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November 26, 2011
Dogmeat Page
I wish I could put my finger on it
I wish I could put my finger on it
Josh Strom always loved foxes, but it wasn't until he became an adult that he started to imagine what it would be like to actually become one.
". There's just something about them that speaks to me," he tells me over coffee and a sandwich near his downtown San Francisco office, where he works as an IT guy for a media company. For the past 17 years, Strom has had an anthropomorphic alter-ego: Jaded Fox.
"He is six foot two, which is how tall I am. He's in his 30s, he has blue eyes and blond hair." Strom says, pointing to his blond ponytail and gentle blue eyes. "He's a nice guy to a fault. He offers his services when he shouldn't be because the people he's helping don't really deserve his help. He's gotten himself in trouble by doing this, which I myself have done a couple of times. He's definitely me. There's nothing fetishized about it. It's just me in a fox body."
Strom is a furry — a subset of geeks who like to role play as fictional anthropomorphic characters with human traits. Furries are often portrayed as weirdos who dress up as animals for sex play. But Strom isn't here to tell me about costumes or kinks. He cautiously agreed to an interview with me because — as a 17-year veteran of the fandom — he wants to set the furry facts straight.
Strom says that the fandom is not about sex at all, and that it's no different than communities of people obsessed with anime or superhero comics. "The furry fandom is just like any other group of like-minded individuals," Strom says. "It's like a tech nerd going to MacWorld."
Ever since he was a little kid, Strom liked to draw pictures of animals that spoke — Bugs Bunny, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles... and he was a big fan of Disney. As a teen, he volunteered as a fox cage maintenance guy at a wildlife reserve. "I was like, these are the coolest things ever," he says.
Many veteran furries credit their entrance into the fandom to Disney, specifically to the 1973 animated hit Robin Hood. Who could forget the savvy canine archer and his muse, foxy Maid Marion? "Every character in that movie is effectively a furry," Strom says. "They're all anthropomorphic animals."
In college, Strom joined the furry fandom. He got a campus job as a lab admin, where he spent most of his time on Usenet. "I met a lot of people who were also interested in this stuff," he says. "It just made a lot of sense." That's where he discovered alt.fan.furry, a furry newsgroup.
"I backdoored into FurryMUCK through Disney use groups. It's basically a chat room that you telnet into. Combine Zork, the old Infocom text adventures, with World of Warcraft, and you get a MMO text-based game where you can write the room descriptions and build out stories. A lot of it has moved to Second Life, but I still have some characters there." Strom was also a theater major, so role-playing was a natural fit. "I found it invigorating and freeing."
The offline socializing among fur-fans started off as room parties at anime conventions; then, in 1989, some of the early adopters decided to hold their own event in Costa Mesa, California, which they called ConFurence Zero. People were already hosting weekend furry parties in their homes, but the early conventions proved that there was enough of a following to make these a regular occurrence. By the mid-90s, when Strom attended his first furry convention, hundreds were flocking to cities from Philadelphia to Essex to attend organized events where sold anthropomorphic art and fiction, congregated with fellow furries, and — on occasion — dressed up as bipedal animals. Today, there are dozens of furry conventions every year with some — like the esteemed Anthrocon — attracting nearly 3,000 people.
But if the furry fandom truly is friendly and imaginative role-play, not a fetish, why do so many people see it that way? There were a few catalysts, according to Strom, and he becomes visibly upset to talk about them. "The early indiscretions of a few people" triggered a media frenzy early on that painted them as sex-crazed cosplayers, he explains. "They would go to other sci-fi and anime and comic conventions and look at anthropomorphic smut in public, or have loud conversations about, 'Boy I'd really like to hit this-or-that character from that random movie.'"
These miscreants were also quick to pipe up to the media, giving the outside world the wrong impression. Then there was the time when organizers of a certain unnamed furry conference advertised in BDSM magazines. "We started getting people who were like, this is a good place for us to go and meet swingers and get our jollies off! They put on costumes just to fit in and were only interested in the sex, not what the majority of us are actually there for."
Or maybe it's simply that the world, especially the geek world, just needed an underdog. "People like to look down on someone else to make themselves feel better," Strom says. "That's just human nature."
Strom also mentions a 1994 Wired article and a 2001 Vanity Fair article, both of which he feels unfairly portrayed furries as freaks. After the latter was published, furry convention staff changed their media policies from to be more restrictive. On the Tyra Banks Show this past September, two furries appeared on a segment titled: "Does your sex life measure up to these guests?" The couple told Tyra about costumed sex ("There are strategically placed holes") and their plans to have a furry wedding. For most serious members of the fandom, was one of those horribly embarrassing incidents that forever marred the way their culture was perceived by the rest of us.
"We're interested in anthropomorphics," Strom says. "We go to conventions to hang out with friends, maybe buy something like art or badges, go to a discussion panel or see a show. Swinger parties and fetishes are there, but that's not what the fandom is about."
In addition to his alter-ego Jaded Fox, Strom has dozens of characters that he role-plays with online — a gay weightlifting Florida panther, a medieval wolf assassin, a sexy Chinese vixen. "For me, the fandom is a hobby. It's also my creative outlet. Some people go home and sing. Some draw, some write. I create roles and work on characters."
