Okay third and last speaker of this session is and I tried it I trained it a little bit cost us Papa Giannopoulos an amazing attempt thank you it's very polite of you and he will speak about low-randomness masking and shuffling and evaluation using mutual information thank you Benedict so like the rest of the talks during this session we will be discussing masking are the infamous countermeasure that can actually at least try to hide intermediate values from the prying eyes of an adversary now we will also be discussing shuffling of the countermeasure that actually likes to reorder cipher operations and confuse the adversary but unlike the previous talk we will not be extending the previous properties we will not delve deeper into glitching or glitch resistance we will be looking at randomness so as a quick overview of the talk we will discuss first that masking and shuffling actually are very painful when it comes to random number generation they take a lot of time to do that and we will propose some new countermeasure variants that actually recycle randomness they are better at it of course computational performance does not come free and then we will be discussing about pitfalls and formal security and how does recycling damage the noise amplification stage of masking and shuffling so let me get right onto it we will start with a quick introduction about masking and shuffling most of which has been already mentioned so masking is probably one of the most popular countermeasures in the community it asks the adversary to recombine shares and if you split it into eight pieces then it will become very hard to perform a recombination and we really it has the property of noise amplification and we really really like this property because actually it has an exponential effect in the number of traces you need to attack the implementation more importantly masking is very computationally demanding so if you implement this as a high Wagner then you are looking at quadratic randomness complexity there have been more recent works that have been improving on this bound from belay the tall but still even under this improved situations then you still have quite a big overhead that you are about to face and this conclusions and persists throughout masking most of its variants and sometimes go into higher-order threshold implementation so no matter what you do you will face the RNG cost now similarly shuffling is also quite widely deployed it permits blocks so if you are processing in a serial fashion the S boxes of a cipher and then you will go from one two three and four and you will permute their order perhaps three one four two and again the countermeasure performs no noise amplification in a different way than masking but still and of course it comes in with an RG overhead which is approximately K log K random bits if you want to shuffle K things around so from our experience so far implemented ciphers a protected ciphers in several devices we we have agreed that the RNG is quite a considerable performance over here just to give you some taste of the figures some people have tried to implement a second-order AES on AVR and they use the pseudo random number generator and these were the results like roughly 38% of the total computation time will spend on RNG or when we try to implement second-order present on an ARM Cortex M4 and we decided to use the true RNG that came in packed together with this device then we were in this situation so roughly one out of four cycles was wasted in RNG and if we go into even more extreme cases how about a fourth-order AES implementation that is actually quite fast because of neon assembly but does the terrible mistake of using randomness from the view random then the situation will be really ugly so of course this is a very naive case people won't really do that but at least it shows that if you do not put the required attention into RNG then you may face this situation like a very fast cipher and very slow RNG all right but we decided to do something about that so in this spirit we looked more into it and looked out into other works that were exploring this concept of reusing or recycling randomness while masking around and I feel the best way to explain this is through an example so like previous presentations let's take a look again at this size a high Wagner let's assume two multiplications both of them are second-order secure and both and they are completely independent from each other so if you feel like you can think of them as two different execution of a cipher or two different computations that they do not link to each other and in the first one you have to produce produce z equal x times y the second one sees equal a times b and in order to do that you can see the formula with the partial products and highlight it in green you can see the random numbers that are necessary that it is a necessity to inject them if you are to maintain security so the first step was yeah let's think very simply and let's try to reuse some numbers from the first multiplication store them perhaps in memory and then reuse them in the later multiplication so it would look a bit like this now instead of using T 0 and T 1 we'll replace them with W 0 and W 1 which we already have generated before you know to reduce the randomness cost by two numbers which doesn't seem a lot but if you put in like if you see the big picture the AES S box will have lots of those multiplications so in any case it will be beneficial on the long run then natural question that comes is like all right now you have a very strange gadget that consists of two multiplication gadget and you want to prove that this is secure in some sense so using the formal security tool by coron you can actually prove that this two multiplication gadget is to an ISO so far so good you're resting well the next step is to you know become a little bit greedy and try to recycle more so I thought yeah well why not grab all of them and use them in the second one they are independent it should be okay and this actually will reduce the random the randomness cost even more however once you throw again it the thing into the tool the tool will complain it will tell you this isn't secure for example check values at two XOR C2 I have found it to probing attack that can actually a to topple consisting of two intermediate values that can actually break the thing because W 1 and W 2 here and here will actually cancel out with W 1 and W 2 here so in the end we can observe that if you recycle excessively you will be hurting probing security even between independent gadgets the last step of this let's say search was to actually look around for efficient multiplication gadgets so we did try to look for a size a high Wagner gadgets of security order one two and three if you do not recycle using this gadget and two multiplications then you're looking at two six or twelve random elements needed in your computation while if you do recycle then you can drop it down to one four or eight so there is a well let's say 20 to 30 percent improvement in this situation it can be actually quite helpful given that R&G is often slow even let's say the more no randomness aware BBP gadget which was published by Bella Ed et al this already had in mind randomness and it already tried to reduce randomness but if you recycle on top of it you can still gain some nice margins and improve your situation alright so so far everything looks okay we can actually find non-interferent gadgets that actually recycle randomness and improve the situation but the problem actually starts when it we go we go away from the formal security and we move towards the noise amplification stage of masking so a reminder of the central limit theorem in our context at least let's assume that random number is being recycled and since it's being recycled you will emit several it will emit leakages multiple times let's say L1 L2 and LM all of them follow a normal distribution with a mean and standard deviation now if someone grabs those leakages and averages them then the new distribution will follow again and norm it will be again normal but the standard deviation will be divided by this factor over here so essentially I'm restating that someone who is able to observe those recyclings will be able to denoise the signal even if everything is fine even if the thing is probing secure it won't matter repetition will hurt you and this has been shown several times in the context of more horizontal attacks alright so in order to showcase this scenario and perform let's say more concrete noise analysis we define two adversaries so there is adversary C1 he's quite naive he doesn't see recycling and there's adversary C2 who can actually see recycle he can average and let's see how this will work out alright so here's the pitfall if you start from the solid red line over here then that is a third-order attack on using the naive adversary on something that actually is recycling but is recycling a modest amount of randomness and if you are compared to the actual situation you will see that the naive adversary cannot take advantage of it this is as good as attacking a third-order scheme without any difference now you will observe that the dust red line shifts to the right so an adversary who is able to see those repetitions he will be able to shift the curve to the right and reduce the security so the second observation is that we can actually exploit recycling to our advantage now finally if you move to the blue lines the first one is not recycling the second one is recycling a little bit so the dust blue line is moving to the right and if you really recycle a lot if you want to really cut down on the cost of RNG then you are moving towards a dotted line which is which may have a huge impact on security and finally perhaps the most important point of this graph is that this RRM this recycled randomness masking is actually a trade-off between security and randomness cost it's nothing more than that and it is very potent for the countermeasured designer to have such a trade-off in his hand that he can actually twist and turn a little bit on the randomness turn it up and down in order to fix the security that he aims for all right so we did talk about recycled randomness in masking we'll do the same thing in the suffering but it it is quite easier so let's take an abstract case of shuffling and here I have to shuffle three layers of a cipher and its layer has four blocks in it blocks could be anything like they could be whole cipher sections or it could be just assembly instructions or blocks of assembly instructions and the randomness cost to shuffling three layers independently and each one has four width will go around 24 bits of randomness if the formula is correct then a nice option is if you want to cut down on the randomness cost and we propose why don't you partition the layers instead of actually shuffling all four in columns well why don't you cut down a little bit and we call this partition shuffling with partition factor FP is equal to two and if you do that then you can recompute the randomness cost and it will actually reduce to 12 bits which is less than 24 so yeah we thought we got a small advantage over it all right so that's not the only options there actually quite a few one more is that instead of original shuffling we can actually do merge shuffling so we can merge the two layers so layer one and layer two used to be different but now we put them all together and we will shuffle them all together and we call this merge shuffling with merge factor FM is equal to two now again if you sit and compute the randomness cost for this then you have to shuffle two layers