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New years hijinks from the gang

The Bubbles Saga continues

Pintsize!

Holiday adventures with Veronica, Sam and JIm

Science with Raven!!

Tai and Doras wedding

The Origins of Corpse Witch

Hanners enters The Bubbles Saga

The return of Winslow and Meiville

Flying Roomba Adventures

Sathe Ham with Space Pizza and Beer

Brun gets a job!!

Clin-ton and Emily - The Redating

Drinks at 'the Horrible Revelation' with Will, Penny and Jimbo

Purple Monkey AnthroPC Dishwasher

Butts!!

[jheartney]

Other non-Deus Ex Machina resolutions:

• There are no encrypted memories; Bubbles got on the table for some other reason and CW implanted fake memories of her traumatic military service in order to enslave Bubbles.

• Bubbles reminds CW that if the encryption key is destroyed, there's basically nothing standing between CW and a. Bubbles' vengeance; b. Station's vengeance; c. Faye's vengeance; and d. prosecution by Basilisk. So CW better not destroy it. Bubbles then reveals that she was trained in anti-AI torture techniques, and that she is going to start using them on CW unless the key is forthcoming. So CW doesn't dare destroy the key, and faces some very unpleasant times if she doesn't give it up.

• Bubbles and Faye go over CW's head to Big Fish, and let him know that large orbital guns are ready to take out both the skate park and lots of Big Fish's other property, and CW gets fired. On the run from Basilisk, Station and Bubbles, CW finds someone to eliminate her own memories of the key, and to transfer her to another chassis so she can't be found. That person turns out to be... Pintsize! CW ends up literally as a toaster, and Bubbles gets the key from Pintsize, who fished it out of CW's memories while she was on the table.

• Bubbles resigns herself to never getting the memories back, but also refuses to take violent action against CW. Faye and Bubbles open their own AI repair clinic, and life goes on. Then one day, after Basilisk finally shuts down the skate park, who should show up at the clinic door but... CW! CW, down on her luck and badly needing repairs after a run-in with some other pissed-off colleagues, agrees to trade the key to Bubbles for repairs. So they put CW under for repairs. At length she wakes up as... a toaster!

[Morituri]

Station may or may not be able to help Bubbles specifically but I think that Corpse Witch has just made an enemy far beyond her league regardless.  If the moment comes that Station concludes that he *can't* help Bubbles, I suspect CW will come into some career-ending difficulties.

He may talk about orbital railguns, but Station controls other resources whose collateral damage is far more controlled.  He has friends all over, and hirelings if he wants them.  He has access to all kinds of information, and a formidable intellect to make use of it. 

[brasca]

Other non-Deus Ex Machina resolutions:

• There are no encrypted memories; Bubbles got on the table for some other reason and CW implanted fake memories of her traumatic military service in order to enslave Bubbles.

• Bubbles reminds CW that if the encryption key is destroyed, there's basically nothing standing between CW and a. Bubbles' vengeance; b. Station's vengeance; c. Faye's vengeance; and d. prosecution by Basilisk. So CW better not destroy it. Bubbles then reveals that she was trained in anti-AI torture techniques, and that she is going to start using them on CW unless the key is forthcoming. So CW doesn't dare destroy the key, and faces some very unpleasant times if she doesn't give it up.

• Bubbles and Faye go over CW's head to Big Fish, and let him know that large orbital guns are ready to take out both the skate park and lots of Big Fish's other property, and CW gets fired. On the run from Basilisk, Station and Bubbles, CW finds someone to eliminate her own memories of the key, and to transfer her to another chassis so she can't be found. That person turns out to be... Pintsize! CW ends up literally as a toaster, and Bubbles gets the key from Pintsize, who fished it out of CW's memories while she was on the table.

• Bubbles resigns herself to never getting the memories back, but also refuses to take violent action against CW. Faye and Bubbles open their own AI repair clinic, and life goes on. Then one day, after Basilisk finally shuts down the skate park, who should show up at the clinic door but... CW! CW, down on her luck and badly needing repairs after a run-in with some other pissed-off colleagues, agrees to trade the key to Bubbles for repairs. So they put CW under for repairs. At length she wakes up as... a toaster!

