cat’s. I slowly opened my mouth, to reveal razor sharp fangs, and a forked tongue.
“Presenting… Tabitha the tattooed lady!” He cackled, insanity in his eyes. I fled to the corner of the room to throw up, and he only laughed harder at my reaction.
“Don’t worry Tabitha, you’ll get used to it eventually.” And with that, a large man burst into the room. Before I knew what was happening, a white cloth was pressed against my nose and mouth, the world fading to black once more.
I woke up in a cage. I recognized the coloring of the small tent immediately. I looked around, taking in the many cages that lined the tent. Every cage was filled with a person, faces twisted with misery. I looked to the tops of the cages, seeing that atop each one, a sign in that similar floral font from the front sign, displayed their names:
The Siamese Twins
The Lobster Girl
The Human Skeleton
The Reptilian Man
Those were the only ones I could make out in the dim lighting, the others were too far away to see. A few moments later, people started flooding the tent, ooh-ing and ahh-ing at us. I rushed up to the front of the cage, holding tight to the bars. I called out to the closest people.
“Please, please help me! They kidnapped me, and they’re holding me hostage!”
The couple looked at me, taking in my eyes and body, before beginning to laugh.
The man turned to the woman, “Wow, they train these freaks well, it really ups the creep factor!”
The woman laughed, and they continued their walk, taking in the morbid curiosities surrounding them.
I tried to catch the attention of several other patrons, but they all laughed me off. Tears began to spill down my face, when I heard a mumble to my left.
“Don’t bother, they won’t believe you.”
It was a man in a suit, hair parted down the middle and slicked down. He was traditionally handsome, blue eyes and a strong jaw. It wasn’t until I looked down that I saw his third leg. My jaw dropped.
“It isn’t mine.”
“What?” My eyes snapped up.
“The leg,” he whispered, “It isn’t mine.”
I just stared at him, unable to fully process what was going on.
“Look,” he said, “I’ll explain everything as soon as we’re on the road. He won’t be able to listen in on us then. But until then, I’m James, the three legged man.”
“I’m.. Tabitha, I guess.” I said, eyes lowering, anger warming my belly.
“You can tell me your real name later, okay?” He offered a small smile.
I nodded, before returning to the small stool that sat in my otherwise empty cage. I sat there for what felt like hours, watching the patrons laugh and whisper at my appearance. Tears spilled down my face, but it only seemed to make the patrons laugh more. I could see the sun was starting to set through the small opening created by the tent flap. As I was about to turn away, he walked in.
Ray.
He perused the cages, taking his time. Shock quickly turned into fury as I ran to the front of my cage, growling in pure anger. I shook the bars, screaming until he finally looked over and saw me. The color drained from his face, and he ran over to my cage, making sure he was out of my reach.
“Alice-”
“I’LL KILL YOU RAY, I SWEAR TO GOD-”
“I didn’t mean for this to happen, Alice I’m so sorry-”
“How could you do this to me?!” I yelled, swiping at him.
“He threatened to take my sister unless I could find a replacement- I- I had to save her, I’m so sorry…” Tears were spilling down his face.
“Fuck you. FUCK YOU. As soon as I get out of this hellhole I’ll fucking kill you!”
It was then I heard that familiar cackle that I froze.
“Well hello again, Ray! You’ve brought me a lovely specimen,” He said, patting him on the back, “I can’t thank you enough!” He said, tipping his bowler, before straightening his suit jacket and walking toward the bars of my cage. I attempted to swipe at him, but he caught my wrist, squeezing it until I yelped in pain.
“Now Tabitha, you’re going to be a very good girl, otherwise I’m going to have to sedate you.”
I growled at him, pushing against the bars.
“Fuck you.”
He squeezed my wrist tighter, crushing it. “Now that’s not very nice language to use in front of my guests. Very well- I’ll get Bruce to administer-”
My eyes widened. “No! No, I’ll be good. I promise.”
He smiled, revealing crooked, yellowing teeth, before releasing my wrist. “Very good. Now sit in your chair like a good girl. And, push up your breasts, would you? I want everyone to see my excellent handiwork.” And with that, he turned on his heel, his coattails catching air, before strutting away. I started crying once more, shoulders shaking with my silent tears, before doing as I was asked, and returning to my stool.
“Alice..”
I looked at Ray, pure despair reflected in my eyes.
“Please, go.”
He looked at me one more time, before leaving the tent. He never came back.
For the next two days I did as I was told. I sat, and stayed silent as people took in my appearance. But all the while rage burned in my gut. I needed to get out of here, I just didn’t know how. Towards the end of the night, a drunk man stumbled into the tent. He shook the bars, sneering at all of us, spitting out insults and reaching inside the bars, attempting to grab us. After reaching for me, he spun around, leaning against the bars of my cage. It was then when I saw it. His iPhone was hanging out of the back pocket of his jeans. I saw it, relief flooding my eyes. My golden opportunity. I crept up behind him, slowly plucking his phone out of his pants pocket, before stuffing it in the back of my bikini bottoms. He whirled around at me, taking in my appearance.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
I froze. “I- uh…” An idea struck me, and I swallowed my pride. “I just… wanted to say hello to you, handsome.” I winked at him, trying to keep down the bile rising in my throat.
He smirked, using the bars of my cage as an attempt to steady himself.
“Well… you’re pretty hot, for a freak. Why don’t you let me in that cage of yours?”
It was then that Mr. McCallister showed up, quickly apologizing for my behavior and ushering him out the door. He stalked over to me, lowering his voice.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but you better go back to your chair and sit like a good girl.”
I tried to hide my smirk as I nodded, returning to my stool.
The idiot didn’t have a passcode on his phone, thank god. I can’t call anyone, but there’s no service anyway. He had this app on his phone and I figured this might be a good place to write this down. He’ll be coming back any minute, but please, if you can, help us. We’re about to go on the road to the next town, so hopefully I’ll be able to get some answers from James. I have no clue where we’re going, and there’s no one in my life to come looking for me. I’m scared. God, I’m so scared. Earlier today, I saw them moving several empty cages, blank name plates placed on top.
He wants more of us. And there’s nothing I can do to stop him.
Part 2