and this will again end up in approximately 16 bits which is less than 24 so again we feel that we got an advantage through our through our s as you might have already expected doing all those things increasing from let's say the original case where you do not partition and you do not show and you do not merge any layers and while shuffling and comparing to a case where you partition or to a case where you partition and show and merge then we will see a damage in the noise amplification stage of this thing so starting from the solid blue line this curve starts shifting to the right the more you merge and the more you partition or in general the more you cut down on randomness and of course it damages the noise amplification stage and once again I will restate the same thing that rrs is a trade-off that the counter measure designer has at his disposal and he can actually use it to make an implementation cheaper and less secure or the other way around so finally some future directions for this type of work and here I say towards parametric design for side channel counter measures I will explain this first and foremost we have demonstrated how to reduce the randomness cost in masking and shuffling and now I think it's time to start talking more about this random number generator I haven't seen that many open source implementations of this thing and I think it would be nice for the whole community to agree on what is actually required for an RNG used in masking or shuffling it will encourage more discussions I would encourage more discussions on this and more research towards this direction now second and perhaps more interestingly is that I would like to at least personally see more of a parametric approach when we design countermeasures and if for example in the modern countermeasures we just decide the order of masking we implemented in a device and that's it and up until let's say a few years ago we didn't have that many options there were several countermeasures people were implementing them but I feel that we start scratching more and more beneath the surface of those options so now instead of just the order of masking I can have I have so many variants to choose from I can choose X order masking that recycles random numbers merges a few layers and many more things so I have far more available options and compare what I used to so to close down this presentation I will start and I will attempt an analogy with actual architecture between shuffling and masking as countermeasure architecture and actual architecture so in the 70s or 80s it was the age of modernity and we used to have buildings that were built in the international style and the mantra was more like let's just pick the number of floors and then form service function that was the mantra of modernist designers and then like masking you just put many orders of masking in and that's it while I feel that now we have the ability to move towards a more parametric model so a bit like the turning torso in Sweden so which is essentially the same building but now we have a better understanding of structure so we can twist and mold it in a better form in a form that still serve function but in the form that optimizes the function itself and that pretty much concludes the talk so are there any questions questions for costas who wants the microphone it's really soft and don't be afraid all right I start so for the recycled masking you you require at some point that's basically basically pretty much everybody does that inputs or that these two operations that recycled they must be independent but for example if I implement an S-box I will have many multiplications that are not independent so then I need to add extra randomness to make them independent so that would be one option I think refreshing gadgets in between but then I would feel that this would defeat the whole purpose of it unless you have extremely higher order and the quadratic randomness hits you more than the linear randomness of the other gadgets but still I what I have in mind is different executions while storing in between the random numbers so you just you do one a situation you store those numbers and then you reuse them in the second iteration and then you have some sort of guarantee but of course this implies storage more questions comments no all right then we'll have a short break and we'll begin again at quarter past five thanks again to all the speakers of the session


Hey there YouTube, I just thought I'd show you what I've been doing with this LTC3780. I have put it into a little project box, as you can see. I have taken out the pots that were actually on the board, those square multi-term pots. Unfortunately I don't have any 500k multi-term pots or a 200k multi-term pot. All I had was two 500k single turns and a 250k single turn. But I will be swapping out the 250k with a 200k when it comes in. Yeah, I put a little voltage and amp meter on there. It's not the one I'm going to use but because I can't find the wires for the I've just put this in for now. It's the same size as one of these but it does have different power connections. So I can't just interchange it. But this is the higher resolution. I ended up chucking in a big old heatsink into this. One because it will make it very light and it didn't feel very nice with just this inside there. And giving it more heatsink can't really hurt it can it? And I used some thermal paste. It's got a heatsink on the back of this. It's got the aluminium heatsink on the back of this. But it's got two screws that go through and they sort of protrude out the other side. So in order for me to give a nice flat connection on this surface I've had to put it on it in such a way that the screws are just sat over the edge of the heatsink. And then I put some thermal paste in between it and used a load of capacitive gunk. This stuff that they put around capacitors on circuit boards. Because that will hold it down nice. I've used the same white plastic gunk. You can see that just underneath here. Down the edge to hold this in. And it is all held really nice. I'd give it a good old shake around. But I've got all these stuff wires and stuff attached so I don't really want to do that. I'll put a fan on the back to pull air away from here. It's quite good. I'll put a couple of diodes on the out to put one.  And I just put a couple of 6 amp diodes there to pull down the voltage as well. I don't need. I'll be fine with 26 and a half volts. For some reason my switch doesn't work. It seems to be in a closed position no matter where I put it. So I need to take that out and put a switch and at the minute I just had to stick the green and black wire together. So the power would come on of course. And this wire here is for the LED. The green LED. So the green LED doesn't work at the moment. The power LED works. But the green, to say that we're switched on, standby top LED doesn't work. That's a standby, isn't it? To say that we're switched on doesn't work. Because I need the switch. I put a fan. This is a 12 volt brushless fan. Because it's small it does make a bit of noise. I put a 100 amp resistor in line with that. Just to slow it down a bit. Just so it's not as noisy but it's going to be beneficial to be there I'm sure from time to time. So even though this isn't all put together just yet. You can sort of get the general gist of what I'm doing. This box, this unit, once it's got it's lid on it's going to look quite neat and compact. It's going to look something like that. And it's going to have this shrouding over the wires between here and here. So it's going to be sort of like 10 inches of move. Flexibility between this unit and this unit. Which leaves it, you know, some choices for me to have to locate this. Like it's on top of this. I can have this, you know, at the back somewhere and have this. So you can see it.  The power supply. The ATX box and have the supply maybe down here. But that's all for just trying to get it finished off. I just thought I'd show you this file because chances are, you know, I tried to make this video a few times and it kept messing up because this camera has been playing me up. There's a few you might have noticed over the last few videos of what it played up on me. I've done some experimenting with it. And I'm trying to get it so it doesn't keep playing up. So it'd be quite interesting to see if this video works out. But this is, I think this is the seventh time trying to record this. And I've missed bits out all along because when I was first putting this together, I was recording it and finding out that it wasn't actually recording, which is quite annoying. So I'm actually at the stage now where I'm thinking, well, you know, I'm going to be showing you the box finished very soon. I'm just going, I did it. So for the, you know, the ATX supply, I did all the regular stuff. I stuck a dummy load in between the highest amperage rails, which on this one is the five volt negative. So there is, I could do it again. I used 322 ohms because I didn't have any five ohm or 10 ohm resistors. But I've got a few 22 ohms, so I've got three together. I should be doing about 7.3 ohms at five watts. So that's plenty. There, that should be okay. I'm not going to use these 3.3. I'm not using the 12 volt negative. I'm not using these five volts or a couple of these negatives or these 12 volts. But I decided not to cut it all the way back because I may want to use them at some stage in the future for something. So I'll tape those up and just isolate them away from each other and just leave them in there, they'll be fine. And it will just be this nice tidy black shrouding coming out the back here and coming into the back here. I'll let it come partway through here and then I'll put some nice big clamping cable ties on there so they can't be pulled around. But it gives me some flexibility. Yeah, I'm just going to, I'm going to power it up. Just so you can see it working. I might have to just push it down a second. Push it down there. This is of course live, so I'd say to anybody playing around with this I'll be very, very careful.   It's not necessarily that it will, but it can. Put your hands in that high voltage side. Ah. I've got a few at the front of that yet. So I can just switch this on. Okay, sounds quite enough doesn't it? And that fans great when there's, it gets quite noisy when there's, when there's no resistor there, but it's okay when there is. So that's the reason I said zero is because the, it's because there's a load, I'd say 0.3. If it wasn't for this, I've got this 12 volt bulb here just for demonstration just to show that it's, it all works. I tend to talk about three volts and then just leave it to catch up with itself. Because look at this, like 2.2. And as that warms up, as that bulbs all went up the element, it's dropping down. The filament I should save the element. There's, there's the bulb. I'd switch this light off. Let's see. Turn this up. We can definitely, definitely pull some power through here. That's the sort of maximum, sort of four and a half. You can just back that down because I know that the wires between here and here won't be too, won't be too keen on, on that. Yeah. And it'll be even nicer when that green LED works. I'll be a lot happier when the green LED works. And just isolate that away from the mains. So that's it. That's, that's all I've done so far. And I shall, once I've got it all connected up and in place and this bulb and everything and the switch on I'll probably do another couple of minutes follow up. But for now, that's as far as I've got with it. So anyway, cheers for watching guys, if you've got this far and yeah, I'll catch you on the next one.


