So now this is Nikita Corten who's going to talk about defaults, defaults. So, hello everyone and thank you for joining me here today. My name is Nikita Corten. I'm a software engineer and a security researcher and well what I'm at researching or developing anything usually you can find me training street workout calisthenics. For example, in this picture I'm doing Eiffel handstand in front of an Eiffel tower here in Vegas and today I want to share with you some work. I did in the field of the research of Android permissions which I call defaults defaults as I found how to bypass different permissions from different protection level actually from multi from all protection levels using just default services in Android. So first of all a little bit of statistics. At the moment I was making this presentation I looked in the Google for the last statistical data I found that Android holds 72% of the market share of all smartphones in the world which is a little less than I have in the previous years but the absolute number of smartphones increased so much that this is actually more than I have previously. Android OS has 32 distributions or as it called officially API levels and it runs on over 3 billion active devices. 3 billion. Think about it. This is me by the way trying to imagine how 3 billion active devices looks like. So why it's important? You can imagine that everything that is happening in Android, every technique that works there, every bug has a very huge impact. Because of the nature of Android there is no particular version or particular device model that dominates the world completely. Instead it's distributed across multiple API levels, multiple device models but even if you take like one particular combination of version and device model you will let's say that has 1% still 1% of that is tens of millions. So this is how the impact is heavy. So let's dive into permission mechanism. Now because there were a lot of changes in the permission mechanism in the last few years I'm trying to focus on this presentation in the most solid concepts. So first of all all Android permissions can be divided into 3 permission types or categories if you wish. First it's install time permissions. Now install time permissions basically permission that enabled right after the application is installed on the device. So you can say that the allowance of this permission is the action of installation. Above that there is a runtime permission from dangerous protection level and as the name suggests this permission protects the more dangerous abilities, the more serious resources. Such a permission it is not enabled right after application is installed on the device. Instead application needs to check whether the permission that allows it to do the access the ability it needs or the resource is allowed in that particular moment at runtime and if not then it will trigger the built-in alert where the user can either allow this permission or deny. And to be even more precise actually there is like smaller category in that of very few permissions for example location permission. In that case when the alert is triggered then user can not just allow or deny the permission but also allow for one time usage. Anyway above that there is the top highest protection level called special system permissions and this is like very unique and very rare permissions. They are intended for system level interaction and their job is to protect the most powerful actions and for that reason it cannot be you know allowed from the application context. The users actually need to go outside of the application context to the advanced settings and enable this permission for that particular application explicitly in advanced settings. Now from the API perspective all permissions that application wants to use from all protection levels must be declared in manifest which is basically an XML file. Now in this example you can see a list of different permissions that application used so some of them from a normal protection level some of them from a dangerous protection level and some from special system permission but you can see that all of them appear in the Android manifest. If they are not declared they cannot be used at all this is like the most basic thing in the permission mechanism. Now because of that since all the permissions that application is using must be declared in manifest that makes it very easy to manage and very easy to check which permissions are used. This is how when you are uploading your application to Google Play Store Google Play Store know which permissions are used or when the application is installed on the device this is how Play Protect can scan extract the manifest and know exactly which permissions are used and obviously any other security external tool doing exactly the same thing. So before you download the app you can see which permissions are used for example in this screenshot we can see that this application is using this list of permissions and obviously the more permissions the application is using or the higher protection level of these permissions are basically it means that this application can do more thing the more things it can do it more privileged but everything I said until now this is just the documented part now the undocumented part ahead below that there is something I call default protection level or default permissions. It's not an official name for that it's just the way I call it but the idea is that default permissions is basically all these magical permissions which you don't need to declare anywhere you don't need to get approval from the user they just there you just need to know how to use them and today I'm going to show you how use such default permissions to bypass and get the access for resources and abilities that protected by real permissions. So first example is a permission from a normal protection level called internet permission as the name suggests internet permission is protecting the access for the internet so if you want to send URL request then you obviously need internet permission you cannot do it without it. So I created a few video recordings to explain every concept so how we can understand the setup here we can see the android device I'm using a virtual android device just for simplicity of the presentation obviously the same things can work on the real devices as well. So here we can see the logs of the android and the code in this setup I created basically small node.js server which will receive the request from the android and then respond with some random number this is how we can see that the basically poc idea just to prove the concept that it works. So let's see the video something is happening android and setting request we can see it in the logs and some random number which we can see also in logs of the server right was received from the server by the android and why it worked this is the normal behavior why it worked because the application has internet permission makes sense nothing special so what will happen when the application is attempting to access something that is protected with permission in this case exactly the same thing without the permission in that case application is crashing we see this built-in alert and why it happened because there is a security exception we can see it here permission denied you don't have the needed permission to perform this action as you can see I removed it from the manifest no permissions at all but now let's see the bypass again the same setup android virtual device android logs and server side logs so something is happening we can see logs from both side there is a communication we can see the prints on the android logs the request was sent from the android as we can see it here it's coming from here and we can see the random number that also received from the server by the android and we can see the secret secret string which I sent from the android to the server side so two-way internet communication work and this is the Node.js server code we can see how the data is received and how it created the random number very simple code and in addition to that I also send scheme AAA and host bbb params which also received by the server and why I did that because this is the custom URI configurations of my application under the category browser and we can see here that this POC works without permissions at