His latest concoction, still a work in progress, is a red fox with black hair wearing John Lennon glasses with a personality loosely based on Dave Tennant's Dr. Who. He admits to owning a jackalope fursuit but he only wears it to conventions and has never had sex in it. He also clarifies that he does not do this to escape reality ("I'm quite happy with my life"); he does not think that the Welsh Corgie that just walked past the restaurant window is sexy ("Bestiality is not furry. That's somebody that's sick"); and he does not look at real animals any differently than you or I ("Everyone wonders what animals are thinking").
Like most geeks with hobbies, Strom and his furry friends seem to be able to distinguish between their real life and the imaginary world that they play in. Jaded Fox's parallel life is perhaps a tool of self-awareness and exploration. Strom tells me that Fox has evolved and matured since the early years, metamorphosing from gullible red fox to a witty kitsune. "The once-country bumpkin from Maine has turned into a lot more worldly character who can spot a con more likely than he could back in the day. It's been nearly 20 years, and as I've changed over those years, so has the character.
"I'm Josh. I'm an IT guy, I'm a video game geek, I'm a theater geek, and I'm furry. It's just one part of who
fox-paw
FBI DNA, Pa
The FBI and DNA
Part 1: Maintaining the Nationwide System that Helps Solve Crimes
11/23/11
The use of DNA—which carries individuals’ unique genetic information—to help solve crimes has become such a fundamental tool for law enforcement that it’s hard to believe this technique of matching unknown profiles to known offenders is a fairly recent phenomenon.
The FBI launched the National DNA Index System (NDIS) in 1998—along with the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) software to manage the program—and since that time it has become the world’s largest repository of known offender DNA records. Last year, in partnership with local, state, and federal crime laboratories and law enforcement agencies, CODIS aided nearly 25,000 criminal investigations.
Obtaining a DNA Profile
FBI.gov recently sat down with Douglas Hares, a Ph.D. scientist at the FBI Laboratory who is the custodian of the National DNA Database.
Q: How did the Bureau come to play such a key role in using DNA to help solve crimes?
Hares: DNA technology was first introduced in criminal court cases around 1988. When the FBI saw the potential for exchanging and comparing DNA profiles to help solve crimes—crimes that might not be solved in any other way—the concept of a national program was born. In 1994, Congress passed the DNA Identification Act, which gave the FBI authority to establish a national database. During the next few years, the FBI developed, tested, and implemented the CODIS software as well as training support for states authorized to collect DNA samples from offenders. In 1998, we started NDIS with nine participating states. Now, all 50 states participate, and NDIS currently contains over 10 million DNA profiles.
Q: What is a DNA profile?
Hares: A DNA profile, or type, is just a series of numbers. These numbers are assigned to an individual based on specific identification markers on his or her DNA molecule. In CODIS, those numbers represent a person’s one-of-a-kind DNA profile.
Q: How does CODIS use those profiles to solve crimes?
Hares: A forensic laboratory receives evidence in a criminal investigation and is asked to perform DNA testing on that evidence. The evidence may be part of a rape case or a homicide. Or maybe there is a murder weapon that contains DNA. The DNA profile obtained from the crime scene evidence is called a forensic unknown. The laboratory doesn’t know whose profile it is, but they know it is associated with the crime. The laboratory enters that profile into CODIS. If it’s a local case, the profile is entered into the local CODIS system and uploaded to the state level. At the state level, the profile will be compared with all the offenders from that state’s database. The forensic unknown may or may not match with other DNA records at the state level. On a weekly basis, the state uploads its DNA records to NDIS, the national level. We search the profile against all 50 states’ offender profiles to see if there is a match; if there is, the CODIS software automatically returns messages in the system to the laboratories involved. The local labs evaluate the matches and release that information to the law enforcement agency. That is how a previously unknown DNA profile is associated with a known offender.
Q: Who has access to CODIS?
Hares: By federal law, access is generally limited to criminal justice agencies for law enforcement identification purposes. That federal law also authorizes access for criminal defense purposes, to a defendant in connection with his or her case. CODIS was designed to ensure the confidentiality of the DNA record. No personal identifiers, such as name, social security number, or date of birth are stored in CODIS.
Next: High-profile cases, cold cases, and more.
Resource:
- More about CODIS
via fbi.gov
FBI HoliTips
Holiday Shopping Tips
In advance of the holiday season, the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reminds shoppers to beware of cyber criminals and their aggressive and creative ways to steal money and personal information.
Scammers use many techniques to fool potential victims including fraudulent auction sales, reshipping merchandise purchased with a stolen credit card, sale of fraudulent or stolen gift cards through auction sites at discounted prices, and phishing e-mails advertising brand name merchandise for bargain prices or e-mails promoting the sale of merchandise that ends up being a counterfeit product.
Here are some tips you can use to avoid becoming a victim of cyber fraud:
- Do not respond to unsolicited (spam) e-mail.
- Do not click on links contained within an unsolicited e-mail.
- Be cautious of e-mail claiming to contain pictures in attached files, as the files may contain viruses. Only open attachments from known senders. Always run a virus scan on attachment before opening.
- Avoid filling out forms contained in e-mail messages that ask for personal information.
- Always compare the link in the e-mail to the web address link you are directed to and determine if they match.
- Log on directly to the official Web site for the business identified in the e-mail, instead of “linking” to it from an unsolicited e-mail. If the e-mail appears to be from your bank, credit card issuer, or other company you deal with frequently, your statements or official correspondence from the business will provide the proper contact information.
- Contact the actual business that supposedly sent the e-mail to verify that the e-mail is genuine.
- If you are requested to act quickly or there is an emergency, it may be a scam. Fraudsters create a sense of urgency to get you to act impulsively.
via fbi.gov
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