NBA superstar Kyrie Irving, who had one of the best-selling sneaker lines of all time, has just now signed with a Chinese brand called Anta. David, this is significant, man. Let's talk about it. Yeah, this is going viral. And of course, you know, on the hot-pot boys, I feel like we're perfectly positioned to understand all the different angles. This is going viral for several different reasons. They enter in a sneaker way, all the way to a geopolitical way. So, Ed, we got the whole gamut covered from silly to serious. We're about to break it down, get in the comment section, our own takeaways. But long story short, Andrew, Kyrie Irving is probably the highest profile athlete to sign a gigantic Chinese sneaker deal because he's signed for seven years with Anta. Clay Thompson's on there. Gordon Hayward's on there. But he's also going to be the creative director of Anta. So, he's kind of getting one of those old school Jordan brand deals where he's probably getting an equity split. He's probably getting all these other things that he would never get from your Nike Adidas Puma and things like that, right? And obviously, he's controversial. That's why he got dropped by Nike, despite having probably at the moment the number one selling sneaker line. I'm not saying people don't like Jordans, people don't like Kobe's, but you got to think, Andrew, the price point for Kyrie's and how much the kids just want to play like him. Kyrie was the top selling sneaker line in the whole basketball world. No, the kids love Kyrie. Kyrie low, Kyrie mid. They got all the different Kyrie's, man. So, make sure you like, subscribe, turn on your notifications, Andrew. For people who don't know, Andrew, Chinese brands have really, really been coming up in the basketball performance sneaker world. Yeah, I think that if you look at any sneaker reviewer from America and that's non-Asian, they still rank a lot of the Chinese brands at the top. Now, the thing about it is the reason why you don't see a lot of those shoes out is, to be honest, they're not at your full lockers. They're not available. They're not on amazon.com. You kind of have to get them from like certain sites that sell the Chinese shoes. Also, surprisingly enough, these basketball shoes made in China are not cheap. No, they're actually very expensive. For example, Andrew, the way of way 10 retails for like 250 in America. And oftentimes due to, you know, whatever geopolitical things that are going on. There's like a $40 tax on top of that. So sometimes you could pay up to $300 for a pair of way away. Right. So of course, that shoe honestly is a really good shoe. Now, is it worth $300? That's up to you to decide. But David, you were talking to somebody and this we're going to get into the comment section soon, right? But because you're really into sneakers, performance sneakers, you have, you talk to somebody that's deep in the performance sneaker game. What did they say? With a lot of deep contacts in the industry, basically they were saying that the Chinese brands are allotting their designers bigger budgets to create the shoes. So they're not cheaping out. Whereas the Western brands are more in a mode where they are trying to maximize shareholder value. So even though some of the technologies are still amazing. For example, you know, Jordan has like eclipse plates and like double stacked zoom there. They may be cutting corners on materials in other places to maximize profit margin. All right, David. Now, thinking of all the other industries that we know or kind of like product lines, like would you say that Chinese basketball sneakers rank relatively way higher in their arena amongst basketball sneakers than any other like Chinese product that you know, like, like maybe in drones, DJI drones. Chinese drones rank very high. And then Chinese sneakers, they rank higher than Chinese cars. Yeah. I would say honestly, Chinese sneakers are like only number two to Nike right now. They have far surpassed Adidas basketball. I'm not saying Adidas doesn't have some good shoes, but Adidas basketball is bad. Well, they're just not putting a lot. Adidas is not putting a lot of money into the basketball department. And if you think about China, if we're talking about multiple Chinese brands, yes, they're putting in collectively way more money than Adidas and probably Puma. Yeah, because basketball is the number one sport in China that people love to play. But Nike is still king right now. But anyways, guys, second is number two is still pretty good. Somebody said, man, he is about to change the sneaker game, mark my words. I never thought I would be buying a pair of Anta's. Guess I'm rocking Anta now. Somebody said Nike fumbled hard, man. Yeah, they got rid of Kyrie for jaw. And then look what happened to John. Nike is not okay. But let's talk about this because Anta is actually probably what the second number Chinese shoe brand like behind me is number one. Yeah. Leaning is number one. Anta is number two. But because Kyrie Irving is signing with Anta and Kyrie shoes are such good performers, everybody loves them. Generally, people are going to believe that this Anta is going to be good for them. Like if Kyrie likes it and can do all the crossovers, do a little dribble, hesitate to drop cross, then other people are going to be able to wear them too. Yeah. Like you're going to believe that this is going to be a high quality shoe. And it's probably not going to be cheap. No. Somebody said, man, I think Kyrie just watched that movie air about Jordan and got inspired. But the thing is nobody in the US is going to care about Chinese brands. Yeah. So this was this is kind of funny. Is it real though that like, even though you see Anta ads on the court side of the NBA, it's like you walk those ads are mostly for the China market. You can't buy it. You can't go to the store and pick up Anta's. Yeah. I do. You think it's going to change? Do you think with this gigantic shoe deal that Kyrie got? Is it for just the China domestic market? Because that you got to think the China domestic market is so big. They could pay Kyrie a ton of money and they're still going to recoup just domestically. Yeah. I don't know, but it seems like because Kyrie is the biggest international basketball star that you've ever signed, you would want to try to get the shoes more available.  You know what I mean on Amazon, but they got a full size run. Do you think that that would be enough of a distribution outlet?  But like if just Amazon got a unlimited stash. If you just made them available, I think some people are going to buy them. Now, they might not be the $120, $110 Kyrie shoes, right? You know how you got Kyrie Lowe's coming from Nike? It's true. Yeah, it's way cheaper. American brands selling in America, they can push. Yeah, Nike is expensive in China. Chinese brands are cheaper in China. Exactly, exactly. Somebody said, ain't nobody wearing a Chinese brand, man? And somebody said, hey man, nobody was wearing underarm before Steph Curry either. Yeah. No, I do think people are going to find it hard to wear a Chinese brand. Period. Like that's true. It just is. But a lot of people don't even want to wear Adidas because Adidas is a German brand. Right. But the real sneakerheads, if you watch reviewers on YouTube of all, and they're coming from all different races and backgrounds guys. Right. This is not just racially buying. Like what? No, I'm not just saying the Asian reviews. I'm literally saying everybody, if you watch the reviews enough, they all rank like leanings and antas fairly high. So I'm just saying like, I think I'm not saying that everybody's going to be wearing Chinese shoes, but maybe in five, 10 years, it depends on how well the Kyrie line goes. It's already started in China. People are really wearing domestic brands a lot. Somebody said, oh man, what happened to Clay now? Anta is Kyrie's brand. And somebody said, oh, I already know the traction is going to be crazy. I'll tell you this, Andrew. The things that Chinese shoes are known for is comfort and traction. Yeah. This next comment said, man, Kyrie Irving has just been a disappointment. Since he won the championship with LeBron ever since Boston, then to the Nets with Durant. Now Dallas with Donchich and then his controversy and him getting dropped. And now he's with a Chinese shoe brand. It just seems like Kyrie's going downhill. Can you understand why people would think that Kyrie's career is going down because he signed with the Chinese shoe brand? It seems like people, I think the general feeling is from people that don't know sneakers. They think that when people sign with a Chinese shoe brand, it's just for the money. You're saying it's like having to go play over in the CBA? It's like, oh, better learn Mandarin, buddy.  That's what people feel. I don't think so because if you watch Kyrie play, his efficiency splits are going up and he's got as many highlights as he's ever had. He might not be doing the super low sweeping crossovers, but he's got, he's gotten so intricate. He does stuff, Andrew, that I've never ever seen. And I'll probably never see again in the NBA every game. Yeah, you know, when we signed Kyrie Irving to Anta, we believe he is still have at least like six, seven gray more years. And he is going to put on a show and he could also change basketball in China. Yeah. I mean, right now the Anta athletes are clay. He has eight shoes and Gordon Hayward has four shoes and some of them are pretty good looking. I do think this is a little bit of an aside, Andrew, on Dallas, they're going to need like a facilitator because I think Luca and Kyrie beat both being score first in the back court. They're going to need like almost like if Ben Simmons can get his mental right or like Mike Conley, they're going to need to do something. Somebody said, hey, how come everybody's saying all these political things when Kyrie does something, but nobody said anything when Austin Reeves just signed a million dollar deal with the Chinese brand Rigor. Yeah. Austin Reeves signed a seven figure deal with Rigor. And Austin Reeves obviously also got a bigger contract from the Lakers recently. I would say Austin Reeves and also he's from Arkansas. He's like a true blood American. So if you're mad at Americans, I'm just saying Austin Reeves, who is like your, your favorite white boy from the Lakers corn fed. No. And he seems like a really nice guy, cool guy, super American. Parents were former athletes. He just signed with a Chinese brand. I don't know what this means. Everybody's doing political man. We're going to get into the political comments later. Andrew, some people said, how come he didn't sign with a black owned brand or make his own brand? Somebody said a Chinese company. What? Why didn't you sign with a African American owned or native American shoe company? Yeah. Actually, I thought that I'm sure he took a look because I think that would have fallen well within his image and his message. And I think that would have been cool for Kyrie to do. If there was a competitive shoe brand out there that was black owned or native American owner, whatever, whatever like fit within his identity that he signed with, I think that would have been cool too. But to be honest, the Chinese shoes, they're pretty good. I mean, they make all the American shoes over there too. We're talking about like manufacturing capacities like at an 11 out of 10. Yeah. And also, I do think guys Kyrie, if he's really trying to make an impact in this world, and if he feels like at all he can impact China or at least Chinese basketball at all. And he's got the size.  