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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: August 16th, 2023

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  • While I agree that it’s not exactly the same, there is a lot of overlap. It’s also more complicated than the OP presented.

    Since everyone here is refusing to do even a basic search, here is one on the first page of Google results.

    An individual’s response to natural rewards, such as sex, is largely regulated by the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, which receives excitatory and inhibitory input from other limbic structures and the prefrontal cortex [64]. Erections are dependent upon activation of dopaminergic neurons in VTA and dopamine receptors in the NAc [65,66]. Excitatory glutamate inputs from other limbic structures (amygdala, hippocampus) and the prefrontal cortex facilitate dopaminergic activity in the VTA and NAc [62]. Reward responsive dopamine neurons also project into the dorsal striatum, a region activated during sexual arousal and penile tumescence [67]. Dopamine agonists, such as apomorphine, have been shown to induce erection in men with both normal and impaired erectile function [68]. Thus, dopamine signaling in the reward system and hypothalamus plays a central role in sexual arousal, sexual motivation and penile erections [65,66,69].

    We propose that chronic Internet pornography use resulted in erectile dysfunction and delayed ejaculation in our servicemen reported above. We hypothesize an etiology arising in part from Internet pornography-induced alterations in the circuits governing sexual desire and penile erections. Both hyper-reactivity to Internet pornography cues via glutamate inputs and downregulation of the reward system’s response to normal rewards may be involved. These two brain changes are consistent with chronic overconsumption of both natural rewards and drugs of abuse, and are mediated by dopamine surges in the reward system [70,71,72].

    […]partnered sex no longer met their conditioned expectations and no longer triggered the release of sufficient dopamine to produce and sustain erections

    The word dopamine appears 54 times in this article, and overall seems to agree with the OP.

    Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5039517/






  • It’s a very fine line they would have to walk. It must be believable to the average person that the claims are true. It must not actually be true. It must be done with (the appearance of) malice. It must not be done as a criticism/satire of the target and their actions.

    And on top of that, their publicist/PR must think a lawsuit will get them more than they lose. Once it’s aired, it is out there forever. It could then be the one that everyone seeks out and shares with friends, as “the one that Tom Cruise sued to get rid of”. This is known as “The Streisand Effect”.




  • Licensing and activation are separate, and only loosely related. If you are at anything resembling a large org, they don’t even use the HWID or OEM key- they will be using an internal KMS server.

    It really sounds like you have way more permissions than you should have on a work device. You should’ve hit a wall even attempting to install Win11 (I can confirm that my work blocks this very effectively). I also question why you would want to do that at all. I’m also not sure you needed to do anything to activate- I believe 10 and 11 use the exact same HWID/keys/etc




  • Unless you’re on a self-hosted VPN (defeating the whole purpose), it’s not especially hard to identify VPN connections. All of the common ones are known, and many use IP ranges and reverse lookups that clearly identify the VPN/seedbox provider.

    It’s a bit harder when you are connected to one that resolves to a residential-looking hostname. But again, unless it’s truly unique (defeating the purpose), simply sorting users by IP will reveal almost all of them.

    Some trackers used to do this to weed out people with multiple accounts. Some of the big ones still actively detect and block (or punish) anyone connecting to their website with a VPN (torrent traffic is still generally allowed, though)





  • TorrentLeech has open registration several times per year. Keep an eye on Opentrackers.org for any of these. Note that some are open, while others are open application. The latter means you must meet certain criteria to be accepted. Typically this is proof of your stats on other trackers, but sometimes it’s exclusively for refugees from one that failed.

    Keep in mind that you will not ever find open registrations on an established, reputable tracker. They don’t need more users. They only recruit from lesser, more accessible trackers. You will need to start on these to establish yourself. There are plenty of guides on this, with most starting on RED or MAM.

    If you aren’t on any of these, it’s not because they’re too hard to get into- it’s because you don’t want to put in the effort. Which is exactly what private trackers want to avoid.

    Also, smaller doesn’t always mean bad. TorrentDB was a rising star, with regular open invites, right up until its collapse. Even the giants like PTP started from nothing. Getting in early is a perfectly viable strategy, especially if you help grow it.



  • Not THE issuer. AN issuer. All of your devices have a number of trusted top-level issuers (Root certification authorities). Windows has about 50 preloaded, and this list largely matches what you’ll find on Android, Mac, etc. Everyone’s been mentioning Let’s Encrypt, which descends from ISRG Root X1. But you can (relatively) easily get certs from Thawte, Verisign, and many others.

    And if none of those are to your liking, you can install your own. Seriously, there’s nothing technical stopping you. Most corporate devices (Windows, Mac, Linux; Android or iOS; mobile, client, server) have the company’s root certs installed. The challenge for public trust is exactly that- Trust. You must operate in a way that is generally trustworthy.

    Let’s Encrypt was actually pretty revolutionary. You aren’t entirely off base with your concern. Prior to that, getting a cert that was trusted by most devices was non-trivial, and came with an expense. But that wasn’t because of the desire for encryption. Rather, it was about verifying that you were who you said you were. These also served as proof of identity.