AJ Van Beest

Come. On. People. ✨

I work in cyber security (private sector). The Russian cyber threat is as real as ever.

The US's federal main cyber security resource, CISA, appears to have been compromised at a leadership level.

Source: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

This....

“We can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist”

James Baldwin

If you're interested in chatting about socially-responsible uses of AI, I'd be happy to show you how I got Claude to draw up impeachment papers for Trump, or even share the prompts above.

My DMs are open.

Except for RFK. Fuck that dude.

So _all that_ to say:
1. Fuck you, you fucking fuck, RFK.
2. Behold my outsourcing of metadata creation and verification to our robot overlords.

However, the spicy parts of my brain are MORE THAN HAPPY to find creative ways to pass that kind of work off to robots. And also to find innovative ways to work "Fuck you, RFK" into a whole long-ass series of social media posts. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Remember the part where I mentioned "neuro-spicy" (and also suggested that RFK fuck right off)?

That part of my brain just. fucking. can't. with long checklists like the one from MIT, no matter how much the rest of me wants to do it.

While generating awesome, accurate metadata is _important_, it's not as *sexy* as, say, figuring out a bash one-liner that pulls down a mathematically-verifiable archive-ready copy of every. single. goddamn. file. on any given webserver.

Meeeeow! I need a sec to cool my jets.

Fuck you, RFK.

"And what," I hear you ask, with a long-suffering sigh, "Does any of this have to do with early-morning nerdery? (But I do agree that fuck RFK.)"

Good question!

To make this data useful, it requires *metadata* so that researchers can find, verify, and better understand the data we saved.

Start Sharing Data | Deposit Deposits should include all data and documentation necessary to independently read and interpret the data collection:

Some of those amazing humans are:
- @datarescueproject.org
- @archive.org
- @harvardlil.bsky.social

Some excellent resources to learn more are:
- www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/de...
- www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/
- warrior.archiveteam.org

RFK is a fucking joke. Seriously: fuck that guy.

There is a glorious, diverse, competent group of Most Excellent Humans that are working overtime to coordinate efforts of foul-mouthed nerds like me (and other flavors of humans, too) and help us make sure that we save everything we can.

Except that RFK guy; fuck him.

"But AJ," I hear you ask. "Doesn't the US government have a lot of data? More, even, than can fit in a golden Florida bathroom?"

Why yes, my padawan. You are absolutely right. Fortunately, neither you nor I need to store it all. Only a little bit, and only for a little while.

Hey RFK! Fuck you!

So what is this "Data Hording?"

It's the process of identifying data (currently, my focus is on US federal data) that is at risk of disappearing, or being "altered in unpredictable ways that don't align with a common understanding of fact."

ie. "Fucked with"

Fuck you, RFK, you worthless piece of

Enter "Data Hording."

Or, as I like to call it: "No, actually fuck *you* you fucking oligarch scumbag mother-fuckers. You fucking don't get to steal my fucking country, erase our fucking history, and try to negate the existence and experience of my fucking people."

Also, fuck you, RFK.

Now, with this more-literal-every-day-Mad-Max-cum-Highlander-political-hellscape-shitnado in which we all coexist, I still have to find the phish, but my Boyscout heart (honest, brave, loyal, trustworth, fuck you, RFK) requires me to turn my keyboard in a different direction in my "spare time." lol

I like Big Data and I cannot lie.

In the Before Times, I would spend hours a day swimming in the sweet, sunshine-drenched waters of my comapny's datalake, my only goal being to identify interesting, intriguing new methods of cyber-fuckery.

Speaking of fuckery... Fuck you, RFK.

And before I go any further in my little story, it's time for a word from this episode's sponser:

Fuck you, RFK.

The process may be simple. Easy, even. But if it's not also *interesting,* well, again, fuck you, RFK.

Because I'm neuro-spicy (fuck you, RFK), I'm a really adorable kind of lazy. I will work *dozens* of hours through the middle of multiple nights to automate what is probably a 10-15 min process for other people.

America is finally being run like a business: a business acquired by private equity that’s being stripped for parts before being liquidated.

If you drop into my sphere of influence with no meaningful posts, no history, no nothing...

Welcome to Earth; lemme show you around my life a little.

But first,

And here I thought people who commit treason were sentenced to death.

An important point to keep in mind.