Yeah. I mean, I think the chief creative officer role, Andrew is huge because like you said, no Western brand is going to offer Kyrie that high profile of a role because they're like probably scared of him because he has made controversial statements in the past, at least controversial too, especially to be honest, more like more. Yeah. The Western. I mean, if you believe in Kyrie and his belief in his mission, actually, I think this is actually a pretty good way of making an impact globally because anyways. Somebody said it's funny that the guy who talks about human rights signs with the company from one of the countries that has the least human rights, selling his soul to disingenuous Chinese company. Somebody said, yeah, what is he going to put out CCP sneakers? That's actually no again. I think that there's a chance he believes that he can actually make an impact and help and start change. Like think about it. He's the creative officer. He gets to do all these different cool designs with the Chinese brands sell it in China.  Guys, trust me. He has reach out. I would not be surprised if he builds his own brand. Sort of how like D'Angelo Russell is signed under way of Wade and way of Wade is under leaning. Yeah. Yeah. Um, somebody said all Nike shoes and all shoes everywhere from any brand are all made in China anyway. So what's your point? And then of course the end of we're getting to the really geopolitical ones where someone was like Kyrie is a trader.  And somebody said, yeah, unfortunately, these NBA players only care about issues they can relate to. So they only focus on issues that disproportionately affect African Americans and they don't really care about all this other stuff that we care about. Um, obviously this comment was from a white person and this kind of like we care about. Yeah, you know what I mean? This this went into a whole thing. So it's like, I don't know, man.  We're talking about Muhammad Ali burning up his draft card, saying no via Kong ever called me an N word. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it's big statement. It's crazy. Yeah. I mean, what do you think about this, Andrew? Like, why is it like they're expecting Kyrie to think like Donald Rumsfeld? I think people don't like to see Americans turn their back. I don't think Kyrie is turning his back and I, but I see like, are you going to, are you going to get mad at all the other NBA players? Because you already know, based off what Kyrie said, he's already not the most supportive of your goals. So I guess you got to get mad at like the Fred Van Fleets and the Austin Reeves and the Gordon Hayward. Gordon Hayward, Austin Reeves. Those are your white boys. Those are white American boys. You know, some of the best white American players in the NBA and they signed a shoe deal with China. So I'm just saying, if you're going to get mad at Kyrie, you got to get mad at them too. I'm not saying get mad at anybody. I've been chenzo better not go over there. I've given up on the NBA a long time ago.  Now, like somebody said, well, what have the Chinese done to Kyrie? They never had his ancestors in bond. You know what? Never mind. Dude, you know what? We could go on and on guys. A sneaker deal got politicized. Okay. Anything that has to do with China is getting politicized. But David, I guess overall like what are your takeaways? Like do you think Kyrie has this other motive that's like, man, you know, I could change the world through China because China is trying to change the world right now and America is competing with China. I can be this bridge between the East and the West. Yeah, I do think that Kyrie thinks about that. I don't know how many of his thoughts are geopolitical, but I do know that he thinks a lot about identity and a lot about culture. And I do think that answers really going to give him a lot of space to represent all the identities that he wants in his sneaker line. And I'm sure upcoming clothing line. And I'm sure he'll be able to sign athletes that he relates to, like underneath his, you know, the umbrella subdivision they give him. Yo, this one comment that was like, oh, good. Kyrie Irving, the most responsible person to put in a position of like the corporate business. It's like, yeah, Kyrie is like, oh, the creative director. Wow. I mean, obviously there is a potential for this deal to be very volatile too. Yes. Yeah. Especially if Kyrie criticizes China or something like that, which I, you know, it could be. Yeah, it's going to be interesting, man. It's going to be interesting. I don't know. Somebody said, you know, people are just mad because it just feels like the U.S. is not the world leader anymore. This was addressing all the comments of being like, man, the NBA sold out LeBron is a CCP asset and all that stuff. I mean, I do think, do you think the other brands are worried about seeing this when you see Kyrie? Now Kyrie to certain brands are like, well, I don't even want to mess with Kyrie anymore. So I'm done with him. But like when they see him signed with a Chinese brand, this only means that more and more superstars potentially are going to sign with Chinese brands. It only means that. I mean, for sure. It reminds me a lot of when Japanese cars enter the U.S. market in the mid 80s into the 90s. You know what I mean? Like people were like, you ain't a true American if you're buying these Japanese to Yotas and Hondas because they're profits is going back to Yokohama. You know what I mean? And it's just like, dude, we live in a globalized world now. Of course, to be honest, do I think that there is a higher proportion of white people who feel like patriotic in a in a more way that minorities do not feel? Right. I do think so. And I do think that they have more like, I mean, some people are going to say it's whether it's patriotic or redneck or hillbilly, the way that white people process American patriotism is very different than a lot of minorities. Yeah, that's true. How did it get that way, guys? I can only guess. I'm sure we can make 10 videos about that. Let us know what you think of Kyrie Irving signing with Anta in the comment section below. Is it good? Is it bad? And what do you guys think of the sneakers? Until next time.


I grew up in the church. I was in my church's band.  These people have views that are anti-human while they're the ones here preaching love each other Love everyone. I'm like you hate your neighbor like you were you're the ones telling me that gay people deserve to burn in hell I'm afraid it's actually quite a bit worse than that The Bible teaches that we all deserve to go to hell because of our sins against God and you may say That's pretty extreme because I'm a good person but that's part of the problem You see we create a standard of goodness that we can fulfill But God's standard of goodness is much loftier than ours because it's based on his character A lot of people get offended by the Bible's definition of sin because it hits us where it hurts Jesus calls us to abandon our sinful desires that we took on as identity in exchange for a new identity in him That can only come about by his grace and transforming work that was made possible through his sacrifice on our behalf on The cross lay down your pride and put your faith in him


generation, and generation will alter to the representative of the community who we are. Thank you all for being here. I have the reporters to tell us what their group topic was and then share their one big idea that the rest of the group needs to know. Let's get started. And reporters, Mehmet from the dialogue institute is a member of our planning community. And you see him shaking his head in the urban. Okay? So thanks Mehmet. Okay. So our first reporter, tell us your name, the group topic, and then your one big idea. Hello everybody, my name is Mehmet Ramon. And I'm basically a group where we build communities with refugees. Our final resolution was that we need to support the local groups that are already working like the Center for refugee services, Catholic Characters, ISIS, and some of the groups that we came across during the time that we were doing our discussion. So we need to support those groups because they already have the infrastructure. They're working with those individuals. We just need to support them. Thank you for having me in your group. So working to support the organizations that are already working to serve refugees. So we just talked about what we think is influencing laws and policies right now. And you realize that the unfortunate truth is that fear is a basis in which we've been driving all the misconceptions that we have. Whether that be in the agenda that the media is pushing, political leaders, or even our local political leaders with the state. So it's really breaking that idea of fear that's been facilitating for us. We need to focus not only on our state, but really in our own homes. We need to talk to our families, talk to our children about the issues that have helped them understand that we are all equal. That really was a really moving sight to see the majority of the groups stand up when that question was asked. Whose grandparents, whose great-grandparents, or they we've solved for immigrants. Definitely to start it at home is what we figured out. Wonderful. Thank you Michael and your group for moving tolerance in inclusive communities. We decided that a tolerant inclusive community is created by a non-judgmental, safe, informed, and engaged community through personal interactions starting with ourselves in our neighborhoods and schools. Wonderful. Thank you for telling me that. So creating a safe community through connection and focusing on ourselves in our schools. Our group was 4A, which was to refer to misconception and misrepresentation of refugees. And we talked about all the misconceptions that people in the country have toward refugees. And we came up with re-establishing the value of welcoming community, practicing a visible hospitality, welcoming an inclusion by building relationships that need to be built into the people by overcoming fear. But one thing I want to add as a former refugee is that no one become a refugee by choice. But you become a refugee by choice. Thank you. Thank you for the visible hospitality. How does the refugee program work and how can I get involved? And our main concern was that there's only a four to six month time span of which the families have to become self-sufficient. So we realized that everyone can offer something to help such as their time or monetary donations, also donating their talent or their professional expertise. We had some medical professionals in our group who were interested in helping with refugees' medical needs and they just didn't know where to plug in to