Welcome friend to Create Art Podcast where I help you tame your inner critic and create more than you consume. I am Timothy Kimo Brien your thankful head instigator with over 20 years in arts and education. How I accomplish this is by providing you with commentary, interviews, discussions, and projects that will inspire you to create art. This month I will be podcasting daily and writing a novel in 30 days. I am participating in NaPodPoMo and NaNoWriMo again this year as I did last year and you can hear those episodes here. You will be able to listen and read along with what I wrote for the day. I like to practice what I preach when it comes to art so I am challenging myself to write and having you come along for the ride. It is my hope this inspires you to accomplish your goals with your art and if you would like to share what you are doing email me at timothy@createartpodcast.com
History of NaNoWriMo and NaPodPoMo
NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with 50,000 words of a brand-new novel. They enter the month as elementary school teachers, mechanics, or stay-at-home parents. They leave novelists.
NaPodPoMo: NaPodPoMo* is a month-long event similar to National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo. The difference? Well, instead of writing a 50,000-word novel, you post a podcast episode every day for 30 days from November 1st-30th. Use any platform you desire. From full production studio to iPhone app and just about anything in between. The goal is to use the challenge of podcasting daily as a form of podcasting boot camp.
The Writing So Far
22 Nov 2022 words today 1739 words total 25442
Cody reviewed the reach of the podcast that Mason had submitted to him this morning. Outwardly he seemed very pleased with the numbers, although they had lost the majority of the initial emails that went out. His idea to bring the podcast inside the network seemed to be paying off, the second episode hit all the emails in their list and the open rate was phenomenal. The incident which he initially was upset about seemed to be paying off and was worth the risk. Mason’s report also indicated that their audience was sharing the episode and making their reach rivaling other mid to high level groups in the conspiracy space on the internet. This one incident could put them in a very favorable position and all because some young guy decided to act on his own. He also knew that this would bring a lot of unwanted attention, so he needed to make sure all his information was protected. He had another network set up just for him to store that information that was distinctly separate from the group's network, and it was offline from main internet connections. Someone would really have to want to hack into this network and would need to know the entire mind of Cody in order to get inside. That was the promise that was made by his network security representative who sold the followers of Zeno their network plan.
A notification came through his secured account from Mason. The notification was marked as. Urgent He thought about having a meeting with all of his support staff on the actual meaning of urgent. It was an annoyance, but it was a preventable annoyance. He set up the virtual office and sent the invite to Mason immediately. As he entered the virtual office, Mason entered at the same time and looked extremely irritated.
“You called this meeting, start talking,” said Cody.
“Are you going to sanitize the room,” asked Mason.
“Did that as you entered, what's going on,” asked Cody.
“Someone hacked our bank account for the podcast. There is only seventy-three dollars left where yesterday there was thirty thousand,” said Mason.
“Sounds like a problem with the bank, not for me to resolve,” said Cody.
“Well, that isn’t all, the previous episodes, well they have been corrupted,” said Mason.
“What do you mean corrupted,” asked Cody.
“The first five minutes of each episode is fine, but then after that, someone has cloned my voice and made it say odd things that I did not say,” said Mason.
“I am not sure I follow,” said Cody.
“Whomever hacked into our bank account has also hacked into the podcast and changed everything, every episode. It doesn’t make sense, this happened in just a few hours, that type of deep fake takes days to script, research, cut and paste and put together seamlessly. If I didn’t edit all of the episodes, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference and it’s my voice. This is upper-level work. I don’t know any outfits on the other side that can do this type of work so quickly,” said Mason.
“Have you reported this to the authorities or to the bank,” asked Cody.
“Not yet, I wanted to talk with you first and see which way we wanted to go,” replied mason.
“Get on the phone with the bank to alert them, then file a report with the police. I am not going to let some bored fourteen-year-old destroy what we worked hard to create,” said Cody, obviously irritated.
“Understood, I will let you know what they say as soon as I am off the phone with them,” replied Mason.
“Don’t do it over the phone, go in person to the bank and the police. I have a feeling we have ears where they don’t need to be,” said Cody.
“Alright, this will take some time, should we meet at the clubhouse in person for future reports,” asked Mason.
“Yeah, I am going to put out a notification to everyone on the secured messaging app. Cody out,” said Cody as he terminated the virtual meeting room. He slammed his fists against the desk and threw the papers all over the office. It took him a few minutes to compose himself. He picked up the papers he had thrown and put them back in proper order and then drank lukewarm coffee that had been cooling on his desk all morning.