Samsung Galaxy Fold accessories and other Samsung accessories up for sale. These were all bought for personal use and I also have Apple ecosystem phones and laptop. One person can only use so much, rest assured these saw minimal to no use. Ask away!

• Samsung Galaxy Fold SM-F900U Box only with unused accessories including Galaxy Buds, Original Case, USB-C cable, Super Fast Charger - with the new Z Fold 2, you may want to sell original Fold and if you don’t have a box, this is a good bet. Safer shipping and with all original, unused accessories- guaranteed to fetch more $$$ for the expensive Fold! $110 or cheaper if you want to pick and choose Galaxy Buds, Case, Box or Charger set.
• Galaxy Fold Case (gently used) $15
• Samsung Wireless Charger Duo Pad (used couple months) - worked with Galaxy Active 2, Fold, AirPods/Pro, iPhone - must have accessory - iOS or Android folks $39 Sold to rwhockey29
• Samsung Galaxy Buds+ Black (used gently) - one of the ear tips is missing - you may need to buy 3rd party ear gels if the included ones don’t fit you $90 Sold to rwhockey29
• Samsung USB C cable (new) $8
• Samsung Galaxy Buds (used gently) - eargel pack included as pictured $65
• Desk organizer for tablets, iOS/Samsung devices $5

Will figure out a pricing table, if you find something you like in the mean time, submit an offer. Messages best, chat won’t work on Apollo app.
Buying multiples will get quick USPS Priority shipping included.
Cross post /GalaxyFold
Timestamps - https://imgur.com/a/qOKvEJM

Article included for those not wanting all the trackers and scripts

Oracle’s BlueKai tracks you across the web. That data spilled online – TechCrunch

Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker / 2:30 pm GMT•June 19, 2020
Have you ever wondered why online ads appear for things that you were just thinking about?
There’s no big conspiracy. Ad tech can be creepily accurate.
Tech giant Oracle is one of a few companies in Silicon Valley that has near-perfected the art of tracking people across the internet. The company has spent a decade and billions of dollars buying startups to build its very own panopticon of users’ web browsing data.
One of those startups, BlueKai, which Oracle bought for a little over $400 million in 2014, is barely known outside marketing circles, but it amassed one of the largest banks of web tracking data outside of the federal government.
BlueKai uses website cookies and other tracking tech to follow you around the web. By knowing which websites you visit and which emails you open, marketers can use this vast amount of tracking data to infer as much about you as possible — your income, education, political views, and interests to name a few — in order to target you with ads that should match your apparent tastes. If you click, the advertisers make money.
But for a time, that web tracking data was spilling out onto the open internet because a server was left unsecured and without a password, exposing billions of records for anyone to find.
Security researcher Anurag Sen found the database and reported his finding to Oracle through an intermediary — Roi Carthy, chief executive at cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock and former TechCrunch reporter.
TechCrunch reviewed the data shared by Sen and found names, home addresses, email addresses and other identifiable data in the database. The data also revealed sensitive users’ web browsing activity — from purchases to newsletter unsubscribes.
“There’s really no telling how revealing some of this data can be,” said Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told TechCrunch.
“Oracle is aware of the report made by Roi Carthy of Hudson Rock related to certain BlueKai records potentially exposed on the Internet,” said Oracle spokesperson Deborah Hellinger. “While the initial information provided by the researcher did not contain enough information to identify an affected system, Oracle’s investigation has subsequently determined that two companies did not properly configure their services. Oracle has taken additional measures to avoid a reoccurrence of this issue.”
Oracle did not name the companies or say what those additional measures were, and declined to answer our questions or comment further.
But the sheer size of the exposed database makes this one of the largest security lapses this year.

The more it knows

BlueKai relies on vacuuming up a never-ending supply of data from a variety of sources to understand trends to deliver the most precise ads to a person’s interests.
Marketers can either tap into Oracle’s enormous bank of data, which it pulls in from credit agencies, analytics firms, and other sources of consumer data including billions of daily location data points, in order to target their ads. Or marketers can upload their own data obtained directly from consumers, such as the information you hand over when you register an account on a website or when you sign up for a company’s newsletter.
But BlueKai also uses more covert tactics like allowing websites to embed invisible pixel-sized images to collect information about you as soon as you open the page — hardware, operating system, browser and any information about the network connection.
This data — known as a web browser’s “user agent” — may not seem sensitive, but when fused together it can create a unique “fingerprint” of a person’s device, which can be used to track that person as they browse the internet.
BlueKai can also tie your mobile web browsing habits to your desktop activity, allowing it to follow you across the internet no matter which device you use.
Say a marketer wants to run a campaign trying to sell a new car model. In BlueKai’s case, it already has a category of “car enthusiasts” — and many other, more specific categories — that the marketer can use to target with ads. Anyone who’s visited a car maker’s website or a blog that includes a BlueKai tracking pixel might be categorized as a “car enthusiast.” Over time that person will be siloed into different categories under a profile that learns as much about you to target you with those ads.
The technology is far from perfect. Harvard Business Review found earlier this year that the information collected by data brokers, such as Oracle, can vary wildly in quality.
But some of these platforms have proven alarmingly accurate.
In 2012, Target mailed maternity coupons to a high school student after an in-house analytics system figured out she was pregnant — before she had even told her parents — because of the data it collected from her web browsing.
Some might argue that’s precisely what these systems are designed to do.
Jonathan Mayer, a science professor at Princeton University, told TechCrunch that BlueKai is one of the leading systems for linking data.
“If you have the browser send an email address and a tracking cookie at the same time, that’s what you need to build that link,” he said.
The end goal: the more BlueKai collects, the more it can infer about you, making it easier to target you with ads that might entice you to that magic money-making click.
But marketers can’t just log in to BlueKai and download reams of personal information from its servers, one marketing professional told TechCrunch. The data is sanitized and masked so that marketers never see names, addresses or any other personal data.
As Mayer explained: BlueKai collects personal data; it doesn’t share it with marketers.