all okay so how did it work I use implicit intent which is a default service with default action view and in android when you are creating implicit intent with the default action you basically give the android ability to decide who is the receiving component and how it does it it basically checks the URI so I'm abusing this functionality and I'm giving the URI of default deep link format of home browser and I'm injecting the URL inside the URI which basically triggered the browser to send the request for me and then I receive the data back using exactly the same technique but vice versa because I'm giving the custom URI configuration of my own application when it's sent to the server so how I created the payload I basically downloaded the Chrome APK extracted the manifest I can see there the unique scheme Google Chrome so I can know how to trigger home browser to open an android then I looked in the decompiled code and I founded the implementation of that so I can see that scheme Google Chrome with the host navigate receives a query param URL so we can inject URL inside the URI and that will trigger the browser to send the request so this is how I'm creating the payload URI with Google Chrome scheme host navigate takes the query param URL this is my URL I'm giving the address of my Node.js server with the additional query params scheme AAA and host BBB obviously it can be anything else is just for the simplicity of presentation but as you can see this is the custom URI configuration of my application under category browser now category browser but basically means that this link can be triggered from the browser the browser can communicate back to the application so the Node.js server receives the request extract the scheme and host from the request and uses to create the dynamically link on that web page and then use JavaScript to trigger this link so let's see the wall flow over a diagram to make it completely clear application is sending implicit intent with the Chrome URI that is wrapping our custom URI Android API recognize the Chrome URI and open the browser the home browser home browser say extracting the URL from the URI and sending the URL request to our server server receiving the request processing the request unwrap the custom URI from it and creates the URI link dynamically on that web page and then use the JavaScript to trigger the browser to use this link which goes back to the Android API that checks who is the receiving component and the receiving component is again our application and this is how I have the two-way internet communication without internet permission at all pretty cool right thank you next system alert window permission this permission is coming from the top highest protection level special system permissions this permission is very unique it is intended for a system level interaction with the user and what it allows you to do is create an overlay that will appear above any app and above any view in the system so you can imagine why it consider highly sensitive because for example there is let's say a gmail screen and you can create your own screen of a gmail and you know cover it completely or cover a part of it for example now like I explained in the beginning every permission must be declared in the manifest which application is using so this is how any security tool can you know scan the application and know which permissions are used so all of these tools they are very much aware of the permission mechanism so obviously they know exactly which permissions are the most privileged ones so if such a privileged permission appears there they detect it immediately and the suspiciousness of this application automatically increased but even if the application which are very highly privileged permissions are uploaded to to the google play store and let's say successfully downloaded and installed the device and the launched on the device because it's a special system permission it is not enabled yet actually the user need to go outside of the application context and to create and perform some external steps in the advanced system settings let's see the how it works normally like in any case and first the application declared in the manifest but since it's a special system permission the user needs to go externally to the advanced settings either from the setting screen or from the shortcut from app info like I do it here and you can see that in that case there is like you know a completely separate screen just for that like a dedicated screen just for this particular permission for that specific application and the user can either enable or disable it and the android states very clearly here as you can see hopefully you can read it from there that a user needs to be aware that there's a very very serious permission because it will allow this application to create the views above any other apps but like I said we're going to bypass everything right so I found that exactly the same ability can be achieved by a default service called toast now toast is a very interesting service originally it was created to show just small um you know text messages like small pop-ups and we show showing some small text and it was created in the first api level and today like I said in the beginning of the presentation there are 32 api levels means that this service is available on all api levels in android so if you remember that big number three billion active devices this service works on every one of them so I noted that because of the nature of this service it doesn't matter how you call it how you invoke a creation of the view with the toast it always appear on top of everything because this is just how it works but in addition to that I also noticed that it can be triggered by any application with no permissions at all as opposed completely to the special system permission that it uses and third thing very interesting thing as I say last but not least right toast views they don't receive focus by default so I asked myself is this service when I created views with that is it really limited for a small text messages and I found that it is not you can actually customize completely the views and they can show wherever you want wherever you want so let's see this small example the simplest toast example will look something like that probably android users recognized already but you can also show images with that you can also show videos with that you can even load web content with a web view with that and you can even cover the entire screen with that so knowing that I asked myself okay I can show whatever I want wherever I want there's have some limitations but toast has a limitation appearance duration you cannot for example say show this toast view for two and a half minutes it just doesn't work this way instead you need to pass one of these constant values either length short or length long length short will make it appear approximately for two seconds and length long will make it appear for approximately four seconds and and then it disappears actually exact time can be different between different devices but this is pretty much accurate but this limitation can bypass also very easily simply by calling recursively again and again and again with the same toast view configuration you can as long as the delay between the calls is shorter than the appearance time you can make it appear before it disappears so the overlay will remain on the screen theoretically forever let's consider the next example run somewhere blocking the screen for the user so I created a small recursive method I call it overlay one which takes a integer count and count it down to zero with the delays of one second as you can see the duration is length long which approximately four seconds so I create the view customized view with the resource layout file which is this file and I set the gravity of it to fill the screen from the origin point zero and zero basically it filled the screen entirely from the top left corner in the layout configuration the width and height set to much parent with the background black basically black screen completely covering the entire screen of the user with a message saying well your screen is blocked and if you want to unblock it you just need to pay zero one bitcoin not a lot so let's see it running the user uses his device and overlay appear with no permissions at all and as