do that. Also education, somebody who can become, you know, in English as a second language teacher, even if they're not trained as a teacher, there's still something that they can offer to help. And then lastly, one of the things that we thought they could offer is advocacy, just spreading the word about who are refugees, why are they here, what do they need to be successful. Wonderful. Thank you. So as we think about how we can help refugees, there's way for everyone to donate their time, talent and treasure. Thank you. Hello, my name is John and I was with the state. We talked about trying to dispel misconceptions about how we talk about immigrants, especially using the correct vocabulary and learning the laws that describe immigrants in different situations. Okay, so accuracy in language matters. Thank you to your group. Okay, my name is Jane Koboskis and I work with the group of how to create tolerant and inclusive communities. And I am the Mexican-American who's lived here all my life. I'm 70 years old. And when I first got up, when they asked, stand up if you have relatives who had come from another country and being of Native American blood and me and Mexican-American and my mother telling me that we were always from Texas and maybe the border kept on jumping around and it moved around us. So it got me to thinking that how could I as a person of Mexican-American descent feel like I am an immigrant because they're still telling me to go home, to go back to where I came from. And so I feel like how could you feel to welcome people when I myself do not feel welcomed. And so we're saying that conversation outside reach and open up and be open to education. We have to treat people as people. Mindfulness, self-awareness. Thank you, Jane. We did fear of the others and misperceptions. And I think we discussed that it's important to engage and educate across multiple levels. So the natural, the community and the self. National level, of course, that would be getting in touch with politicians and encouraging them to perhaps change policies. The community level is more events like this. Other events that reach people across the community, perhaps those who are not like-minded because at events like this we're going to have more people who feel the same way we do, but we need to combat and overcome misperceptions and misperceptions, which means reaching out to people who think differently from us. And so we talked about different ways that we could do that, such as cultural events across the city like Eid and Diwali and the Day of the Dead festival. And then on a personal level, inviting those who are perhaps refugees or immigrants in our neighborhood, or volunteering at a local or religious center, or teaching in English, or if somebody mentioned, if you're at H&B and you see somebody who looks like they're struggling, who they might be new to the country, just reaching out to them, smiling at them and letting them know you're a friendly case who will go miles and miles and miles toward making that person feel more at home. Wonderful. Thank you. Okay, ours was a circle topic, 5B. How is entrepreneurship and leadership by former immigrants and refugees changing the city for the better? When we're talking about how vibrant it makes the city whenever we have new businesses being opened up, now good for the economy it is to have people come and open up new businesses, and to have these different cultures in our city. And we talked about the things that we can do to help people who come to our country and to our city to help them open these businesses that they want to. One of the big things that we were thinking about is having a central resource for small business start-up and supporting multi-cultural type of businesses. Some place where we can tell people, well, this is where you can go to get a small business loan, this is where you can go to get this, maybe, climate people to employ and things like that. Also, positive support for refugees and countering fears with rich contributions, people stepping up to help the refugees whenever they need it, especially other business owners who have already been here for a long amount of time. Invite helpers and supporters of refugees to participate and show my example. One, we, for the sale, how do we build community with refugees? And we brought in the common theme of all of our discussion is language, and how are any difficult things for English speakers is 95x10, or people who don't speak English. So one of the solutions that we came up with was more opportunities for English practice, including conversations. We had a weekly conversation about what the folks could go to and speak with refugees who were practicing their English. That would, one, help them practice their English. And two, help overcome fear of the other and misperceptions and misperceptions of refugees as folks who are only worthy of service acts and not full human beings. Wonderful. So creating connections through English language, running out with communities. I want to thank all of our very rich, our long conversation in a very short amount of time. So let's give our reporters all a big round of applause.


Item number SCP-4007 Object Class Keter Special Containment Procedures Primary containment of SCP-4007 consists of investigation in the SCP-4007-5 location. MTF-551, MacArthur's dogs, are currently spearheading the investigation efforts, as well as drafting plans for SCP-4007-5's capture. Additionally, the Foundation has a standing agreement with SCP-4007-4 that allows the anomaly to have limited mobility in the field under Foundation monitoring, thanks to the alignment of goals between the anomaly and the Foundation. SCP-4007-4 should be considered a high-value intelligence asset for information concerning SCP-4007 and SCP-4007-5. Description SCP-4007 is a collective designation for five anomalous individuals, informally known as the Ping-Fang-5, who formed a special operations unit serving under Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Japanese Bioweapons and Chemical Warfare Department, known for human experimentation and vivisection. All five individuals receive multiple anomalous abilities over the course of the Second World War. While each individual received different abilities, a number of properties, both anomalous and otherwise, are common to all instances that the Foundation has encountered to date, such as Extended Longevity SCP-4007-4 remains in excellent physical condition, despite chronologically being a centenarian. Extended physical abilities, including, but not limited to, faster reflexes, improved senses, increased physical strength. Ability to speak multiple languages, primarily Japanese, English, Mandarin Chinese, Russian, and German. Intelligence and Special Forces Training To date, all encountered SCP-4007 instances have shown an unwillingness to accept the end of the Second World War. Similar to other non-anomalous Japanese holdouts, SCP-4007 instances have maintained that their missions are not yet complete, and thus require them to be in the field and operating under their original orders. To date, only SCP-4007-4 has shown any willingness to cooperate with Foundation personnel, though it has refused to acknowledge the end of the war, even when shown direct evidence of such. Prior to Foundation encounters with SCP-4007, all instances of the anomaly remain active and at large throughout the territory formerly held by the Empire of Japan during the Second World War. At present, two instances, SCP-4007-4 and SCP-4007-5 remain alive, though only SCP-4007-5 is considered to be uncontained. More detailed information on SCP-4007's history and composition is included below. SCP-4007 Overview SCP-4007's origins lie in a collaboration between the Imperial Japanese Anomalous Matters Examination Agency, IJA-MEA, and Unit 731. A Meiji-era branch of the Japanese military that specialized in paranormal research now officially defunct. Utilizing IJA-MEA's research into anomalous objects, along with Unit 731's development of Project Shinka, SCP-4007 was created as a combination of stealth infiltration and special forces unit capable of working in highly dangerous environments within hostile territory and completing otherwise extremely difficult objectives of the Imperial Japanese military, both as an entire unit and as individual operatives. Over the course of the war, SCP-4007 fought in nearly every major theater of operations that the Imperial Japanese military engaged in during the war, though it primarily operated in Republican Chinese territory during the majority of the war, leading to their informal designation as the Ping-Fang-5. By 1945, SCP-4007 was largely recalled from field work in order to aid in the defense of the Japanese home island. However, given the different locations in which SCP-4007 instances have been encountered post-war, it is believed that individual SCP-4007 operatives were given a new set of orders in 1945. The reasoning behind this, as well as the contents of said orders, remain unknown. In 1935, under the banner of Medical Research, Unit 731 was established as the Imperial Japanese Military Research Division of Ping-Fang, China. During the course of the war, Unit 731 became notorious for its biological warfare testing, as well as its use of human vivisection and experimentation, both of which were performed by unquestionably abducted Chinese civilians, captured foreign POWs, political dissidents, and convicted criminals. By 1937, it is believed that Unit 731 became aware of the existence of anomalous individuals, leading to the creation of Project Shinka, the predecessor program that would birth SCP-4007. Apotheosis in Japanese On March 21, 1936, Director Shiro Ishii made the following internal announcement. It is now known to me that our mission is not only one of science, but also one of divine enlightenment. Certain individuals have been granted powers uncommon to the main population of this world. By chance of nature, these individuals have attained nearly godlike status over others, and yet so few of these maruta that we have detained use them as they should. Japanese word for log, informal name for human test subjects due to Unit 731's cover story as a sawmill. Science is the vehicle by which man attains mastery over nature. To impose one's will on nature, the showcase the superiority that we know we have been given, and to push the boundaries of what is possible. These are the rights by which science shows us the way. Our work here has proven instrumental to expanding our knowledge, and to securing the future of our nation. Logically, the take another's power and to grant it to our own is the next step in ensuring that our future is always secure, no matter the threat we may face. Project Shinka would see a massive surge in abductions, as Japanese Kempeitai began targeting anomalous individuals in Japanese-held territory and abducted them for Unit 731 research. Japanese Secret Military Police Thousands of test subjects were subjected to vivisection procedures consisting of live removal of anomalous organs and body parts in order to see if said parts would function outside the original