‘No telling how revealing’

Behind the scenes, BlueKai continuously ingests and matches as much raw personal data as it can against each person’s profile, constantly enriching that profile data to make sure it’s up to date and relevant.
But it was that raw data spilling out of the exposed database.
TechCrunch found records containing details of private purchases. One record detailed how a German man, whose name we’re withholding, used a prepaid debit card to place a €10 bet on an esports betting site on April 19. The record also contained the man’s address, phone number and email address.
Another record revealed how one of the largest investment holding companies in Turkey used BlueKai to track users on its website. The record detailed how one person, who lives in Istanbul, ordered $899 worth of furniture online from a homeware store. We know because the record contained all of these details, including the buyer’s name, email address and the direct web address for the buyer’s order, no login needed.
We also reviewed a record detailing how one person unsubscribed from an email newsletter run by an electronics consumer, sent to his iCloud address. The record showed that the person may have been interested in a specific model of car dash-cam. We can even tell based on his user agent that his iPhone was out of date and needed a software update.

The more BlueKai collects, the more it can infer about you, making it easier to target you with ads that might entice you to that magic money-making click.

The data went back for months, according to Sen, who discovered the database. Some logs dated back to August 2019, he said.
“Fine-grained records of people’s web-browsing habits can reveal hobbies, political affiliation, income bracket, health conditions, sexual preferences, and — as evident here — gambling habits,” said the EFF’s Cyphers. “As we live more of our lives online, this kind of data accounts for a larger and larger portion of how we spend our time.”
Oracle declined to say if it informed those whose data was exposed about the security lapse. The company also declined to say if it had warned U.S. or international regulators of the incident.
Under California state law, companies like Oracle are required to publicly disclose data security incidents, but Oracle has not to date declared the lapse. When reached, a spokesperson for California’s attorney general’s office declined to say if Oracle had informed the office of the incident.
Under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, companies can face fines of up to 4% of their global annual turnover for flouting data protection and disclosure rules.

Trackers, trackers everywhere

BlueKai is everywhere — even when you can’t see it.
One estimate says BlueKai tracks over 1% of all web traffic — an unfathomable amount of daily data collection — and tracks some of the world’s biggest websites: Amazon, ESPN, Forbes, Glassdoor, Healthline, Levi’s, MSN.com, Rotten Tomatoes, and The New York Times. Even this very article has a BlueKai tracker because our parent company, Verizon Media, is a BlueKai partner.
But BlueKai is not alone. Nearly every website you visit contains some form of invisible tracking code that watches you as you traverse the internet.
As invasive as it is that invisible trackers are feeding your web browsing data to a gigantic database in the cloud, it’s that very same data that has kept the internet largely free for so long.
To stay free, websites use advertising to generate revenue. The more targeted the advertising, the better the revenue is supposed to be.
While the majority of web users are not naive enough to think that internet tracking does not exist, few outside marketing circles understand how much data is collected and what is done with it.
Take the Equifax data breach in 2017, which brought scathing criticism from lawmakers after it collected millions of consumers’ data without their explicit consent. Equifax, like BlueKai, relies on consumers skipping over the lengthy privacy policies that govern how websites track them.
In any case, consumers have little choice but to accept the terms. Be tracked or leave the site. That’s the trade-off with a free internet.
But there are dangers with collecting web-tracking data on millions of people.
“Whenever databases like this exist, there’s always a risk the data will end up in the wrong hands and in a position to hurt someone,” said Cyphers.
Cyphers said the data, if in the hands of someone malicious, could contribute to identity theft, phishing or stalking.
“It also makes a valuable target for law enforcement and government agencies who want to piggyback on the data gathering that Oracle already does,” he said.
Even when the data stays where it’s intended, Cyphers said these vast databases enable “manipulative advertising for things like political issues or exploitative services, and it allows marketers to tailor their messages to specific vulnerable populations,” he said.
“Everyone has different things they want to keep private, and different people they want to keep them private from,” said Cyphers. “When companies collect raw web browsing or purchase data, thousands of little details about real people’s lives get scooped up along the way.”
“Each one of those little details has the potential to put somebody at risk,” he said.
Send tips securely over Signal and WhatsApp to +1 646-755-8849.Oracle’s BlueKai tracks you across the web. That data spilled online – TechCrunch
Zack Whittaker@zackwhittaker / 2:30 pm GMT•June 19, 2020
Have you ever wondered why online ads appear for things that you were just thinking about?
There’s no big conspiracy. Ad tech can be creepily accurate.
Tech giant Oracle is one of a few companies in Silicon Valley that has near-perfected the art of tracking people across the internet. The company has spent a decade and billions of dollars buying startups to build its very own panopticon of users’ web browsing data.
One of those startups, BlueKai, which Oracle bought for a little over $400 million in 2014, is barely known outside marketing circles, but it amassed one of the largest banks of web tracking data outside of the federal government.
BlueKai uses website cookies and other tracking tech to follow you around the web. By knowing which websites you visit and which emails you open, marketers can use this vast amount of tracking data to infer as much about you as possible — your income, education, political views, and interests to name a few — in order to target you with ads that should match your apparent tastes. If you click, the advertisers make money.
But for a time, that web tracking data was spilling out onto the open internet because a server was left unsecured and without a password, exposing billions of records for anyone to find.
Security researcher Anurag Sen found the database and reported his finding to Oracle through an intermediary — Roi Carthy, chief executive at cybersecurity firm Hudson Rock and former TechCrunch reporter.
TechCrunch reviewed the data shared by Sen and found names, home addresses, email addresses and other identifiable data in the database. The data also revealed sensitive users’ web browsing activity — from purchases to newsletter unsubscribes.
“There’s really no telling how revealing some of this data can be,” said Bennett Cyphers, a staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told TechCrunch.
“Oracle is aware of the report made by Roi Carthy of Hudson Rock related to certain BlueKai records potentially exposed on the Internet,” said Oracle spokesperson Deborah Hellinger. “While the initial information provided by the researcher did not contain enough information to identify an affected system, Oracle’s investigation has subsequently determined that two companies did not properly configure their services. Oracle has taken additional measures to avoid a reoccurrence of this issue.”
Oracle did not name the companies or say what those additional measures were, and declined to answer our questions or comment further.
But the sheer size of the exposed database makes this one of the largest security lapses this year.