Too many of these scenarios require the protagonists to be as bad as the antagonist and in that way Corpse Witch still wins.  As much as I like Bubbles she made an under the table deal and she could walk away at any time if she could give up on the memories.  Of course Corpse Witch may have another fail safe to keep Bubbles in line, but that remains to be seen.  While I don't think Corpse Witch is a good AI there might be more to her than just a stock villain.  Perhaps as one of the first line of AIs she didn't have the privilege of knowing good humans and gravitated to the underworld much like Bubbles.  Of course the irony is someone who might have suffered from exploitation thinks nothing of doing the same.

[Perfectly Reasonable]

I agree that Jeph is doing a nice job here. Just "Rokko's Basilisk" tells me he has spent significant time looking into weird AI stuff.

I'd like to see more on Corpse Witch's backstory. Good villains have good reasons for doing bad things.

[Neko_Ali]

I suspect she has good reason to distrust and dislike humans. We know there is a certain amount of anti-AI bigotry in the world.

[wlewisiii]

Oribital Railgun Justice

I now know what the title of The Penguin Air Force's first album will be ...

[Sullivan]

Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad possibilities. Corpse Witch might have installed monitoring software (or a dead-simple audio recorder) in Bubbles when she did the memory encryption. It's possible she knows everything Bubbles and Faye and Hannelore talked about. It's possible she knows, or could access, everything Bubbles thinks.

It's even possible those "encrypted" memories aren't even there at all.

[Somebody]

You know, the obvious possibility, since Station (and his "colleagues" are involved and Station is P.O.ed) is not to try and decrypt the encryption, but to hack Corpse Witch herself. If the key really exists, then she either (a) has it or (b) knows how to get it [if it doesn't, that's also useful info]. And if anyone is capable of getting into and sourcing information from a random AI mind, Station/etc are surely the ones.

[St.Clair]

When all you have is a crowbar... from orbit...

[BenRG]

Seriously, though, I'm sticking to my theory, first expressed a few weeks back. Bubbles is going to eventually decide that the price that she's paying for these memories is too high. She'll make the conscious choice that, if not for her, at least for the other denizens of the skate park, that she needs to take down Corpse Witch, no matter what the consequences for her.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of bad possibilities. Corpse Witch might have installed monitoring software (or a dead-simple audio recorder) in Bubbles when she did the memory encryption. It's possible she knows everything Bubbles and Faye and Hannelore talked about. It's possible she knows, or could access, everything Bubbles thinks.

It's a possibility. However, a lot of that would be strongly dependent on Corpse Witch's personality. She's smug and I suspect that reflects an overconfidence in the power of her leverage. Something like monitoring software would require her to be ready to assume that the first layer of leverage won't work and I'm not sure she'd be able to believe that.

... hack Corpse Witch herself.

Yeah, that's one of my favourite solutions. Maybe trap her in a virtual maze, the exit of which can only be opened by the Key.

New Comic Up!

Well, Corpse Witch is screwed. She's a whiff of ionised ozone, argon and helium flashing away at hypersonic velocities from a railgun strike that hasn't realised it yet.

And so would every other AI working at the skate park and potentially anyone else in the immediate area which is probably why Hannelore would prefer not to go that route.

Um... yeah; I think that you were taking me a mite bit too seriously there.

[gopher]

As CW probably considers herself a person of business, I would tap in HannersMom. A swift negotiation/volcano should sort this.

[Akima]

When I want secret numbers, or passwords, I roll dice. I have quite a collection.

I was confident that Jeph would not go down the lazy deus ex route (I never asked for this), and I'm pleased he hasn't.

[mercykills]

When I want secret numbers, or passwords, I roll dice. I have quite a collection.

I was confident that Jeph would not go down the lazy deus ex route (I never asked for this), and I'm pleased he hasn't.

Uhh...You took a "security" job with a biotechnology company run by someone with a HIGHLY suspect moral compass, Jensen. So, yes, I'd say this is exactly what you asked for or, at least, tacitly agreed to. Now, roll over so we can shove these metal rods into your spine!!

 

on topic, now: I am, as of this moment, really, REALLY, looking forward to Corpse Witch getting her comeuppance in the form of an orbital bombardment campaign against everything she holds dear. 

[hedgie]

There's an app for that, but this is QC.  She'd more likely end up blasted by pizzas (less damage, but still quite a bit of a mess).

[brasca]

As CW probably considers herself a person of business, I would tap in HannersMom. A swift negotiation/volcano should sort this.

