Let's call the Nashville bombing today what it is: a domestic terrorism attack on our telecommunications infrastructure.
That much is clear on the basis of facts in evidence even at this early date.

Vehicle shows up in the wee hours.
Parks directly in front of the AT&T transmission building.
6:15-blares music from loudspeakers (gets attention), and verbal warning that there is a bomb. 15-minute 'get clear' countdown commences.
6:30-bomb explodes and devastates AT&T bldg--
and the server farm it houses, along with switches, trunk lines, and much more. AT&T telecomms go offline throughout the Nashville region. Phones down, wifi down. Nashville airport cancels flights because comms are affected by this outage. Even in Murfreesboro, ~50 miles away...
(and other places around the region), there are widespread outages. I discover this personally when we fail to have Christmas dinner as planned. I'm just outside Murfreesboro, but suddenly Grubhub cancels our order: they suddenly can't communicate with local restaurants.
Restaurants can't be reached by phone, and can't access the internet--so companies (and individuals!) trying to do business remotely via AT&T services are SOL for the duration.
We have a lot more to learn about this event, but the above facts are already in evidence. They..
worked to avoid casualties, so...yay? But that means that structural & infrastructure damage was their #1 priority.

There is the additional mystery of "shots fired" at 5:30AM, resulting in the 9/11 call that brought police to the scene, who then heard the bomb warning
and evacuated local residents. And "possibly human" remains found at the scene of the blast. What is that about? Last-minute remorse from someone in the RV? ("You didn't tell me we were gonna blow this up *now*!" my writer's imagination reconstructs possible scenarios and...
a tussle or resistance that is terminally ended by the more fanatical of the bombers.) No doubt the FBI will make sense of this all in the end.
But meanwhile, this much I know: there has been a massive increase in domestic right-wing extremism (as reported by FBI and DHS), and...
the vast majority of attacks in this country since 2001 (and especially in the last 4 years) have been committed by domestic far-right extremists. Whether this was the work of self-radicalized individuals or the plot of ideological fanatics in a group, the odds are...
extremely high that the Nashville bombing is the work of home-grown terrorists.
We still lack the legal category of "domestic terrorism." I.e. it is defined in the legal code but we don't yet have statute law under which it can be prosecuted.
Without that, and given law enforcement's traditional gentle handling of violent white extremists-- the social result is widespread reluctance to call a spade a spade. Media rarely calls these offenders "domestic terrorists",
and that in turn affects how the subject is framed and how we discuss this (and react to it) as a nation. Well, this Nashville attack wasn't quite as big as the Federal Bldg in Oklahoma City, and the perps
may not be the next McVeigh, but it was an act of domestic terrorism nonetheless. Let's call it what it is.

The effects are still wide-reaching and ongoing, as @DavidAFrench posted this evening: https://t.co/UfOcQHUW7H
Here's a link re the lack of domestic terrorism law which notes "it's confusing to call someone a domestic terrorist and not charge them with terrorism". Which helps account for shyness around the phrase.
But if we don't name it, we don't fight it.
https://t.co/h7ghFE9nC3

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1/“What would need to be true for you to….X”

Why is this the most powerful question you can ask when attempting to reach an agreement with another human being or organization?

A thread, co-written by @deanmbrody:


2/ First, “X” could be lots of things. Examples: What would need to be true for you to

- “Feel it's in our best interest for me to be CMO"
- “Feel that we’re in a good place as a company”
- “Feel that we’re on the same page”
- “Feel that we both got what we wanted from this deal

3/ Normally, we aren’t that direct. Example from startup/VC land:

Founders leave VC meetings thinking that every VC will invest, but they rarely do.

Worse over, the founders don’t know what they need to do in order to be fundable.

4/ So why should you ask the magic Q?

To get clarity.

You want to know where you stand, and what it takes to get what you want in a way that also gets them what they want.

It also holds them (mentally) accountable once the thing they need becomes true.

5/ Staying in the context of soliciting investors, the question is “what would need to be true for you to want to invest (or partner with us on this journey, etc)?”

Multiple responses to this question are likely to deliver a positive result.
Recently, the @CNIL issued a decision regarding the GDPR compliance of an unknown French adtech company named "Vectaury". It may seem like small fry, but the decision has potential wide-ranging impacts for Google, the IAB framework, and today's adtech. It's thread time! 👇

It's all in French, but if you're up for it you can read:
• Their blog post (lacks the most interesting details):
https://t.co/PHkDcOT1hy
• Their high-level legal decision: https://t.co/hwpiEvjodt
• The full notification: https://t.co/QQB7rfynha

I've read it so you needn't!

Vectaury was collecting geolocation data in order to create profiles (eg. people who often go to this or that type of shop) so as to power ad targeting. They operate through embedded SDKs and ad bidding, making them invisible to users.

The @CNIL notes that profiling based off of geolocation presents particular risks since it reveals people's movements and habits. As risky, the processing requires consent — this will be the heart of their assessment.

Interesting point: they justify the decision in part because of how many people COULD be targeted in this way (rather than how many have — though they note that too). Because it's on a phone, and many have phones, it is considered large-scale processing no matter what.