The more it knows

BlueKai relies on vacuuming up a never-ending supply of data from a variety of sources to understand trends to deliver the most precise ads to a person’s interests.
Marketers can either tap into Oracle’s enormous bank of data, which it pulls in from credit agencies, analytics firms, and other sources of consumer data including billions of daily location data points, in order to target their ads. Or marketers can upload their own data obtained directly from consumers, such as the information you hand over when you register an account on a website or when you sign up for a company’s newsletter.
But BlueKai also uses more covert tactics like allowing websites to embed invisible pixel-sized images to collect information about you as soon as you open the page — hardware, operating system, browser and any information about the network connection.
This data — known as a web browser’s “user agent” — may not seem sensitive, but when fused together it can create a unique “fingerprint” of a person’s device, which can be used to track that person as they browse the internet.
BlueKai can also tie your mobile web browsing habits to your desktop activity, allowing it to follow you across the internet no matter which device you use.
Say a marketer wants to run a campaign trying to sell a new car model. In BlueKai’s case, it already has a category of “car enthusiasts” — and many other, more specific categories — that the marketer can use to target with ads. Anyone who’s visited a car maker’s website or a blog that includes a BlueKai tracking pixel might be categorized as a “car enthusiast.” Over time that person will be siloed into different categories under a profile that learns as much about you to target you with those ads.
The technology is far from perfect. Harvard Business Review found earlier this year that the information collected by data brokers, such as Oracle, can vary wildly in quality.
But some of these platforms have proven alarmingly accurate.
In 2012, Target mailed maternity coupons to a high school student after an in-house analytics system figured out she was pregnant — before she had even told her parents — because of the data it collected from her web browsing.
Some might argue that’s precisely what these systems are designed to do.
Jonathan Mayer, a science professor at Princeton University, told TechCrunch that BlueKai is one of the leading systems for linking data.
“If you have the browser send an email address and a tracking cookie at the same time, that’s what you need to build that link,” he said.
The end goal: the more BlueKai collects, the more it can infer about you, making it easier to target you with ads that might entice you to that magic money-making click.
But marketers can’t just log in to BlueKai and download reams of personal information from its servers, one marketing professional told TechCrunch. The data is sanitized and masked so that marketers never see names, addresses or any other personal data.
As Mayer explained: BlueKai collects personal data; it doesn’t share it with marketers.