you can see overlay doesn't disappear the user can click bug button home button tasks button it doesn't matter because it will always stay on top as much as we want cool right thank you and please notice that there are no permissions at all used now creating an overlay to block the screen entirely it's cool but this is not the only thing we can do if you remember the third ability of TOS that the views they don't receive focus by default it means that this technique can also be used for a clickjacking and sometimes to make something crucial to happen you just need one single click from a user now according to some article I read about the usage behavior of 100 users an average 100 user touched the screen for a little bit more than 2600 times a day and that just an average user so like heavily user do it more by the way the link for that article is a reference in the end of the CFP anyway that makes it very hard to remember you know every time you tap the screen and it makes it easy to trick the user to tap in the specific spot using the common alert pop-ups I mean think about it for a second let's test it a little bit like how many of you have android device let's say for more than five or six years okay with the rays of your hand okay a lot of people definitely more than half I would say like 70 percent so ask yourself how many times in these five six years that you have the device how many times you have seen these alerts right like unfortunately google play service has stopped unfortunately browser stop unfortunate application crashed blah blah blah whatever you can see it all the time right and what do you usually do it's okay something crashed you click okay and you continue with your life you continue with your 2616 other tabs right but what if at that particular time one of these times when you clicked okay button your actual click went through this okay because the view didn't receive the focus to some other clickable element which you didn't even see let's consider the next example click jacking poc I created some small dummy application I call it click jack victim I use this small dummy examples in not real applications obviously to prevent potential copyrights issues for me and defcon but as you can understand it will also work with any other applications so anyway this application is very simple you have two buttons no button yes button and here in the logs we can see what exactly happened so if the user will click no we will see poc no and when the user click yes we will see poc yes all right very simple example so I'm running the payload user is using his device and then at some point pump some alert is popping up google play services has stopped he clicks okay doesn't suspect anything uses his device but what actually happened he was just tricked to click the poc yes so how did it work while the user saw this alert pop-up google play service stopped and supposedly clicked on the okay button the actual click went to the yes button that was exactly behind it so what can we do with these techniques what can be real life explo- uh exploitations with different combinations of these techniques so first I showed you a unauthorized a two-way communication so we can communicate with our server for example for command and control and the server can tell the android app what to do and when to do it for example when to block the screen for around somewhere or when to unblock it when the user paid or which applications to disrupt on which buttons to make the user to click or which applications to uninstall because in android to uninstall a an application it's basically a built-in alert with just one click and then the application is uninstalled I mean yeah in the latest api levels it also need a normal level permission but still this is pretty simple but also it can be used for to bypass even more permissions from dangerous protection level let's see some examples call phone permission in android there is a permission from runtime dangerous protection level called call phone and it protects a particular action it's called action call if you create a implicit intent with action call and you give a uri with a phone number the android will open a dialer it will parse the uri and put the phone number in the dialer and then it will start the phone call but that will work only if the application has the needed call phone permission if it doesn't have it then as we have seen previously security exception it cannot work but at the same time in android there is another action called action dial which work with the default permissions and it does exactly the same thing or almost exactly the same thing it will also trigger the dialer it will also parse the uri take the phone number put in the dialer but it will not start the phone call that's the difference you just need one single click from a user to start it so you see when i'm going with it right so normal behavior if you're trying to access a action call application crashing alert blah blah blah security exception is strong permission denied you cannot access ability that is protected by permissions normally but a combination of these techniques using the action dial user see some again some alert clicking okay but what actually happened as you can see the phone call started and no permissions used all right as as you can understand obviously i purposely removed the overlay so we can see the dialer but like i showed previously the overlay can remain if needed another example location permissions now uh when application need to access device location look all of the location permissions like fine location the coarse location etc they are all a runtime permissions from a dangerous protection level so application needs to check before it tried to access the device location need to check whether this permission is given and if not to trigger the alert and i can explain it previously in case of location it will trigger the alert where the user can allow this this permission denied it or allowed for one time usage but this how it works for normal applications not for a browser in the browser when the web page is executing javascript navigator get current position it triggers alert from from the browser and with one single click the user can allow this web page to access device location so using the first technique with the uri of chrome browser we can trigger the chrome browser to open a malicious web page that will trigger the needed javascript navigator get current position that will make this built-in alert and then with the click jack and we can allow the access for ourselves so that will look something like that user uses his device a browser has tab blah blah blah clicks okay browser stopped browser restarted nothing suspicious no permissions used right but what just happened the device location was just on right thank you and hopefully at this moment this is clear for everyone why it worked but still when the user saw this alert and supposedly clicked on the okay button the okay button appeared exactly above the built-in alert from the browser where he allowed actually the permission the device location for the web page and this is how it worked okay that's it I see that we still have some time so if you have any questions I'll be glad to answer them


We were sitting in a little itty bitty office room in a strip mall, the door opens, and Natalia comes running and smiling ear to ear, saying, mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy, mommy, daddy. She was just given up for adoption by her old family five minutes before that. We should have recognized that there's no six-year-old on the planet that would be happy in this situation and immediately start referring to Christine and myself as mommy and daddy. I think it's rehearsed. I think he's trying to get out everything possibly get out. I'm seeing deceptive cues in there, but I'm seeing things to let me know he's being honest and that he's concerned. I think he's got a lot going on. There's a lot of thought going on up there. I don't think it's like I'm shaking my own hand as he's thinking those kind of things. I think he's thinking, I've got to get everything out. I've got to get everything out because listen how fast I'm talking. This guy's got me all worked up. But I think he's trying to get his story out, but I'm not so sure he's not exaggerating there just a little bit.


