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letter from the redditor as usual we have our four core chapters with some of december s best askreddits amas stories and pics now we re including the number one request from our readers lifeprotips happy holidays from the redditor fashionably late as always this month we re continuing to bring some of the best original content from the reddit community extraordinary original work made exclusively for the magazine and we re trying out a new system to feature our subscribers top suggestions for the second month in a row we have collaborated with a very special guest artist this issue s guest artists are a duo of graphic designers from essex england going by the name rotten riddlers their theme famous movies with zombies it s some incredible work created exclusively for the magazine and we re excited to finally share it with our readers bonus points if you can find their hidden logo another great feature in this issue s community of the month is /r/secretsanta as many of you know reddit just finished its third annual secret santa we sat down with project founder dan mccomas [kickme444 for some q&a about this year s record-breaking gift exchange check out some of the most interesting gifts and find out how you can still be a part of reddit gifts if you missed out this season as usual we have our four core chapters with some of december s best askreddits amas stories and pics now we re including the number one request from our readers lifeprotips look for these tips scattered throughout the issue our goal is to add more content without clunking up the current structure we hope you will find some new content that slipped by and enjoy the improved readability beyond the pages you can always find back issues at theredditor com and subscribe to our subreddit at /r theredditor and please feel free to leave any thoughts feedback and content suggestions for future issues editor-in-chief ryan laing [killtheredditor los angeles ca managing editor blair drager [ohblair new york ny design layout jack howard [swampgum victoria australia guest artists rotten riddlers essex england[close]
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i nthisi ss u e misconception 21 /askreddit 05 misconception 07 taboo 08 strange games 09 called off at the altar 05 16 /ama 13 hacker 16 life in the dark 18 another time 21 louis c.k life in the dark louis c.k 27 ama /stories 27 no way home 34 the game 36 my friend john /pics 39 cool guy 40 looking forward 41 flower fields 41 fly through reverse lens 42 breaking batman 43 grandfather at wedding 44 hdr nyc 45 colorful visage 46 they live 47 hermit crab in a jar 48 old gem 48 hdtv helicopter 49 folded pages 50 believe me 51 the writer 52 at the beach 53 wish you were here 54 sharpie elephant 55 feathers 56 hdr christmas 34 the game no sleep 50 believe me /secretsanta[close]
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askreddit 5 misconception what facts do you know are true but almost everyone else is wrong about chairboy you should not hold your head backwards when you are having a nosebleed tilt it forwards and hold just above the bridge of your nose achollywood lemmings do not commit mass suicides in 1958 a disney nature documentary called white wilderness included scenes of lemmings leaping off cliffs and falling to their doom these scenes were actually faked and the film crew flung the rodents off the rocks using a turntable jessicaexperience diamonds can in fact be shattered with a hammer halfblood_stud tires have nothing to do with a car s safety during a lightning storm the metal frame will conduct the electricity around you keyes777 congress didn t classify pizza as a vegetable darnthesesocks hair does not grow back faster or thicker after it has been shaved naphthos frankenstein is the name of the scientist not the monster vishalpatel most nuts aren t nuts almonds brazil nuts cashews macadamias peanuts pecans pine nuts pistachios and walnuts are all technically not really nuts peanuts are a legume a bean pistachios are drupes a fruit you eat the seed harrisonschmitt walt disney was not cryogenically frozen leafschris darth vader is almost always quoted saying luke i am your father when really it s no i am your father internetinspanish[close]
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askreddit 6 many people believe daddy longlegs are the most poisonous spiders in the world with fangs too small to do any damage this is false therejectethan undercover officers are not required to show their badge upon request targettango a lot of people think that we only landed on the moon once when in fact there were several missions and a total of 12 people walked the moon s surface hallhallhall doyle s sherlock never said elementary my dear watson he did say my dear watson and then later in the paragraph he said elementary wairusbot it is not impossible to lick your elbow fhruth if you cut an earthworm in half the half without the brain dies if you cut it lengthwise so as to split up the brain both halves die workpuppy you actually can rip off the tags from your pillows and mattress the law only applies to sellers/stockers of said items intended to demonstrate to the consumer exactly what is inside for health and safety reasons temporaryimaginary macs can get viruses bulgingdisk[close]