host. Additionally, forced breeding programs in an attempt to create more live test subjects also became common, as anomalous individuals in the civilian population became scarce. It is believed that this mass anomalous genocide directly led to the uncommonly lower currents rate of anomalous East Asian individuals in the Foundation's database, relative to the size of the East Asian population. The next phase of Project Shinka began in 1937, as Unit 731 and IJA-MEA began grafting anomalous organs and body parts onto Imperial Japanese military volunteers in order to give them anomalous abilities, in the belief that these individuals will become better soldiers. Due to limited technology, as well as limited knowledge of organ transplant rejection, the majority of the volunteers in this phase died due to post-transplant complications. Additionally, of the surviving volunteers, the vast majority did not have anomalous capabilities transferred to them, or did not have any control over their grafted anomalous abilities. However, by virtue of chance, at least five individuals would survive these procedures intact, and with at least some control over their anomalous properties. These individuals would go on to form SCP-4007. Individual instances of SCP-4007 had demonstrated a wide range of anomalous properties, which were intended to allow them to work together as a team more effectively. Information interactions, biographical information, and operational history on each specific instance is included below. SCP-4007-1 Name- 1st Lieutenant Mitsuo Katano Original Codename- Inazuma, Lightning Bolt Data Birth- 07-1905 Description- Nominal Commander of the Unit, SCP-4007-1 possessed anomalous ability to generate lightning, but was not immune to the effects of its post-generation. Status Terminated Operational History SCP-4007-1 was extensively deployed in the Burmese Theater during the war, where it was utilized to burn down large segments of jungle in an effort to reduce cover and drive out Burmese and British Indian Army soldiers. Additionally, as Ranking Leader of SCP-4007, SCP-4007-1 took part in numerous joint operations in Japanese-occupied China. Following the war, SCP-4007-1 was identified by Foundation Assets as having returned to Eastern Burma, where it was holding out in Shand State. Foundation Interactions- 010-1946 SCP-4007-1 is identified by Republican Chinese soldiers stationed in the area, who mistook SCP-4007-1 for a Communist Chinese guerrilla. SCP-4007-1 begins attacking Republican Chinese forces at this time. 010-1946-22-1947 SCP-4007-1 conducts a guerrilla campaign against Republican Chinese soldiers, systematically striking at numerous Chinese army camps and installations, severely reducing manpower and cajoling state Burma. At least 500 casualties are recorded in this time span, not including civilian residents of the region. 010-22-1947 Foundation Containment Team tracks down SCP-4007's location and attempts to apprehend the anomaly. SCP-4007-1 burns down a large segment of the Burmese jungle during its escape, killing one Foundation agent and four civilians. 010-1948-1948 MTF-551 is officially established and task was capturing SCP-4007-1. 020-1948-1948 MTF-551 conducts Operation Smokehouse, entrapping SCP-4007-1 within an enclosed section of jungle. SCP-4007-1 attempts to burn its way out of the jungle to clear a path, but becomes trapped inside the zone at MTF-551 and closed off. When the fire had burned out, SCP-4007-1's body was found within the zone, and believed to have expired due to smoke inhalation. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. SCP-4007-2 Name, Private Takashi Honda Original codename, Oni, Ogre Date of birth, February 3, 1919 Description SCP-4007-2 possessed anomalously resistant skin, allowing it to withstand forces exceeding that of small arms fire without harm. Status, terminated. Operational History SCP-4007-2 was deployed as a supplement to Japanese Special Operations Units, frequently serving in a frontline role as shock infantry, as well as providing supporting fire when needed. SCP-4007-2 saw significant action in the Philippines during the war. Foundation Interactions, unknown through March 25, 1949 SCP-4007-2 is believed to have been holding out in central Luzon, Philippines. March 25, 1949 SCP-4007-2 is first identified by Philippine Army soldiers, who mistook the anomaly for a member of the insurgent Hukbala Hop group during an engagement between SCP-4007-2 and the soldiers. The anomaly killed five soldiers, and caused an additional 17 casualties before escaping. First insurgency in the Philippines, at war with the Philippine government at the time. March 25, 1949 To June 14, 1951 SCP-4007-2 is largely unaccounted for during the span, though it would sporadically be brought back to Foundation attention and sparse engagements with Philippine Army units. An estimated 40 casualties were reported during this time, although conflicting reports of SCP-4007-2 and Huk insurgents made it difficult to establish the source of these casualties. June 14, 1951 MTF-551 tracks down SCP-4007-2 and attempts to contain the anomaly. However, SCP-4007-2 kills half of the pursuing task force and escapes containment once more. December 20, 1951 Through July 21, 1957 SCP-4007-2 is entirely unaccounted for during this span of time. No engagements or sightings are known to have happened during this span. June 22, 1957 SCP-4007-2 had rapidly resurfaced on a minor island of the Philippines, off the coast of Quezon Province. The MTF-551 immediately launches a new operation to contain the anomaly. In a resulting engagement, designated Operation Home Wrecker, SCP-4007-2 inflicted heavy casualties on the MTF-551, forcing it to disengage and call in an airstrike. In the aftermath, SCP-4007-2 was discovered dead on the island, though cause of death would rule to be a lethal shock of electricity. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. Name Corporal Joychero Ida Original Codename Kitsune Box Date of birth December 8, 1915 Description SCP-4007-3 possessed a compulsive cognitohazard effect that compelled listeners to believe any statement that it spoke. Subjects with sufficiently high psychic resistance scores could resist the effects of this compulsion. Status Terminated Operational History SCP-4007-3 was deployed in numerous stealth operations in Japanese-held territory throughout Southeast China, often being used to discover and secretly infiltrate resistant cells before reporting them to the Kempai Thai. Additionally, SCP-4007-3 was also tasked with gathering intelligence in Republican Chinese held territory. Human interactions Unknown through June 23, 1947 SCP-4007-3 is believed to have affiliated with self with numerous Communist Chinese rebel groups throughout Southeast China during this time and actively aided them in their campaign against Republican Chinese forces. The reasoning behind this is unknown, as Communist Chinese forces have been directly at war with Japan as well. June 23, 1947 SCP-4007-3 is discovered by the Foundation when it attempts to utilize its cognitohazard on an embedded Foundation agent within the 6th Army Group of the Republic of China. SCP-4007-3 manages to escape the agent and disappears for the next nine years. June 23, 1947 through March 13, 1958 Unknown activities, though scattered intelligence suggests that SCP-4007-3 remain active in hunting down hidden Republican Chinese operatives embedded within the mainland following the Chinese Civil War. March 13, 1958 SCP-4007-3 resurfaces under assumed name in Guiyang, Southern China. MTF-551 is deployed to capture the anomaly for Foundation interrogation. According to subsequent Operation Fox Hunt, however, SCP-4007-3 was discovered dead of strangulation in its home upon arrival by MTF-551. Curiously, an examination of the home revealed several recently spent shell casings and compacted bullets, indicating that SCP-4007-3 had fired a gun and an unknown target, but further investigation yielded no clues. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. SCP-4007-4 Name, Private Shigero Matsui Original codename, Kamori, Smoke Data Birth, August 6, 1910 Description SCP-4007-4 possesses the anomalous ability to become invisible. This extends to any other objects or materials that are on SCP-4007-4's person, or that it considers to be a part of itself. Objects Alive Operational History SCP-4007-4 saw extensive service with the Tashin Shuten, where it was deployed in a stealth infiltration role. Imperial Japanese paratrooper corps Prior to its deployment with the Tashin Shuten, SCP-4007-4 also received additional training as a field surgeon. Due to the rapid retreat of the Japanese military from its extended holdings, SCP-4007-4 was stranded in Sarawak, Malaysia, where it continued to reside following the war until Foundation Contact. Foundation Interactions SCP-4007-4 was discovered by Foundation personnel after continuing reports of Japanese holdouts in Malaysia in connection with earlier SCP-4007 instance interaction, led to MTF-551 making contact with the anomaly on May 3, 1950. Unlike most other SCP-4007 instances encountered, 4007-4 has expressed willingness to cooperate with Foundation personnel, working to contain other SCP-4007 instances. Following negotiation with the anomaly, an agreement was reached where SCP-4007-4 was permitted limited freedoms in return for information concerning SCP-4007 and assistance rendered in capturing further SCP-4007 instances. Specifically, SCP-4007-4 was permitted to continue living within its home in Malaysia under Foundation monitoring, as well as the freedom to conduct limited operations when necessary and after prior approval. The agreement from SCP-4007-4 has provided the vast majority of all known intelligence concerning SCP-4007. As nearly all documents about the unit were destroyed following the end of the Second World War. Thanks to fear of backlash from the Allied powers over the controversial and often highly illegal actions that SCP-4007 undertook during the course of its operational history, as well as the nature of Project Schenke. SCP-4007-4 Interview Logs Interview Objective To ascertain more information concerning SCP-4007's purpose, Dr. Sueira Sue conducted a following interview at SCP-4007-4's residence, a self-constructed hut in the jungles of Sarawak. Greetings, Sue Sensei. Greetings, Matsui-san. I hope that I am not being intrusive. Not at all, to what may I owe the honor of this visit? I was wondering if you could tell me more about your role during the war. I serve with the Emperor's pleasure. My allegiance is sworn to the Empire of Japan, and my ultimate responsibility is to defend her people from all threats. Ostensibly, we serve much as many other soldiers fighting in Japan's defense might have, receiving orders from the military and carrying them out. We had many missions and many objectives, however, and not all of them were solely for the, how do you say, conventional military? So sometimes your directives didn't align with that of the rest of the army? No, frequently not. Tell me, Sue Sensei, why do you think that I received this divine gift? For the war, presumably. Ah, but which war? Come