All right. Change to the right mode here. Hey, this is Watch Me Work. It's, what day is it? Is it Thursday? Is it Thursday? Somebody tell me what day it is. It's Thursday. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Great.  I'm Susan Marie Parks. This is Watch Me Work. This is, we're doing it Monday through Friday at five. This is, we're in our second week of doing that. For those of you who have not been to Watch Me Work before, Watch Me Work is about your work and your creative process where we will spend some time working together and then spend some time talking. I'll be answering your questions about your work and your creative process. I'm a writer of lots and lots and lots of different things. I've been doing this show, Watch Me Work for 11 years. I've been doing this show primarily live in the lobby of the public theater. Big thanks to the public theater who has and continues to support me in this endeavor. And also thanks to HowlRound. They came on a few years ago to live stream our live show. And now they are supporting this great endeavor. Also thanks to Zoom for helping it happen. But big thanks to the public theater and HowlRound. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for the show that we create together. First thing we do is we work together for 20 minutes. We create the action of the play. Here's my timer. We're going to time it for 20 minutes. And then after the 20 minutes has elapsed, we will, I will take your questions about your creative process. And that's the dialogue of the play. If you will. I don't know, I didn't go to grad school, but that's what my students say. So anyway, this is what we're going to do. We're going to work together. We're going to talk about your work and your creative process.  Give you some, you know, good energy in these difficult times. And all that kind of stuff. Anything else to ask questions and all that. Our moderator, is it, it's not Audrey today. Tell me everyone. Yes. If you would like to ask a question during the questions portion and you're inside the zoom, please click the raise your hand button. It should be in the participants tab more than likely on the bottom of your screen. If you're using an iPad, it's more than likely on the top of your screen. I will see those that raised their hand and I will call on you and unmute you when it's your time to speak. If you are watching the stream on howl around.TV, you can ask questions via the public theaters, Instagram and Twitter. And you can also ask questions via the watch me work Twitter, which is at watch me work. SLP. Don't forget to use the hashtag howl around. That's H O W L R O U N D. And that's it. Thanks Amber. There you are. Okay. So we're going to work together. For 20 minutes. If you're confused. That's okay. Join the club. Here we go. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Here we are. We just did. 20 minutes of work. Hope it was. Nice. For some of you for all of you, actually. And now we're going to do the remaining amount of time. Questions questions. Who's got a question. Well, Natalia has a question. Tell you if you're here. Yeah, I'm here. There you are. Okay. Hi. Hi. So my question will be. So. I asked you a question, I think Friday. Last week and it was about just like. How do I make my work that is personal? How do I write something that's personal and like. Balance the, the two things. While writing, and I actually. Had a moment of inspiration and it was one of those moments where I just kept writing and writing and writing. And I didn't really have any. Plans or structure. I just went for it. And I realized it was a lot of. It was a dialogue that was just like in my head. And I was letting like the people speak to me because it's based on real life and true story. So. My question would be. Once that. I guess inspiration is timed out. How do I. Go back. And we threw. The, the structure. Cause right now it's just, it's pretty much a word vomit. And I'm just trying to get out all the ideas out. When it comes to me, whether it's on paper. Or on my phone through a note app or something. But how do I go back and revisit that? Sorry, that's my bird. How do I go back and visit that? With a more clear picture. Great question, Natasha. Great question. Glad you're writing. Glad you're doing what you call word vomit. Very cool. Yeah, so have you, have you gotten to the. Like the, the end. Of your word vomit, you know. Um, no, I haven't. I. I actually don't even know what my end looks like yet. All I know is that the big theme. Of the play is about family. And. Dynamics, just like the different family dynamics. And even though there's a lot of conflict within families or. Or just, just like. I just lost my, my train of thought, but so. I haven't. Thought of an ending. It just went up right now. It's just a lot of like memory recall. And, uh, being back home. Cause right now I'm at my mom's place. I guess it also is what inspired me to continue writing and just like observing and watching, um, how we all interact with one another. So it's, um, it's just one of those moments where I just keep writing and kind of reliving or just observing what's what's happened so far. Right, right, right. Um, what I wanted to know is if you've gotten to sort of the end, because writing and rewriting, uh, while they look very much alike or two different processes, right? We, did we talk about that, uh, the courage of writing the courage of rewriting the courage of, as you call it, and as I call it to, you know, word vomit, it's just vomiting out, right? It takes courage to just anything goes. Everything grows being in the writing process. And then it takes the other kind of courage is the rewriting process where you have to trim, cut, prune, select, right?  Yeah. Um, it would take, it would take another kind of courage to actually look at what you throw up. And go, hmm, I think that is, I think I'll, I'll put this out, you know what I mean? And out of the vomit. Um, this could be very interesting. I'll put that, that you see what I'm saying. So that's a whole different kind of courage. Now I asked you if you were at the end, because I don't want you to, a lot of times it's fun to just let it out and let it go. But then we have a fear, our fear of writing is replaced by a fear of having it make sense. Right? Oh no, it has to make sense. So I better, I better find the, the theme or the story or the structure right away before I just spend too much time vomiting, right? Right. Like dating when you're dating and then you go all of a sudden, oh, are we in a thing or are we just in a thing? You know what I'm saying? And the person goes, well, we've only been dating for seven years. Do we have to decide? No, I'm kidding. Um, so I would have, so you've been sort of vomit writing for how long? I mean, on this process project? Well, because I was writing this play a few years back and then it just kind of paused because life was happening. And then, oh, and then, um, I've had this time since being home, uh, just to continue writing. Um, and I just have moments where it just kind of comes to my brain and then I write it down just because I don't want to lose that memory or because sometimes memory can be, you know, it can, your mind can play tricks on you with that. So, um, yeah, so it's just a continuous thing because I guess within my family, it's just, it's been a lot of just different situations. So I just want to make sure that whatever I have in my head, I can put it on paper. Um, and then I guess rewrite after it's over, but I could just pouring out. Yeah, so great. So have it, so have it pour out some more. You know what I mean? I'm, what I'm saying is how long have you been in this vomiting process?  