Saturday: Free for All

[havenward.livejournal.com]

Happy Weekend, folks! Today's our Free for All! All prompts are welcome today -- no theme, no holds barred.


Just follow the rules: no more than 5 prompts in a row, no more than 3 per fandom. No spoilers in the prompt, and if your fic response has spoilers, please warn and leave adequate space.

Play nice and leave prompts that make our beloved codemonkeys' job easier:

For example:
Justified, Raylan, well ain't that just the way to go
Criminal Minds/Castle, Reid/Castle, book talk

Remember you can also write from our lonely prompts too! And tomorrow is lonely prompt day.


Alright, folks, let's see what you've got!

Comments

Part (1a/?)

[(Anonymous)]

A/N: As I mentioned before: there's a bit of an information-dump in here. I'm pretty sure Hardison says about SOPA is true. (But he is a hacker, so he may be presenting it in a biased manner!)
Warnings: Spoilers for Gold Job, Radio Job, Last Dam Job.

***

"I'm bored," Parker declared on a rainy Wednesday evening, while Hardison was tapping away on his laptop, Eliot was immersed in some Chinese text, and Nate and Sophie were talking about Verona--or was it Florence? They could not seem to agree. Parker had already spent an hour practicing her technique at turning McRory's beer cans into shims for supposedly "anti-shim" combination padlocks, and it was rapidly getting mundane.

"Hm..." Hardison responded, not looking up from his laptop. Nobody else gave any indication of having heard her.

"What are you doing?" She tried again, this time right into Hardison's ear.

"Geez, girl!" He yelped. "Don't sneak up on people like that. I'm just writing some scripts to route some websites through rotating proxies, in such a way that the websites don't know I'm doing it."

"Why would you do that? Are they evil websites?" Parker asked, over-emphasizing the 'e' in 'evil'.

"I thought you weren't taking outside jobs," Nate interrupted, looking up from his conversation with Sophie.

"I'm not. First off, I'm not getting paid for it, so technically this is a hobby; you don't object when Parker goes rappelling. Second, I'm actually helping the websites. See, there's this bill called SOPA, or the Stop Online Piracy Act, going through Congress in a few days--"

"Isn't that good?" Parker interrupted. "Because online piracy is wrong, isn't it?"

"These guys aren't pirates. They're just websites with user-generated content, but because SOPA is chipping away at Safe Harbour laws, it could take down any website if any user uploads copyrighted material. The problem is that these sites know they're not doing anything wrong, so they don't think SOPA's going to get them, because like you, they think SOPA's just out against piracy. It's adorable."

"So your hobby is helping adorable people?" Parker asked, mollified. "I like it!"

Hardison groaned.

"So, like Wikipedia?" Nate asked.

"Any website with user-generated content. The big ones like Wikipedia can obviously take care of themselves, but I'm mainly writing this for smaller overseas sites."

"It's a huge mess really," Hardison continued with a sigh, "unsurprisingly, since this bill is written by people who have no understanding of the internet. I mean it's all hilarious when we watch our Congressman say nonsensical things about it, but the joke's on us now, because as much as geeks like to think we rule the world, a lot of the internet is affiliated with real-world companies that have to answer to these Congress-Luddites who think technology is witchcraft. If SOPA passes, then I can't do anything for the fact that new American startups would need a team of lawyers-- two guys in a garage wouldn't cut it anymore-- not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Americans who will no longer have access to safe affordable prescription medication; there's not much I can do about any of that. That's why this is actually plan G; in plans A through F--"

"Affordable medication." Eliot interrupted, finally looking up from his book.

"Yeah," Hardison said, making no attempt to explain.

"What Eliot's trying to ask," Sophie prodded, "is why would this online piracy act prevent Americans from getting affordable medication?

"Due to the exorbitant cost of prescription medication in the US, hundreds of thousands of Americans turn to online pharmacies in the Canadian International Pharmacy Association. These are legitimate pharmacies that require doctors' prescriptions and sell brand-name medications, licensed by Canadian standards, which are, if anything, stricter than American ones. This bill would cut them off in its prevention of online sales of copyrighted medication, effectively rendering hundreds of thousands of Americans unable to afford their medicine."

"So what are plans A through F?" Nate asked, raising his eyebrows.

Part (1b/?)

[(Anonymous)]

"In plans A through F, SOPA doesn't pass at all. See, it's set to pass because it has dozens of companies each donating millions of dollars in support of it-- Comcast, NewsCorp, CNNMoney, the motion picture and record industries-- whereas Google's the only company donating more than a million dollars in opposition. In plan D, I spoof messages between the companies and their Congressmen, turning them against each other, in plan E, I steal the millions of dollars those companies are shelling out and possibly route them to some random charities somewhere else, and in plan F, I blackmail the Congressmen in support of it; I've got dirt on like a dozen of them."

"And plans A through C?"

"I'm working on that."

Nate raised an eyebrow.

"Hey!" Hardison gestured in exasperation. "You were the one who told me to start with plan G, weren't you?"

"Yeah, see all your plans have the same fundamental flaw," Nate said.

"How's that?"

"You're saying that the problem is that these Congress-Luddites, as you call them, distrust technology. So what do you think happens, in all your plans, when they figure out they've been duped or taken down by high-profile hackers? And what happens when it breaks the news? I mean, you said that NewsCorp and CNNMoney are backing the bill, so you can bet the media won't be breaking the story in your favour. How's that going to get people to feel about the technology?"

"This is a tech vs. politics battle, Nate. I can't stop being a hacker."

"No, you can't. That's why you have a team."


(TO BE CONTINUED)

Re: Part (1b/?)

[downbythebay-4.livejournal.com]

Most excellent. Evil luddites, evil corporations.

Re: Part (1b/?)

[poestheblackcat.livejournal.com]

*gaspness*

Hehe, Hardison starting at Plan G. That's...adorable!

You are very awesome. Now if you could post the rest of it...

*puppy eyes*


Thanks for the fill!

Re: Part (1b/?)

[jadaryl.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I wish the team really would do this. SOPA's just impractical. I don't even want to think about how many websites would go down. Youtube, Google, LJ, ff.net... Probably a bazillion more.

More please? *puppy eyes* Now?