‘No telling how revealing’

Behind the scenes, BlueKai continuously ingests and matches as much raw personal data as it can against each person’s profile, constantly enriching that profile data to make sure it’s up to date and relevant.
But it was that raw data spilling out of the exposed database.
TechCrunch found records containing details of private purchases. One record detailed how a German man, whose name we’re withholding, used a prepaid debit card to place a €10 bet on an esports betting site on April 19. The record also contained the man’s address, phone number and email address.
Another record revealed how one of the largest investment holding companies in Turkey used BlueKai to track users on its website. The record detailed how one person, who lives in Istanbul, ordered $899 worth of furniture online from a homeware store. We know because the record contained all of these details, including the buyer’s name, email address and the direct web address for the buyer’s order, no login needed.
We also reviewed a record detailing how one person unsubscribed from an email newsletter run by an electronics consumer, sent to his iCloud address. The record showed that the person may have been interested in a specific model of car dash-cam. We can even tell based on his user agent that his iPhone was out of date and needed a software update.

The more BlueKai collects, the more it can infer about you, making it easier to target you with ads that might entice you to that magic money-making click.

The data went back for months, according to Sen, who discovered the database. Some logs dated back to August 2019, he said.
“Fine-grained records of people’s web-browsing habits can reveal hobbies, political affiliation, income bracket, health conditions, sexual preferences, and — as evident here — gambling habits,” said the EFF’s Cyphers. “As we live more of our lives online, this kind of data accounts for a larger and larger portion of how we spend our time.”
Oracle declined to say if it informed those whose data was exposed about the security lapse. The company also declined to say if it had warned U.S. or international regulators of the incident.
Under California state law, companies like Oracle are required to publicly disclose data security incidents, but Oracle has not to date declared the lapse. When reached, a spokesperson for California’s attorney general’s office declined to say if Oracle had informed the office of the incident.
Under Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, companies can face fines of up to 4% of their global annual turnover for flouting data protection and disclosure rules.

Trackers, trackers everywhere

BlueKai is everywhere — even when you can’t see it.
One estimate says BlueKai tracks over 1% of all web traffic — an unfathomable amount of daily data collection — and tracks some of the world’s biggest websites: Amazon, ESPN, Forbes, Glassdoor, Healthline, Levi’s, MSN.com, Rotten Tomatoes, and The New York Times. Even this very article has a BlueKai tracker because our parent company, Verizon Media, is a BlueKai partner.
But BlueKai is not alone. Nearly every website you visit contains some form of invisible tracking code that watches you as you traverse the internet.
As invasive as it is that invisible trackers are feeding your web browsing data to a gigantic database in the cloud, it’s that very same data that has kept the internet largely free for so long.
To stay free, websites use advertising to generate revenue. The more targeted the advertising, the better the revenue is supposed to be.
While the majority of web users are not naive enough to think that internet tracking does not exist, few outside marketing circles understand how much data is collected and what is done with it.
Take the Equifax data breach in 2017, which brought scathing criticism from lawmakers after it collected millions of consumers’ data without their explicit consent. Equifax, like BlueKai, relies on consumers skipping over the lengthy privacy policies that govern how websites track them.
In any case, consumers have little choice but to accept the terms. Be tracked or leave the site. That’s the trade-off with a free internet.
But there are dangers with collecting web-tracking data on millions of people.
“Whenever databases like this exist, there’s always a risk the data will end up in the wrong hands and in a position to hurt someone,” said Cyphers.
Cyphers said the data, if in the hands of someone malicious, could contribute to identity theft, phishing or stalking.
“It also makes a valuable target for law enforcement and government agencies who want to piggyback on the data gathering that Oracle already does,” he said.
Even when the data stays where it’s intended, Cyphers said these vast databases enable “manipulative advertising for things like political issues or exploitative services, and it allows marketers to tailor their messages to specific vulnerable populations,” he said.
“Everyone has different things they want to keep private, and different people they want to keep them private from,” said Cyphers. “When companies collect raw web browsing or purchase data, thousands of little details about real people’s lives get scooped up along the way.”
“Each one of those little details has the potential to put somebody at risk,” he said.
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