Okay, great. So, so spend some more time just vomiting it out. And when you get to the point where you're like, Okay, that's, I'm pretty much, I feel like I'm at the end of that process. Even if you, you know, after that, you know, come back to the vomiting process, but if you feel like you're at an end to the process, that's what I was talking about, then you can stop that process and work on the rewriting process, but it doesn't sound like you're at an end. You see what I mean? I don't want you to be mixing them too much because what I hear is a concern that you need to start making sense of it all. And that might stop the flow. You see what I mean? Okay. Okay, so continue to do exactly what you're doing. Do it for a little longer and see what it feels like, like this time next week. You see what I mean? You see? Yeah. Get more stuff out. We don't, okay. All right. Okay. And either a couple of things are going to happen. Either you're going to vomit a lot and then you'll, you won't, you won't be able to make sense of it. Right? Or you'll vomit a lot and you will somehow be able to make sense of it. Or you'll vomit a lot and you put it away in a drawer, whatever, whatever. I mean, we have to be like, whatever happens is going to happen and it will be what it is. For sure. You see what I'm saying? And I think that Ramona's cat. Has heard your bird. Just observing Ramona has a cat, which is on screen, right? Is looking at Ramona on the screen. The cat is like going, where is the bird? I don't know what she's, anyway, I just was observing that. But you know what I'm saying, Natalia? So keep, continue to do exactly what you're doing. Keep showing up. Keep doing the vomit writing as we call it. And, and just keep doing it for a little while longer. See how you feel. See if something doesn't emerge on its own, but don't worry about it right now. Okay. All right. Thank you. Cool. Cool. Thanks. It's Natalia. All right. Next we have Melania. Hello. Hi. Hi. Hi. I am so happy to be here and I would like to thank you because we talked last week. And since that, I, I think I am working on my courage. Of writing. Yes. And suddenly with this, I love the talk to the hand. Talk to the hand. So I began to do that. Writing. Yes. Because I write and when I write, I come here. This boy saying, no, if I say hi, the voice is low. If I say, talk to the hand, talk to the hand, talk to the hand. Like a choreography. And, and it's working. I, I am writing. So I want to thank you for that. That, that was the, the purpose of my talking. And there is something that you said last week. That I write it down and wrote it down. And I would like to ask you about. You said work. It's between you and the spirit. Accept the gift that being given. You talk about the spirit and writing and what I am right now discovering in me, when I cut, I can stop the, the voices. I can hear myself better. And my characters are able to go into action. That was my problem that they were all stuck. So I would like to know more about this talking between us and the spirit. While we are writing. Thanks, Melania. I'm so glad your work is going well. Good for you. Good for you. And again, everyone, Melania has been calling in or tweeting into the, to our live show when we do it at the lobby in the public theater for years, for years. And just now because of doing it on zoom, because of this Corona thing, I actually get to see each other face to face. So it's a great pleasure to get to know you like this.  The, the, it's a relationship between you and the spirit. Right. Your creative process is a relationship between you and the spirit. And this isn't like. Those of you, those of us, whatever it doesn't, it's not like your relationship with God, the white guy with the beard on the, you know, the, you know, the, what if the dome of the Sistine Chapel, that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the, a relationship between you and that thing that's bigger than you. That's the spirit. You know what I mean? So you can, some of us see it as our, our, you know, friendship circle. I mean, certainly the watch me work community is something that's bigger than, than just us than just, right? Maybe our, our people, our foremothers and our forefathers, that kind of thing. When I say the spirit that the thing that, that people connect with in times of difficulty. I'll go out on a limb and say whether that thing comes through or not. It's still there.  I'm in New York. I don't know what's, I don't get to go outside anymore, which is a problem. But in the Northern hemisphere, we're, we're in spring, you know, and you look outside and you see, you have a sense of that thing that's bigger than, than all of us, right? The thing we share, you know, the underground river of the spirit.  So being creative or doing your work, whether it's creative or not, I think the, the people in the medical profession now, custodians, anybody helping in a big way in this difficult time that the whole world is having, are really investing and giving back to that bigger part of themselves, right?  He's not necessarily being creative, but he is giving to the spirit, you know, but we who are creative, who have that gift are just strengthening our relationship with that thing that's bigger than us. And that's, to me, what creative work is. Does that, does that make sense? I kind of went on. It makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah. And that's why our work is important to me to my, I mean, this is me to, you know, it's not about the money you might make or, you know, who fabulous people might call you during watching my work. If any of you saw me pick up my phone, it was a very fancy person calling me.   It's about that connection. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense because I am, I am seeing that, that putting time and doing the work is making me discover things that I never thought about myself, my life, but at the same time, I know in myself, I am having the, the energy and the, the bravery if you want to, to make these characters and let them be. And it's an amazing thing to me because it was, because we talk and you told me about this of the top to the hand and, and with this group that we are having the squad, as you call the squad. That's right. And it's so important because I, I am so thankful in the middle of all of these, you know, the homeschooling that I talked about the other day. You got three kids, three kids at home. Three kids at home. That's right. Yes. And all that stuff, having this time to, to connect with something that goes beyond me, but allows me to know myself and being, you know, able to explore and maybe say something that. To me it's difficult at least I don't know sometimes and, and it's okay to not know. It's a blessing. So I wanted to thank you and I love what you said. Yeah. And thank you. Thank you, Melania. Really, really your blessing. Here we are. This is, but that's why Melania, you know, you're onto it. That's why I'm doing that. That's why we're here doing this and encouraging each other. Because this is going to give us an opportunity to learn something. And like you said, become brave and become more brave or braver and more courageous.  