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askreddit 7 what was normal when you were a kid that is taboo banned or shunned now captshady actually knowing friend s phone numbers by heart thepeoplesbear going out to play knowing that i just needed to be back home by the time the street lights came on parents knew i was somewhere in the neighborhood takclaw taking a butter knife to school to finish putting my sandwich together without having the swat team called whoa_throwaway swearing in kids movies mak10z getting to see the cockpit of a plane dogmaster getting dirty while doing any fun childhood thing if i see another parent cover their child in purell i m going to lose it do you understand what an immune system is and how it gets stronger shewearsbeads being served real food in economy even on short domestic flights beanlord playing outside climbing trees and generally wandering far and wide on estates origami_mouse my father called them road beers phineasgage1848 getting to the airport fifteen minutes before your flight no security lines or strange restrictions on what you could bring tick_tock_clock mtv playing music videos cfenton23 getting reprimanded by adults that weren t your parents or your relatives griffith12 spanking isaidneveragain elementary school kids would wait at the bus stop with no parents there to supervise deletetables the black ranger was african american and the yellow ranger was asian arontx we walked or rode our bikes two miles to school as soon as we knew our own way i never see kids riding bikes anymore audballbag being able to run around on the playground with your `pretend gun aka your thumb/finger and `shoot your fellow classmates rushaz wood and steel playgrounds handycore kids didn t wear helmets and protective gear for riding bikes or skateboards jazum smoking on airplanes along with steak knives provided with a meal this all makes me sad for the future of humanity iamagainstit[close]
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askreddit 8 what strange games do you play in your head neurotikitty my dad will look for people taking photos and try to get into the background of as many as possible when he told me about it i started doing it myself it s fun to try to do it without being noticed neurotikitty i try to memorize the license plate numbers and wardrobes of suspicious looking people in case i have to act as a witness to some sort of spontaneous criminal act gal9000 i pick out a dirt speck or the car antenna or something when i m a passenger and imagine it is a razor laser that chops through anything along the roadside it touches effingeenyus i love the rain race on windows i think of other droplets as the crowd and we cheer together i need a life semen-thrower while riding in a car on a long stretch of highway stare out the window at the dashed road lines as they pass you by start paying attention to whatever song is playing and you will begin to develop awareness of synchronicity between the patterns on the road and the beat of your music you ll snap out of it minutes later nasu_moon_commander i imagine violent situations in my head for instance what would i do if the person in front of me randomly pulled a gun out and started shooting people i like to think that i would try to be a hero in that situation dpace17 i watch people and make up stories about them i generally try to make them as ridiculous as possible twustwervy when walking on campus i like to pretend that i m really a spy looking for something or someone i make comments in my head on what it s like pretending to be a college student and the struggles of finding a single person or thing in such a large city [deleted whenever i see someone with the same car as me driving in the opposite direction i like to pretend that it s me from the future goodgodlemon[close]
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askreddit 9 have you ever been to a wedding that was called off at the altar pootywang all of the bride s friends including myself her parents and anyone else with half a brain had been telling her to get rid of him all along and to definitely not marry him we d given up by the time of her wedding and i was trying to be happy for her instead of saying i do she just looked around the room and ran back down the aisle we were all dumbfounded except for her father who yelled a variation of what we were all thinking thank you jesus christ sfbaimei i attended a wedding where the groom when asked to say i do passed out straight away falling down a small flight of stairs a few seconds later after coming to he had a look of panic in his eyes and ran out of the building the groom when asked to say i do passed out straight away falling down a small flight of stairs five minutes go by and someone goes out after him then ten minutes then twenty minutes several people have left now to see what s going on some people are wondering if he ll come back at all he finally re-entered the church with only his mostly open tuxedo jacket on and his bare hairy chest showing he looked pale as a ghost he apologized for being too hot and slowly walked up to the altar bare chest showing and the ceremony resumed chest hair and all they actually did get married flat5 when my grandfather was a teenager he was with his family at wedding when the preacher said the whole if there s anyone present who has a reason this couple should not be joined in holy matrimony speak now or forever hold your peace bit the father of the bride stood up and said i do at which point he the bride the groom and the preacher left to have a private discussion they came back about ten minutes later and called the wedding off my grandfather and i used to enjoy hypothesizing about what the father of the bride could have said radagasttheturtle[close]
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askreddit 10 my dad s cousin got married some 18 years ago and at the reception the bride stabbed the groom in the gut with the wedding cake knife somehow they re still married kiasuten my own wedding was called off mid-ceremony i had just finished saying my own vows before being arrested by local police on an assault domestic violence charge i had beaten up my almost brother-in-law for stealing my car police didn t care what happened i was carried out in handcuffs in front of all of my family hollapeno over and punches groom in the face they filed for divorce the next day mclovin03 the groom cuts a piece of cake to feed it to bride and to be funny shoves it in her face the bride stats crying and screaming then throws cake at groom the father of the bride comes immediately after the classic is there anyone present with a reason blah blah a massive storm suddenly broke out with thunder and lightning both families were very christian so it took the priest a good 10 minutes to reassure everyone that it was only bad weather and god wasn t angry oldclockman with at least a few drinks in him the husband told his wife you know you weren t my first choice on monday morning we found our wedding gifts on our desks wufoo2 when it got to the part where the vicar asks do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife the groom looked round shrugged and said suppose so apparently the father of the bride punched him later that evening zing_of_the_day a couple of co-workers got married on a saturday at the reception,[close]