When compared to Beatrice Chatham, Corpse Witch is the lesser of two evils.  While it's possible that she's done more than just extort Bubbles into working for her as far as we know she's never had someone killed for embezzlement.  Corpse Witch or perhaps a bigger fish she answers to might be willing to part with the key for the right price, but I seriously doubt Hannelore's mother would be willing to help out of the kindness of her heart.  Say what you will about Corpse Witch compelling Bubbles to work for her at least she doesn't force her to participate in the fights.  Ms Chatham would probably find a lot of uses for a highly skilled killbot. 

[ZoeB]

I'd like words with Station's colleagues. Starting with reminding them that Time spent in Reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

I want to make sure Corpse Witch isn't an avatar of a Big Bad. Then I want to try to understand what circumstances led to her being as she is, and what the degree of threat is of more like her being created every day.

Station's reaction seems to me to indicate emotional immaturity. To be expected, really. Having emissaries like Momo obviously fills a need, a gap in education they're quite aware of.

As for me - when I want random numbers, rather than pseudo-random, I just listen to cosmic background. One time pads of arbitrary length  made easy. Akira's solution using dice towers is a convenient low tech substitute that is usually good enough.

[BenRG]

It suddenly occurs to me: How is Hannelore seeing Station's avatar? Has she had a holo-pad installed in her apartment (getting that past the Morlock-Landlord would have been fun) or has she finally decided to have the communications implant to let him directly interface with her brain?

[Sullivan]

As for me - when I want random numbers, rather than pseudo-random, I just listen to cosmic background. One time pads of arbitrary length  made easy. Akira's solution using dice towers is a convenient low tech substitute that is usually good enough.

otoh, CW is hugely smug. Maybe the key is 1 2 3 4 5. "That's good enough!"

[WareWolf]

You want to get into a safe, you can either pick the lock yourself, or you can persuade the person with the combination to give it to you. And you may interpret "persuade" any way you like.

[celticgeek]

When I want secret numbers, or passwords, I roll dice. I have quite a collection.

I have a perl script which I run to get passwords.  It uses a "doubly random" character generator.

[Is it cold in here?]

I'd like words with Station's colleagues. Starting with reminding them that Time spent in Reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

I want to make sure Corpse Witch isn't an avatar of a Big Bad. Then I want to try to understand what circumstances led to her being as she is, and what the degree of threat is of more like her being created every day.

Station's reaction seems to me to indicate emotional immaturity. To be expected, really. Having emissaries like Momo obviously fills a need, a gap in education they're quite aware of.

As for me - when I want random numbers, rather than pseudo-random, I just listen to cosmic background. One time pads of arbitrary length  made easy. Akira's solution using dice towers is a convenient low tech substitute that is usually good enough.

I recommend using a source of entropy that other people probably can't look at.

See diceware.com for a convenient way to turn dice rolls into damn you autocorrect, "passport harasses" is not an acceptable substitute for "passphrases ".

[osaka]

You want to get into a safe, you can either pick the lock yourself, or you can persuade the person with the combination to give it to you. And you may interpret "persuade" any way you like.

Who talked about calling Leverage like 2 threads ago? Even if they don't Hardison the shit out of CW they are really good at persuading people into letting them into safes.

[pwhodges]

So long as a password is not able to be guessed by any likely means, then randomness is not so important.  What matters is sufficient length to make breaking it impractical.  Of course, something based on words, like a passphrase, needs to be longer than a purely random password, but being so much easier to remember is far less likely to get written down.

[brasca]

Station's reaction seems to me to indicate emotional immaturity. To be expected, really. Having emissaries like Momo obviously fills a need, a gap in education they're quite aware of.

This is the same AI that embarrassed Lt. Potter for doing her job and it was only after Hannelore's rebuke that he made any effort to correct his actions.  He doesn't seem to have changed much since that time and I wonder if his outrage is personal or if he feels this way because he thinks it will please Hannelore.   

[Kugai]

Dang!   OK, that's one option flushed down the toilet. 

I wonder where this is gonna go now.  I really would like to see Bubbles win out in this, but so far it's not looking good.  Let's hope they don't have to go to Plan C.

[Case]

When all you have is a crowbar... from orbit...

You can 'drop' it out the airlock, look at it expectantly, and then curse decades of SF "science"-consumption when it fails to do anything but gliding peacefully along on the orbit you both share?