again? You did not think that the war was fought with guns and bombs alone, did you? When a nation goes to war, its people must use all that they have to defend themselves, and we were no exception. And when a truly terrible war must be fought, then the people must use truly terrible weapons, even if it is they themselves who must become the ammunition. SCP-4007-4 pauses and looks out the window. It responds without looking back, more softly than before. And sometimes, those weapons alone may not be enough. What do you mean? I cannot tell you, suffice to say, my former brothers and arms must be put down before it is too late, for all of us. Interview objective, to obtain more information about SCP-4007's late war redeployment. Means again, my Tsu-i-san, and to you as well, Su-sensei, do you have more questions? Yes, I wanted to ask you why you ended up here during the war. You mean this stinking, fetid jungle? It would not have been my choice, I grant you, but I had orders to return here, and so I did. I'm aware, and I know you will not divulge them. That is classified military intelligence, Su-sensei. I am sorry, but my loyalty is unquestionable. But I am not asking you to reveal what they said, my Tsu-i-san. I only ask why you think that they ordered you here of all places. Malaysia was a lost cause at that point. With Americans pressing on all fronts, there had to have been more important objectives. So why did the Emperor send you here? There were developments late in the war that changed our perspective. Things that were more pressing than our war efforts. Things more pressing than the Americans or the Chinese. During the war, some things got out of hand. The anomalous weapons became too much to handle, and it came to a head. There were… mistakes made. Such as? I cannot say much more. The loss of the 5th Southern Expeditionary Fleet was perhaps what forced our hand. No record of this fleet exists in official documentation of the era. After that, it became increasingly clear that our mission and victory over the West could not both be achieved, because my brothers and I could not do both at once. Then the Emperor was forced to make a difficult decision, his nation or his people. SCP-4007-4 closes its eyes. And so here I am, until I am sure that our mission is complete, that all we have done is not for nothing. I will uphold its final order until the day that I go to my grave. To pursue that end, there is nothing that I would not do. Name – Private Taru Nishimura Original codename – Bakumano Shapeshifter Date of birth – September 12, 1907 Description – SCP-4007-5 is capable of altering its physical appearance at will. The limits of this ability is not currently known due to limited foundation interaction with SCP-4007-5. Status – Unknown Operational History – Most information surrounding SCP-4007-5 is unreliable, primarily due to its anomalous ability. Testimony from SCP-4007-4 and other sources suggest that SCP-4007-5 rarely operated with the other members of the unit. Scattered reports indicate that SCP-4007-5 was deployed on a far wider range of locations than the rest of the unit was, though verified sightings of the anomaly were exceedingly rare during the war itself. Foundation interactions – No direct contact. Due to the ambiguity of where it operated, there have been few leads as to where the anomaly may be found. Mi-51 has been tasked with monitoring reports of remaining Japanese holdouts from the war and investigating them for possible SCP-4007-5 connections. SCP-4007 Archival Notice 1 On May 4, 2003, SCP-4007 Head Archivist Dping Zhang submitted the following report to the attention of the O5 Council. During scheduled archival of an old storage facility containing World War II-era Foundation documents, my team stumbled upon the old SCP-4007 document, written while we were still using paper records for containment procedures. The full document has been attached, but this is a particularly troubling section. Item number SCP-4007 Object Class Keter Special Containment Procedures SCP-4007 is currently at large. All attempts to track down the anomaly are to be directed through MTF-551, MacArthur's Dogs. Live capture procedures are in effect, as it is believed that SCP-4007 may contain high-value intelligence concerning Japanese anomalous operations and weapons development during the war. Description SCP-4007 Real Name, Shigeru Matsui, Discovered March 14, 1945, is an anomaly. The description of the anomaly matches our description for SCP-4007-4, but the discovery date is well over a year before our first recorded interaction with an SCP-4007 instance, which we now know as SCP-4007-1. Moreover, this document suggests that SCP-4007-4 was the only known SCP-4007 instance at the time, which doesn't match the order in which we have them cataloged at present. I'm not sure where this discrepancy comes from, but it merits further investigation. Investigations were launched into potential reasons behind the discrepancy, and several members of MTF-551 were questioned, though none could offer any reason for the apparent loss of knowledge concerning the anomaly in between March 14, 1945 and June 10, 1946. During the course of discussion, O5-3 raised the following point. Obviously, there must be some kind of tampering going on, because this kind of information does not simply disappear. While we've been discussing this, though, I can't help but wonder at two other discrepancies that seem awfully hard to dismiss as coincidence, in light of recent developments. First, there seems to be a peculiar recurring theme in SCP-4007 containment efforts, and how often they end in a terminated anomaly. Since when did we turn into the GOC? This many failed missions would be unacceptable under any other circumstance, but it seems as though it's been relegated to the status of a clerical error here. Second, on the subject of this report, we've spent several days discussing how exactly this report fits into the big picture. How does this information get tampered with? Does it affect our continuing containment of the anomaly? How do we confront 4007-4 about this, and so on and so forth? Excellent questions all, and no doubt we should be concerned about our primary source of intelligence on an anomaly being compromised. That said, though, does it not concern anyone else how helpful SCP-4007-4 is, and does anyone remember how our present arrangement of SCP-4007-4 began? Special Report Alpha, SCP-4007 At the request of O5-3, Dr. Efren Domingo was appointed as the Special Investigator for SCP-4007, and submitted the following report to the attention of the O5 Council. We haven't turned up much about SCP-4007-4 yet, but the pattern of missing knowledge is consistent with some kind of cognitohazard. We're conducting a lot more research into what exactly could be happening, but there is another development. I pieced together the following map of where we've encountered SCP-4007 instances to date, and took the liberty of making a slight edit. I'd ask why no one's done this before, but well, cognitohazards. There's clearly not a coincidence where we've been accidentally stumbling upon members of the Ping-Pang Five, and if 4007-5 is still out there, it's undoubtedly somewhere in northern Malaysia. What alarms me, however, is the ritualistic significance of that shape. Pentagon's, or more specifically pentagrams, are popular shapes for channeling phalmetological energy. One especially common use for them is for invoking containment rituals that seal something inside of them. It's a powerful arrangement, but it needs active maintenance by the pillars at each corner. This of course begs the awful question, what could they possibly have been trying to contain? MTF-551 Deployment Following this report on November 3rd, 2005, MTF-551 was deployed to the region where SCP-4007-5 was predicted to be located, with orders to investigate and make contact with the anomaly if possible. After three weeks of investigation, containment specialist Chun Feng Xin had an encounter with an individual believed to be connected to SCP-4007-5. His debriefing session is included below. Debriefer, so tell me again, how did this individual make contact with you? Xin. It was a few weeks after we had arrived in the area. We were making attempts to infiltrate the population and passively listen for any potential signs that someone had information concerning SCP-4007-5. One day, while I was out in a local village, this man came up to me, maybe mid-30s, plain-face, average-build. He simply walked up to me and struck up a conversation very casually. About what? The war.  And what happened next? It seemed like he was getting more agitated as the conversation went on. Like I wasn't saying what he wanted me to. By this point, I was getting a little suspicious, but I didn't want to clue him off. So I tried to milk the conversation as best as I could, see if I could get anything else out of him. And that's when he fled? Right. I… I probably shouldn't have, but I tried to loot into what SCP-4007-4 had mentioned about the need for weapons. Figured he might think that I was a friend. Instead, that line made its base turn pale. He ran off quickly, but he muttered something to me before he left. He said, he's made you forget me again, hasn't he? We lost sight of him, and he slipped away. And hours combing the place, but never found the trace of him. We spent the next few weeks looking, but no one had ever seen the description that I described. That night, though, when I went to bed, I found a note in my room. Shen produces a crumpled note written in Japanese, and smooths it out on the table before reading. Do not remember me. Do not trust the traitor's words. And most importantly, do not forget what he has stolen in his misguided attempt to fulfill our mission. Testimony Concerning SCP-4007-4 The following testimony is from Dr. Efron Domingo, continuing on his previously mentioned investigation. It's subtle, it's effective, and goddamn it because it's brilliant. We've been duped this whole time. We thought that Unit-731 was a bunch of butchers, more or less conducting anomalous meatball surgery in an effort to see what sticks without any subtlety and approach at all. From that basic perspective, it was easy to underestimate each SCP-4007 instance as a one-trick pony anomaly. But the data we've collected suggests that Unit-731 may have been far better at grafting anomalies than we previously thought. SCP-4007-4's primary ability is much more subtle than simply vanishing from sight. We assume that SCP-4007-4 was simply becoming invisible through some unknown method and hand-weighted it as anomalous mumbo-jumbo, but we know how it works now. SCP-4007 is not actually becoming invisible, and it's not an optical anomaly, it's an amnestic one. SCP-4007-4 does not become invisible, strictly speaking, rather it becomes invisible to the mind. By utilizing a very, very subtle anti-meme, SCP-4007-4 manages to erase its image from a viewer's brain while not tampering with the memory of the anomalous existence in and of itself. Additionally, we think that 4007-4 can tweak this cognitohatorous effect, sometimes strengthening it, and other times lessening it, making its effect extremely selective, acting like a surgeon's scalpel and excising only the exact portions necessary while leaving others intact. Effectively, it can make a viewer forget exactly what it wants the subject to forget, nothing more, nothing less. It's brilliant, because our garden-variety cognitohatter to so blatant that we would have recognized it nearly immediately. The only reason we noticed at all is that we noticed IR-heat camera recordings of 4007-4 still register the anomaly's presence when viewed later. Nothing on tape that we have is being affected by it. In other words, while 4007-4 can affect our memories, it cannot affect any existing records of its existence, such as recordings, ledgers, or you might have surmised by this point, outdated containment procedures. The data we have is, to put it lightly, alarming. According to our analysis, all members of MTF-551, along with 60% of research staff assigned to SCP-4007, have been subjected to SCP-4007-4's amnestic effect. All of those not affected have either never directly interacted with the anomaly or haven't worked long enough to actually have come into contact with it. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that a lot of us have had our memories wiped at different points, or otherwise tinkered with to the point that we could be misremembering large swaths of our history with SCP-4007. The worst thing is, we have no idea what any of this could mean. What exactly is SCP-4007-4's endgame? What has it done that we don't know about? What have WE done that we don't know about? There are a lot of questions, and I'm not sure where to begin in order to answer them. However, we should probably start with the big one. What else have we forgotten about SCP-4007? SCP-4007 Expedition, January 3rd, 2008 After noting the arrangement of SCP-4007 instances in a pentagon shape, Dr. Ephron Domingo recommended an expedition be taken to the center of the pentagon in order to investigate the potential purpose of such an arrangement of SCP-4007 instances. A common ritualistic shape, often chosen for its ceiling capabilities when channeling thaumaturgical energies. Camera footage is from dive leader Ben Noe. Noe was accompanied by fellow divers Brian Riemann and Jose Meares. The feed begins with the team arriving at the wreckage site. Scraps of metal and twisted ruins of several ship holes are littered throughout the seafloor. Diver Meares swims up to the camera, holding a piece of metal. He brushes off the layer of sand on it and holds it up. The word Yumigiri can be seen on it, along with the flag of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Noe turns to point at several different visible ship holes, naming them as he goes. Yamagiri, Takaze, Satokaze. All names shipped for planned additions to the Yumigo-class destroyer line of the Japanese Navy, but they were all allegedly scrapped prior to production. An entire squadron sunk. More ships have been can't find the names for. Noe swims down to the seafloor and sifts through the sand. He reaches through the cloudy water and pulls out a skull. As the sand clears, dozens more can be seen buried in the sand. The entire seafloor is covered in bones, most of them still wearing scraps of Imperial Japanese military uniforms. So many bodies, and not just sailors, army soldiers too, pilots even. By our estimate, there has to be thousands of them. As far as I know, none of these wrecks were claimed by Allied navies, but this is the most alarming thing of all. Diver Riemann swims to the camera, holding up a small section of shiphole. It is warped nearly beyond recognition. These ships weren't bombed or shelled, not scuttled either. None of these things would cause this pattern of metal damage, and we don't see any signs of blackening from explosive ordnance. Whatever it was that sunk these ships, it wasn't conventional. Noe traces his hand down the side of the whole fragment. The piece has almost been split in half, as if it were torn apart. Something sank an entire Japanese naval squadron, and I'm not sure that we've ever seen anything like it before. On pentagrams is the containment devices. Dr. Domingo submitted the following research note three weeks after the above discovery of the wreckage from the fifth Southern expeditionary fleet. I know that I advanced the theory of the pentagon being a giant containment ritual, but I almost wish that weren't the case. After consultation with Thaumaturgical and other esoteric containment specialists, the consensus is that if SCP-4007 was indeed maintaining some kind of Thaumaturgical ritual, the size of this particular arrangement tells us two important things. First, whatever they were trying to contain must have been absolutely enormous. Strictly speaking, you don't make Thaumaturgical diagrams any bigger than they have to be, because the power needed to maintain them scales proportionally. Which brings me to my second point. This ritual would have been a monstrous cost in terms of energy to maintain. In fact, with something this large, you'd probably need to do a regenerative ritual at one of the corners every day just to keep the whole thing together. All five would be preferable, but just one would be sufficient for the bare minimum. Without it, the whole structure would collapse within a day, releasing whatever's inside out to our material plane. What alarms me, though, is that this ritual structure is presumably half a century old. Not many rituals of this specific type can survive that long even with constant regenerative rituals. After a certain point, there's simply two worn down to keep going for that long, and the ritual will fail regardless of what you do. Because of that, it's smart to be prepared to confront whatever you have within the zone, and Lord help us, because we better be prepared for that day. SCP-4007 Archival Notice 2 On February 12th, 2008, Head Archivist De Ping Zhang submitted the following notice to the attention of the SCP-4007 investigative team. In our continuing efforts to uncover additional information concerning SCP-4007, we have recovered two documents that are of interest. Curiously, however, the only major differences we can attribute to anomalous interference relate to the personnel information for instances 4007-1 through 4007-3. It seems as though a single line had been removed from each of the entries of the instances that were terminated. A glance at the content seems to show a recurring theme in the deleted message. When the fire had burned out, SCP-4007-1's body was found within the zone, and believed to have expired due to smoke inhalation. During the recovery of the body, however, it was discovered that SCP-4007-1's body had been cut open shortly post-mortem and was missing several organs. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. In the aftermath, SCP-4007-2 was discovered dead on the island, though cause of death was ruled to be a lethal shock of electricity. Cause of death determination was made more difficult by the apparent removal of large sections of SCP-4007-2's skin, which could not be explained by the recovery team. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. Curiously, an examination of the home revealed several recently spent shell casings and compacted bullets, indicating that SCP-4007-3 had fired a gun on an unknown target, but further investigation yielded no clues. Additionally, an autopsy revealed that SCP-4007-3's corpse was missing its tongue for reasons that remain unknown. The incident was ruled an acceptable outcome. Why these lines were deleted is something of a mystery to us, but the natural hunch is that SCP-4007-4 is involved somehow. We believe that the other document we recovered might yield some answers, though. The other document is something a little different. The archive will know as attached to it says that it was a letter discovered in SCP-4007-3's home, believed to be written by SCP-4007-4. But knowing the context behind it, however, it's hard to say what exactly it means, but it's been included here for your review. Brother, forgive me for not writing to you sooner. After Takashi's passing, I needed time alone to meditate and regain my strength. In the end, he did not see my way, much like Mitsuo before him, but it is not too late for you to see the truth, brother. He will break free, that much I am certain of. No matter what we do, his coming is inevitable, and no amount of prayer or ritual will stop him from finishing his terrible mission. To continue in our ways that we have for so long is giving him to fate. Thus, it is as your brother-in-arms that I write to you to reconsider your stance. We must fight him, on our own terms. The longer we wait, the stronger he gets, until this sleeping giant is all but unstoppable. It is our duty, as dutiful men and as loyal soldiers, to act while we still can. If we attack as soon as the ritual is broken, we have our best chance of stopping him once and for all. There is no other alternative. It was too late for Mitsuo and Takashi to realize the truth while they lived, but I have hope for you. The fight once again with my brothers-in-arms is what I long for, but do not mistake this dream from mercy. I will stop him with your help, one way or another. It is up to you to decide how that help will be given. Updated Containment Recommendation for SCP-4007 The following note was penned by 05-3 following the conclusion of the internal investigation into SCP-4007. Attached here is the updated list of containment procedures for SCP-4007. SCP-4007 Object Class Keter Special Containment Procedures Primary containment of SCP-4007 is maintenance of the status quo. SCP-4007-4 is to be convinced that the Foundation is actively aiding it in searching for SCP-4007-5 when this is no longer true. SCP-4007-4 is to be convinced that this agreement is still true. All members of MTF-551 are to continue operating under the impression that this is true as well, in order to avoid triggering SCP-4007-4's primary anomalous threat. All additional efforts shall be dedicated to further research in the SCP-4007's original purpose, as well as replacement for SCP-4007 instances. Failing that, all funding will be directed towards preparation for the release of the entity contained within SCP-4007's containment zone. I began this investigation seeking to find the truth about SCP-4007, hoping to figure out a clever answer that would tie up all the loose ends, and resolve a mystery that seemed to stretch back decades. The pursuit of the truth is ostensibly what we strive for at all times, after all. I now understand that if there's anything we truly know, it is that there are some truths out there that are inherently unknowable. And either if they were, they may be so terrible that we may not want to know them at all. What exactly were the SCP-4007-4 and 4? What sank the Japanese Navy fleet? What's inside the pentagram? I suspect that these questions may not have answers, for those who may have known the truth are either unwilling to tell us, dead, or have been forced to forget. In the end, we can only move forward with the scraps that our predecessors left us and hope that we make the right choice.