Thank you. Thank you. Thanks Melania. All right. Next. We have Diana. Diana, you there? Oh, yeah. I'm doing that. That's why we're here doing this and encouraging each other. You know, I'm doing this and encouraging each other. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for this. This has been really wonderful. I had a question. I've been asked to adapt a book into a play into a TYA. And I have, I've never adapted anything before most of my stuff. All of my stuff is original. So I'm just wondering if you have any advice for how to. Yeah. Yeah. It sounds like it's going to be fun. Yeah. Is it a, is it a, is it a, it's a novel or. Yeah, it's a novel. It's, um, it's a full length, like older young adult book. Okay. Okay. And, and what's the four, you're going to adapt it into a play. Yes. Theater for young theater for young audience. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But theater for older, older younger audiences. Okay. All ages. Like, so. Okay. Great. Great. And I'm guessing that you've read the novel, the book. Yeah. Okay. Okay.  Not yet. Not yet. I'm going to have to keep digging into it. Okay. Okay.  Adaptation. I mean, a lot of original work and a lot of adaptation. And both are a lot of fun. I think. Yeah. Making something up on my own is, is really enjoyable. Making something up that another writer has already, she or he is already, they have already carved that path. Right.  I work on porgy and best. And it's like big, huge things. But I feel like I'm always holding the hand holding hands with the first writer. Right. And, and I have a lot of respect for them.  I'm holding the hands. Gershwin's are holding my hand and I'm very proudly walking alongside them to bring it into the next. You know, generation, if you will. So I mean, you're working with the writer, whether they're alive or passed away already to bring this, this novel, this beautiful book that they wrote into its next incarnation. Right.  So it's a, it's a great thing that you're doing. It's a great service that you're doing to the first writer. And the first writer is doing a great service to you. Like, cause like I said, they've already carved out the main points of the story. Now in a novel, the requirements are different. As you know, then in a play or in a TV play or in a teleplay. So you're going to have to maybe do some editing, some inventing, right? Because it should flow as a dramatic work. Right. So I would suggest if you haven't already, this is my census card again, but it's the same size as an index card, but you know, get some cards, you know, and write down the main story points, right? You may have already typed them out already, but you can write them down. You don't have to put a lot of people at story board. You don't have to put it on the wall. You can just have them and put them on your desk, lay them out, but get those main story points down. Start telling yourself the story, right? Start thinking of it again. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Is it a, it's a, you're adapting it into a play. Yes. It's a book. It's a, it's a book being adapted into a play. Okay. So you have to think of the story. And then it might need an act break. Right. So one act break or two act breaks or however many.  And then again, a novel, a book has, you know, maybe chapter breaks, right? That could help you create the scenes, but in a theater piece you're going to probably need maybe an act break, maybe not, you know, but so you'll want, but you'll want to get those, those big story points really at your fingertips in your head all the time. Okay. Yep. And just remember that the original writer, the first writer is working with you. They are helping you. So lean on them, hold their hand, walk beside them, talk to them, not in, not for real, you know, even if they're living, but through their work. Yeah. Be in conversation with them as much as possible. Yeah. This is really helpful. The novel is cut into sort of journal entries. And so there's a lot of natural dialogue in it, but I was being really binary about it's a journal. You know what I mean? Until now we just said about pulling the story points out. Yeah. Yeah. Think about the story points. And would a journal be the best, coolest, dramatic way you could tell it? Right. Maybe. Or is, do you need to do something else, something that's, that's, that's deliciously theatrical. You know what I mean? And again, journal, the journal entries could be told. I mean, we have an in theater drama, we have the soliloquy, which could be like a journal entry, maybe, you know, we do have the convention of breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience that could be employed. You could mix and match. You could, you know, there's, there's a lot of, of techniques that you can, you can employ in theater that will help you tell the story. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's great. Sounds like a great opportunity. Yeah, it will be. Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for asking. Of course. Diana. Next we have Rebecca. Rebecca, are you there? Hey. Hi, Rebecca. Hi, Rebecca. Oh my goodness. Hi, Susan Lori. Rebecca. From NYU actually, from collaboration class. All right. Hey, it's good to see you. Hi. Good to see you, Rebecca. Good to see you too. This has been great. So, okay, I have some notes here.  And I feel like they all kind of accumulate in all these tabs I have, but they feel all related to the same play. It's sort of like my, they're all part of my blah, blah, blah play. Like, I think, oh, maybe they're, they're standalone. And then they just all sort of center back around the same theme. They're very much not linear. And I feel like I hear a lot.  Miss. They're very sensorial or experiential. And so I'm curious if you have suggestions about. Or thoughts about how to. Continue to focus those things into one piece. And I'm curious if you have a question to your like planes once, which was about content informing form. I don't know if that it rings a bell, but it had a big impact on me then. So. That is what I'm. That's what I'm experiencing and interested in the, in the, in the idea of trying to get to middles and ends of things and not just in beginnings and enjoying, you know, any slush kaleidoscope experience or something. But wanting to share it. Cool. That sounds like a great project, Rebecca and. You know, again, we. The conversation is shaped by the questions that are asked and not by any specific agenda that I have. So people want to talk about. Certain kinds of art making or theater, making or all that of course I can talk about it, to lay on my experimental shit on y'all if you don't want to hear it. The great thing about not really be more interested in the experimental stuff is that it can go so many ways and yet you have to be very, very disciplined and rigorous with your creative process and your ear architecture. Shotgun shacks or shotgun houses are popular for a reason. People know how to build them. They know how to put them down. Experimental things are maybe less popular. They require the architect or the writer to be very, very rigorous in her design because at the end of the day you still want it to be habitable. I'm using that metaphor. You still want it to be watchable. You still want it to be an experience. You want it to have an end. You have to be even much more rigorous. Writing, I've got to say, and I've written writing stuff like doesn't last back man the whole entire world, aka Negro Book of the Dead, was a lot harder than writing a teleplay for television because a teleplay for television has to be a certain thing and it already has the rules defined. When I go out into the experimental thing, the rules are different and harder to discover. What you can do is if you have many of these collagee pieces, oh look, I found another piece of paper. This is small. This is cute. You can put them on little pieces of paper like this or again you can use an index card. And you can, so I imagine you have them written down somewhere, is that correct? Okay, probably not on, great. Okay, so you can put them on cards like this little, I mean, you don't have to fit the whole thing on the card. Just put the sort of meat of it or the bones of it, right? Put it on a card, right? And then you put all of them on cards. So you have them sort of a whole big stack.  