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life pro tips eating slower can help you lose weight and help digestion not many people realize that you have a dominant side for chewing switching to the non-dominant side can be tough but will greatly reduce the speed of eating.[close]
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ama 13 i was a from 2001 to 2004 i was a professional identity thief specializing in credit card fraud driverdan i got my start selling fake ids at college i dropped out because i hated school and was making too much money to waste my time otherwise as i saw it i moved on to credit cards encoding existing cards with stolen data and ordering stuff online by the end i was printing my own credit cards and using them at retail stores to buy laptops gift cards etc which i resold on ebay while selling fake ids i had a small network of resellers at my school and others when i moved to credit card fraud one of my resellers took over my id business later he worked for with me buying stuff with my fake credit cards splitting profits on what he bought 50/50 i did a lot of other related stuff too i hacked a number of sites for their credit card databases i sold fake ids and credit cards online i was very active in carding fraud forums i was researching atm skimming and had purchased an atm skimmer but never got the chance to use it i was caught in december 2004 i had gone to a best buy with aforementioned associate to buy a laptop the manager figured out something was up had i been alone i would have talked my way out but my friend wasn t a good conman social engineer like i was he was sweating shifting around generally doing everything you shouldn t do in that situation eventually the manager walked to the front of the store with the fake credit card and id leaving us behind we booked it the police ended up running his photo on the cable news network someone turned him in and he turned me in after getting caught i worked with the secret service for two years i was the biggest bust they had seen in western new york and wanted to do an operation investigating the online underground they knew almost nothing i taught them how the online underground economy worked techniques to investigate track find targets hacker terminology etc image nmalaguti[close]
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ama 14 where did you start learning how to hack i started back in the bbs aol slow isp dialup days played with some of the aol hacking tools like aohell this resulted in getting my real account banned and my parents canceling it so i started signing up for accounts using fake bank accounts and credit card numbers since the numbers were fake aol was the only victim i was into programming too in high school i got into the cheats community on irc not game cheats advertising cheating we d write programs to make money from all the get paid to sites and services finding vulnerabilities was part of it as others told you it s about learning curiosity and a mindset i still have a hacker mindset so to speak when i was carding i would call it a carder mindset i looked for weaknesses and ways to exploit everything online in stores in advertising etc how did you get started selling fake id s in the first place in college computer engineering major i needed money i knew there d be a market for fake ids i bought the equipment with a cash advance off my credit card and paid it off a month later with my profits except the time you got caught were you ever close oh yeah i was close to being caught a few times involving call for authorization cfa this is when the store has to call the merchant and verify additional info to make sure it s not a stolen card this is a bad situation to be in i was good at talking my way out or setting up the situation for failure beforehand i would say something to plant a seed of doubt such as oh wow this costs more than i expected i hope i have enough money left on my card that way when it was declined or flagged for cfa i could get away once i was at a best buy trying to buy a laptop it came up cfa and i wasn t able to talk my way out this is a situation where you have to be good at the con or you get caught i kept my cool and let them do it after about ten minutes on the phone she handed the card and id back to me she told me they were unable to process the transaction because none of my info matched i acted surprised and angry and questioned what she meant they had told her my name was not the one on the card i argued a little more and then left i still can t believe they let me walk out i should have been arrested that day what was working for the secret service like were they interested in what you were teaching or did they still view you as a criminal all of my encounters with law enforcement were positive they were very respectful and professional i m sure being a well-spoken white guy helped unfortunately not sarcasm secret service agents really are some of the best of the best these guys live and breathe what they do they go through an intense screening process and train continuously the agents i worked with truly wanted to learn what i had to teach some were better at tech stuff than others but they all wanted to learn make no mistake we all knew