Yeah, I know that feeling.

[Akima]

So long as a password is not able to be guessed by any likely means, then randomness is not so important.  What matters is sufficient length to make breaking it impractical.  Of course, something based on words, like a passphrase, needs to be longer than a purely random password, but being so much easier to remember is far less likely to get written down.

All very good points. One crucial attraction of rolling dice, or other sources of entropy, in PIN/password/passphrase generation is that they remove unconscious biases. I hope everyone in this forum is too sophisticated to commit basic blunders like choosing their birthday, name of their pet, their favourite football team etc. as a password, but I suspect we are all less unique and unpredictable than we think we are.

[brasca]

Good to see that they will have to find an alternative plan since using a rail gun to solve this problem would quickly lose them any moral high ground. 

[pwhodges]

To round off the password discussion, here is advice from the UK's QCHQ, no less!

https://cassland.org/words/Password_guidance_-_simplifying_your_approach.pdf

[Tova]

Some form of social engineering attack is most likely to be successful, both in this QC story line and in real life.

[pwhodges]

Hey, is my memory faulty, or did Jeph change the reason for Station's refusal?  I thought (though it was late at night, and I was tired) that Station had doubted he could do it, but now he doubts the wisdom of doing it.

EDIT:  Oops, what I mean is "new strip up".  Hanners passes on selected information...

[pwhodges]

(I just noticed the comic numbers in the thread title were wrong, and corrected them.  Because of the way the web site addresses the comics, the Bembo week had numbers in the same sequence.)

[Tova]

I feel like yesterday's strip could have been skipped, and today's would have been at least as effective if not more so.

[WareWolf]

You want to get into a safe, you can either pick the lock yourself, or you can persuade the person with the combination to give it to you. And you may interpret "persuade" any way you like.

Who talked about calling Leverage like 2 threads ago? Even if they don't Hardison the shit out of CW they are really good at persuading people into letting them into safes.

I too am happy Jeph didn't go with an easy  "Station fixes everything" resolution. I doubt Bubbles would accept a "torture CW till she coughs up the key" solution. Which leaves us "trick CW into opening the vault" as one possible solution. Possibly the only one unless someone else around our virtual writer's  table here has any ideas. Anyone? Anyone?

PS always glad to meet another Leverage fan.

[Is it cold in here?]

Faye doesn't seem to have enough inhibitions about torturing synthetics.

[Method of Madness]

Less a matter of synthetics and more of a matter of someone who has gravely hurt her friend. I don't think she'd have objected were Corpse Witch human, either, had she committed the same harm.

[Storel]

Why did Hanners change clothes after talking to Station, before coming out to tell Faye what he said? She's wearing a purple t-shirt while talking to Station, but comes back out in a white blouse/pink pullover combination.

[Gyrre]

When all you have is a crowbar... from orbit...

Wouldn't that be sort of screwy for railgun ammo? 

EDIT: Yes, I know what was actually meant.

[Penquin47]

Why did Hanners change clothes after talking to Station, before coming out to tell Faye what he said? She's wearing a purple t-shirt while talking to Station, but comes back out in a white blouse/pink pullover combination.

Her hair's different, too.  I would guess she talked to Station Last Night, and told Faye about the conversation In The Morning.

[Gyrre]

When I want secret numbers, or passwords, I roll dice. I have quite a collection.

I have a perl script which I run to get passwords.  It uses a "doubly random" character generator.

I randomly open either the Dictionary or the Christian Bible, then move my finger to where I think the center of the page is. For the dictionary, I'll convert the word entry from letters to numbers (zebra would be 2652181). For the Bible. I'll use the book number followed by the chapter and verse (John 3:16 would be 43316 or 4316)

EDIT: With my eyes closed.

[Storel]

I like how succinctly Hanners sums up the big problem with Orbital Railgun Justice: "If I wanted to live in a crater, I would have moved to the Moon!"

Although that does seem surprisingly reasonable for Hanners, considering her first reaction upon discovering the spiders in CoD's basement was to inform Dora that "My dad will be in position to drop a tungsten rod on this place in 64 minutes."

[mercykills]

O, Hanners. Don't think of it as living in a crater. Think of it as just...living below sea level. 