You have a huge stack of them and then you can just start going, hey, I'd like to see this one first. Oh, this would be cool after that one, right? These three in a row would be great. Yeah, I don't know where that one goes yet. I don't know, I got to rewrite that one. I don't even know what it's about, you know? Oh, this and this and this and this and this and then that. Boom, okay, great. Then we have these three. You just start to organize them by sort of listening to your internal rhythm, but that has to be strong. Sure, sure. And it sounds like a lot of fun, but try that, you know, try just starting to organize them and you might, if they're on, you put them on cards, you can number them in the corner in pencil, right?  Okay. Don't. Just start to organize them. Yeah, yeah. It'll help to visualize it. The documents I get, you know, I get stuck, but putting them up on the wall will be sure. Up on the wall, down on the floor, in your hand, you know? Okay. Sounds like fun. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. Thanks for your like. Thanks for yours. Thanks, Rebecca. All right. Now we have about eight minutes left. Next, we do have Nancy. Nancy, are you there? Oh, hi. Yes, yes. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, you went away again.  Yeah, your connection to my ear is very intermittent. Can you hear me? I'm... Keep talking. I kind of can, kind of can't, but we'll see what we can do. Someone has to unmute me. Can you hear me? I'm speaking. Hi.  Now you're muted to my board anyway. You are unmuted. Again, the connection sounds very poor or dodgy. Keep talking. Let's see if we can make sense out of it. Go ahead. I'll just be brief and I'll break out. Today's in a row, I guess my luck is finally changing. Okay, I work in different projects. Someone at the same time, except a lot of times, things get started, they don't get finished because I jump on one, one, the other. You talk about working on projects, and I know your skin. What's the best way to do that dance? Do you look at the beginning of the week?  Some of it's for hanging, most of it isn't. They're all important, so I really need a kind of... Sure. Thanks. I got it. I'm jumping in because it's hard to hear. A lot of people are texting that you should type it to me, but I think I got it. I think I got it. You're working on a couple of different projects, more than one different project at a time. How might we suggest that you rotate those projects? Yes. Thank you. Great. Got it. I work on a lot of different projects at once. You can do it in a variety of ways. Even if you're not working on different creative projects at once, maybe you've got your home schooling, and you've got to make dinner, you've got to wipe down your home again with disinfectant. I mean, you've got a lot of different things going on these days, but if it's creative projects, you can do it in a couple of different ways, Nancy. You can do it by hours, two hours on project A, followed by a tea time or what, a little break, palette cleanser, go out for a walk or whatever, then maybe two hours on project B. You can do it like that. Taking time chunks during the day for each project. You can also do it like Mondays are for project A, Tuesdays are for project A, Wednesdays are for project B, Thursdays are for project B. You see what I mean? You can divide it. You can cut the day into pieces like this. I'm like the calendar, right? Google calendar, or you can do it like this. Or you can say one whole week on project A, then put it down, get to the finish line, some kind of finish line, the end of an act, the end of a end of series or whatever you want to do, right? And then next week on project B, I'll work on that. Then next week back on project A, you can do it like that. It's fun to work on things like that. I do it a lot and you can get a lot of things done in a month as opposed to just one thing at a time if you have to work like that. Yeah. Right.  That's what you said. Can you hear me? No, no. I know when I come to the, what? Where you can leave one project and go to the other. Yes, where I can leave one, do I know where I can leave one project and go to another? Yeah. I decide. Basically, if I say I'm working on project A for two hours today, timer goes off. It's two hours. That's where I leave the project.  If it's a re, if I'm rewriting, I circle it and I say start here, go to page 72, whatever like that. Or if it's a new project, I put a, you know, put, it's easy to find where I'm still working on it. You know, maybe I'll put a post it in my notebook. Remember that tomorrow you're going to do XYZ on this project. Sure. If it's timed wise, if it's, I'm working on project A for a week, when the week's over, there you go. Stop. Right. Go to the next project. It requires a kind of, it requires a kind of discipline. You have to sit down and work in a focused way for the amount of time that you've allotted yourself. Great. Yeah. Great. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much. Thanks. Thanks, Nancy. Thanks. All right. We have time for one more. Next we have Jenny, Jenny, are you there? Hi. Thank you so much for having this. I'm thrilled to discover it on HowlRound. I have a, I'm intimidated by a project that I'm working on because it is a true story.  And I have her whole story and, you know, we're working together. And I applied for a Sloan grant, which was a one page outline.  But the only antagonist I have is basically the Trump administration. And that doesn't come along until later. And I don't know if there should be a conflict in her marriage. Can I add things?  And I don't want to change it too much. But I'm nervous about it not being, not grabbing the audience right away. And, and can I change things as, as it, you know, as important as her relationship with her husband, for instance, what if he didn't support her in, in making the changes that the Trump administration tried to force her to change, which was censor. Right, right, right. It's, it's amazing. Is it Jeannie, your name, Jeannie? Jenny. Jenny, Jenny. Okay, it's amazing, Jenny, you're more by the changing the facts of this person's life than the Trump administration, which is amazing, which means you must be a superhero and wear a cape. I mean, my personal feeling is I would personally, I would not want to show someone's good marriage in a bad light just to grab an audience. That's my personal, that's my own code, you know what I'm saying? Okay, so, so let's not, then don't do it. Don't do it. Okay, so that means you got to dig deeper. What's great is you've discovered that you need to engage an audience. Okay, a lot of writers don't even know, right? Oh yeah, right. Okay, so you need to engage an audience. So how do we do that in a way that is going to, you know, like Emily Dickinson said, tell all the truth, but tell it slant, success and circuit lies, right? So you gotta dig deep. I mean, that's not, Emily Dickinson says dig deep, but you got to dig a little deeper. Okay, maybe you have to, what we call, cut deep, like start at a place of conflict. Okay, maybe you have to go ahead.  