my place they monitored everything i did with screen and key capturing software there was a projector that mirrored my screen so everyone could see my computer crime may pay if you don t get caught otherwise no it doesn t how much money did you make everyone asks me this but i honestly don t know one interesting side effect was that money became much less meaningful i could get almost anything i wanted for free using credit cards and i did my only real expenses were housing my car and related expenses such as utilities and insurance almost everything else was carded food electronics furniture you name it for cash income i generally made $500-2,000 per week there were times i made $1,000-5,000 in a day such as cashing out hacked atm cards supplied by others or carding western union during the christmas season i ramped everything up since stores are busy they are less likely to remember you and security is a little more lax since i could card everything i owned nice stuff but i tried to keep a low profile and not go it s about learning curiosity and a mindset i looked for weaknesses and ways to exploit everything.[close]
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ama 15 overboard what was your biggest con/theft i managed to acquire some cards with $10,000 limits since i had all their info i took over the online accounts and changed the address to my drop and their phone to a prepaid cell once you do that you pretty much own the card and can do anything with it i maxed out the cash advance limit paid them off using stolen bank accounts then repeated until they accounts got shut down another time i used a similarly taken over card to order a $5,000 card printer the one i ended up using to print all my fake credit cards there were a few times i cashed out huge amounts of western union $5,000 i was doing this for other people i met online i suspect they were from nigerianstyle scams fake auctions work at home scams etc i felt a bit guilty doing those but the money was too good to care enough to stop were you always worried you would get caught sure i was always worried there is risk to anything the risks when breaking the law are exponentially higher even if the risk reward ratio is low i treated what i did as a business the risk reward ratio was very high and i accepted being caught as a risk of doing business did you phish for your information i did a lot of phishing back then everyone fell for it i started with aol sites since aol users are generally less knowledgeable i ran my early ones with another guy i knew from irc the response volume was insane after aol i built a really good paypal phish site it looked just like the real thing and got every piece of info i could think of name dob ssn license number address credit card bank account paypal details it would email the info offsite to make sure we wouldn t lose the data if the site went down thanks to consumer awareness phish ing doesn t work like it used to but when you think of volume you only need a fraction of a percent to respond when you send out 1,000,000 emails do you consider yourself king of the assholes or just a prince did seven years since i quit i wasn t a king or a prince or even a duke i intentionally limited how often i carded how many trips i d make to each store in a month and how connected i was online i could have made a lot more money but would have significantly increased the amount of risk i faced since my main thing was credit cards the amount of true identity theft using full personal data for gain was limited credit cards were lower risk and required a lot less work i got credit cards in their names and maxed them out one person i took over to use as a front for my business i opened bank accounts and signed the office lease in his name i never caused any harm to his credit though so yeah i was certainly an asshole but nowhere near king level if you hadn t gotten caught would you have continued to steal this is a really good question and a hard one to answer at the time i was planning on getting out i had sold my printer and had a stockpile of blank cards left my plan was to get out when the cards ran out i was saving up $50-100k enough to live on for 1 year i wanted to buy rental properties that said i had slowed down to almost nothing about six months before but the allure of easy money pulled me back in that time i hadn t gotten rid of my equipment can you list some steps so we can better protect our identity and credit cards · don t carry your social security card pins or other private data in your wallet good old theft is still the number one cause of credit card fraud and id theft i treated what i did as a business the risk reward ratio was very high and i accepted being caught as a risk of doing business · shred anything with account numbers ssn and other vulnerable info · fight giving out your ssn as much as possible don t put it on a form unless it s 100 required and you trust the company · use a password manager not only will it save you tons of time but it allows you to use different random passwords everywhere never reuse passwords for anything you even slightly care about · use fake security q&as for sites that require them like banks your mother s maiden name and hometown are pretty easy to figure out just keep in mind you may need to provide this info to someone over the phone so keep it work safe to avoid embarrassment or not if you like to troll ·be vigilant check your bank accounts and credit cards at least once a week mint.com makes this super easy check your credit at least once a year one report per year is free ·unless you re in a super high risk situation don t waste your money on credit monitoring services just like extended warrantees and other forms of insurance you re better off saving the money most importantly stop worrying there are more important things to worry about in your life if your credit card gets stolen you ll get your money back.[close]
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