I like how succinctly Hanners sums up the big problem with Orbital Railgun Justice: "If I wanted to live in a crater, I would have moved to the Moon!"

Although that does seem surprisingly reasonable for Hanners, considering her first reaction upon discovering the spiders in CoD's basement was to inform Dora that "My dad will be in position to drop a tungsten rod on this place in 64 minutes."

Uhhh...when spiders are involved, ANY and ALL methods of preemptive strike must be on the table! Possible casualty numbers be damned!!!!

[brasca]

Less a matter of synthetics and more of a matter of someone who has gravely hurt her friend. I don't think she'd have objected were Corpse Witch human, either, had she committed the same harm.

Yes Faye is abrasive to both humans and AI alike, but that may not be the perception that everyone would have if she and Bubbles were to take Corpse Witch down and be vindictive about it.  The perception might be that a disgruntled human and an ungrateful employee took down an AI who didn't kowtow to her thus making them targets within the community. 

[BenRG]

Oh? Now that's an interesting thing Hannelore said: Station doesn't want to try because of what "might be lurking in Bubbles' head". That's the first time that it's been implied that some AIs are afraid of Bubbles' experiences. It might explain why she was shunned and didn't get the help she needed if her peers (and those far up the intellectual ladder to her) found her experiences so horrifying that the didn't want to experience them, even at one remove.

That could lead to some interesting future moments if Bubbles' memory ever is unlocked. Maybe she'll become a campaigner of sorts for sentient minds to stop turning their backs on ideas they loathe and others whose experiences they don't want to think about. "You can't pretend the things we know don't exist."

Meanwhile, Hannelore has a point about living on the Moon. I understand that it is sort of like living in an asbestos mine with ten times the background radiation and air only in one or two small rooms.

[Case]

Good to see that they will have to find an alternative plan since using a rail gun to solve this problem would quickly lose them any moral high ground.

It wouldn't loose them the orbital high ground ...

[Storel]

Oh? Now that's an interesting thing Hannelore said: Station doesn't want to try because of what "might be lurking in Bubbles' head". That's the first time that it's been implied that some AIs are afraid of Bubbles' experiences.

Huh? I thought she was just referring to the possibility that CW had left traps for anyone trying to decrypt the memories, as Bubbles herself suggested might be possible just a few strips back...

[brasca]

Oh? Now that's an interesting thing Hannelore said: Station doesn't want to try because of what "might be lurking in Bubbles' head". That's the first time that it's been implied that some AIs are afraid of Bubbles' experiences. It might explain why she was shunned and didn't get the help she needed if her peers (and those far up the intellectual ladder to her) found her experiences so horrifying that the didn't want to experience them, even at one remove.

If that's the case then one wonders how Corpse Witch could perform her operation while retaining her sanity.  Perhaps she did this enough times that it might explain her attitude towards humans.  If she was an AI who was used to deprogram battle drones and got to relive their experiences it might explain how she could be so jaded as well as how she would know about AIs like Bubbles in that predicament. 

[BenRG]

@brasca,

They're only damaging in the terms of innocence, not sanity (although I suppose you could argue the two are simply different ways of saying the same thing). Basically, lots of AIs don't have the courage to know just how bad the world can get from a first person perspective.

[Chmmr]

If that's the case then one wonders how Corpse Witch could perform her operation while retaining her sanity. 

What if Corpse Witch herself is somehow encrypted? Somehow she "helps" (as she calls it) the other robots and then blocks out what she has seen in herself.

Clearly, I have no idea I know what I'm talking about, but what if there's a third party that has the encryption keys not CW (maybe Jeremy knows something).

[brasca]

If that's the case then one wonders how Corpse Witch could perform her operation while retaining her sanity. 

What if Corpse Witch herself is somehow encrypted? Somehow she "helps" (as she calls it) the other robots and then blocks out what she has seen in herself.

Clearly, I have no idea I know what I'm talking about, but what if there's a third party that has the encryption keys not CW (maybe Jeremy knows something).

Right.  Maybe I've been playing devil's advocate for too long, but in fairness there's a lot we don't know about Corpse Witch and she may have sympathetic reasons for doing what she does.  Faye is focused on Corpse Witch because she's a current problem for Bubbles, but what about all those AIs and people who turned their backs on her when she needed help?  Corpse Witch was probably not acting out of altruism, but at least she helped and her demands could be a lot worse.