Great. And then there's a personal part of her, which is that she is British, and she worked really hard to get rid of her cockney accent. Because she came from a tough neighborhood, and she wanted to be respected as a, and she got her PhD here in America as a science climate scientist. And when she's at the top at the crisis point, where they're really battering her, that's when this tough girl, when she's from her cockney neighborhood comes out. So I don't know whether I should start with her trying to work to get rid of, you know, that tough part of her, and be the nice girl, or I should start with her being, you know, on, on the committee where they're, they're interrogate, you know, interviewing her. Right, right. I don't know. I mean, I think you're, are you working with producers or, or? No, no, it's just me and her. I mean, my friend and mentor under Medley, she's like helping me, oh great, oh great. But I, I mean, I don't know where you should start. I mean, I think your, your material is going to dictate where you should start and how you should flashback. It sounds really exciting, but just for my money, I wouldn't make her a good marriage bat. Okay. Okay, I would just dig deeper in that and find other things that are compelling and dramatic and interesting to see that you can, you can continually engage your reader. The sun's on my face. Okay, okay, the heck out of me. Huh? It intimidates me to be able to do it right. Oh, well, I mean, you've been called, those of us who are called to do big projects, I mean, I'm working on something about Aretha Franklin right now.  You're there for a reason. You've been called. You're going to answer, you're going to hide in the corner. You know what I'm saying? And we're all called to do various things in our lives. The question is, are you going to answer the call? Are you going to hide in the corner? It sounds like you're going to answer the call. Yeah, yeah, be, yeah, be intimidated. You can feel the weight of the responsibility, but lean into it. You know what I mean? And just know that you'll, you'll get it right if you keep working at it. You know, you might not get it right in the first draft or whatever. That's fine. You know, very few of us get it right in the first draft. Who cares? Okay. Okay, just keep working at it though. Keep, keep working at it. And it's a great question. It's not a great project, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, thank you. All right. It is 6.04 p.m. We should definitely do this tomorrow. Yeah, let's do this tomorrow. All right, everyone. Just a reminder, you can sign up to be in each day's Zoom class at publictheater.org by 3 p.m. It's your standard time each day. We will email the link out between 3 and 4.30 p.m. And the following week sign up links will be released tomorrow at 3 p.m. as well. So see you tomorrow. Thanks, everybody. See you tomorrow. Have a great...


and welcome to another video in the February scary campaign series. In the previous video, we showed how pigs are sexually abused and bred for their flesh. In this video, we're going to expose how sheep are predated on and exploited in a similar way. Sheep are most commonly exploited for their flesh in their wool. In terms of sexual exploitation, sheep have proved to be a little more difficult to find information on, which is raising suspicion. From the research we have conducted, AI is not the most common form of impregnation for sheep. However, in recent years, it's clearly becoming more widely advocated to farmers. According to Farmers Weekly, increasing numbers of sheep producers are following in the footsteps of their dairy counterparts by using artificial insemination as a means of improving genetic traits in their flocks. Generally, ram masturbation and semen collection will carry out as follows. A teaser you will be restrained in a headstool. A ram is then let in to the collecting area.  We fill it up with hot water so it keeps it at the right temperature. We have these, we put that in there and this is just to keep it all warm as well and that is what we use. It's very simple and very effective. The ram then mounts the yew.  The prepuse should not be grabbed or yanked towards the av, but rather gently guided in. A final upwards pelvic thrust signifies ejaculation. Donna will take around five collections of semen from the rams each day, a task that can prove to be somewhat challenging. The semen will then be stored for the disturbing artificial insemination process. Looks like the semen collector was having quite a good time considering how inappropriate and bizarre this whole process is. If that wasn't weird enough, the insemination process for the female sheep is even weirder. There are multiple ways for sheep to be artificially inseminated, including vaginal, cervical and laparoscopic. Laparoscopic AI is typically favoured in the UK because semen is deposited directly into the urus, making conception rates higher and frozen semen can be used. In the laparoscopic method, the yew is restrained upside down in a terrifying, medieval-like contraption called an AI cradle. She is then cut into on the left and right hand side above her udder. A camera is then inserted to view the womb. The sheep appears to be conscious and is moving around in an uncomfortable way as the man pumps gas to displace the stomach and intestines. The semen is then probed and prodded into the right hand side of the yew. AI is becoming increasingly advocated over the old-school way of breeding because a ram, with good quality semen, adequate testicular size and a good libido can breed up to 100 yews in a season, whereas artificial insemination can magnify the breeding potential and genetic influence of a single ram by many times. What is seemingly a more common practice for breeding sheep involves the following. The yews have their reproductive organs exploited through the controlling of their cycle and sponging. Sponging synchronizes the yew so they all come into mating season at the same time.  Two weeks later the sponges are removed and the sheep are injected with PMSG to increase ovulation. The ram is then introduced to the herd to have his way with the young female sheep. Sheep are branded with paint to show that they have been successfully mounted by the ram. When these sheep are no longer a profit to the farmer they are all of course sent to be brutally executed and decapitated in a slaughterhouse. All I see here is human domination, manipulation, exploitation and violation of vulnerable and defenseless animals so they can be murdered for monetary gain. All you need to do to really see how disturbing and unjustified this behavior is is to put yourself in the animal's position. Please share this video far and wide with the hashtag Februaryscary to those who need to see exactly the type of sexual abuse of non-consenting animals they are paying for when they purchase animal products. Let's all oppose and boycott the sexual exploitation of sentient beings in the matter of the species. Thank you.