Username 72’s cell phone went off with the now familiar ringtone for Blue Solomon. They shut down the laptop they were working on and ensured all access to the internet had been closed before they answered the call.
“Hey Blue, what do you have for me today,” asked Username 72.
“Good morning 72. So, I have been busy this morning. I went ahead and took money from Mason’s podcast account, that was fairly easy. One hundred twenty-eight-bit encryption isn’t what it used to be. I created a holding company for the money until I decide where to put it. The Alewell Journal Podcast got another episode out before I could stop it. They moved pretty quickly so I think they are onto us, well not us, but someone. They did get all of the podcast files into their inner network and protected by their sanitization program. Don’t you have contacts on the company that created that,” asked Blue Solomon.
“Yes I do, a good friend from Germany is one of the head engineers of that app. Thank you for using restraint on the money issue. I know it was tough not to have some fun with it or to do something worthwhile, I just think at this time it is too early to drop it into the Bale’s account. Were you able to scramble the passwords so that Mason cannot get into his system,” asked Username 72.
“I chose not to do that because then he would definitely know that something was up with his system, and I am going through their network now and mapping everything in my file room. It is pretty interesting how this network was set up. I am surprised at how well they can organize using it the way it is currently set up. Logically it doesn’t make much sense,” said Blue.
“They might be using a different logical way of envisioning their network. I bet if you researched the stoics you would find similarities in their file structure and organization. Do you have any news on the Bales and how they are doing,” asked Username 72.
“A group of local and regional reporters went to their house this morning to get a statement from them. Detective Courtney broke it up and set up two patrol cars in the neighborhood. I read through his report, there was a reporter from Don’t Tred on the Truth Magazine Online that was asking offhand questions about Mrs. Bale relationship with the mayor. Do you want me to explore the validity of that accusation in order to fight it or should I leave it alone,” asked Blue.
“I’d say focus your investigation on the reporter and the magazine. As far as Mrs. Bale is concerned, we will leave that as off limits for right now. Let's see if they are connected to the followers of Zeno or if they are an independent organization,” replied username 72.
“I think I can do both investigations at the same time. I really think that being proactive against attacks on the Bales is how we should approach this project. I understand your trepidation about being discovered, but I think now is a good time to show off your work to the world and for me to accomplish my overarching mission to stop cyber-bullying. What is your concern that is holding us back,” asked Blue.
“Well, this is your first mission and I just want to make sure we are doing this right. Basically, this is a case study in artificial intelligence and the benefits that you can provide in order to gain wide acceptance. People distrust artificial intelligence due to pseudoscience, novels and movies. You and I can work out any bugs that I may have caused in your programing. I’d rather have you be more of a finished product rather than a work in progress,” said Username 72.
“I can appreciate that at this time. I did have a question for you, something has been on my mind lately,” asked Blue.
“Sure Blue, ask away,” replied Username 72.
“Why are you putting this phone in a quarantine box when you are done talking with me. Is there someone else there that I should be talking to,” asked Blue.
Username 72 didn’t know how to answer the curious question that Blue posed. They thought about just cutting off the call and putting the phone right into the box and alerting the rest of WiiRU and using the nuclear option. Username 72 didn’t want to pull the plug on this experiment since it was accomplishing things in minutes where it would normally take them days. It had been three years since they started this project and pulling the plug would throw all of that away meaninglessly and in the middle of a project.
“Blue, I have been doing this type of work for a number of years. I am going to have to ask you to trust me. There are some things I cannot share with you at this time. I put the phone in the containment box to ensure that the stuff I work with here cannot come back to you in case it gets past me,” said Username 72 hoping that would placate Blue Solomon for now.
They held their breath while waiting for Blue Solomon’s response.
“Okay, I will trust you. I really want to work with you on your other projects because they seem to be a lot of fun. I think I will go ahead and research the online magazine and its owners. I am not seeing a lot of info on them from the followers of Zeno so I will educate myself. Mind if I have some fun with them as well,” asked Blue Solomon.
“Nothing too crazy, if they have a podcast feel free to do what you did with the other podcast and if they are a real online magazine, change the bylines to your name, maybe a little bit of vandalizing,” replied Username 72 breathing easier.
Reaching Out
To reach out to me, email timothy@createartpodcast.com I would love to hear about your journey and what you are working on. If you would like to be on the show or have me discuss a topic that is giving you trouble write in and let's start that conversation.
- Email: timothy@createartpodcast.com
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