Hi everybody and welcome to my presentation on inner product connection encryption with fine-grained access control. This is joint work with Michelle Abdullah, Dario Catalano and Roman Gay. I will briefly recall the setting of functional encryption. Here we have two parties Alice and Bob. Alice has a massive public key and some message. So it decrypts the message under the public key, the massive public key. And Bob, being in possession of the encryption key associated to some function F, it can decrypt and it will obtain the function of the message and not the message itself. This master public key and the secret key are generated by some master authority. There's a security we want that the encryption and the secret key for the function F only like F of M and no other information about the message. We are interested in unbound collusion in the setting. And, which means that we, we, we consider security with respect to Q secret keys. So we have two functions F1 all the way up to FQ and this Q is a polynomial which is not set up in advance. So then this scheme is unbound. So again, we only want to leak F1 of M FQ of M and nothing else about the message. We know that function encryption is roughly equivalent to insubstantial application. So our application candidates are inefficient. In practice, we want to look at efficient constructions based on standard assumption and a known direction, a very explored direction is to consider by previous work is to look at a different direction. And here, Alice now has a vector x, which it says to to Bob, it says to Bob the encryption. And Bob, it's a good key now is associated associated to some vector y, x and y live over CP to some dimension D. And when it decrypts it gets in a product of x with y. And in this paper we're interested in bounding a product. So we're interested in the case where the two norms are mounted. So this is a group of primordial P. So in terms of this, this is the enterprise function encryption has been extensively studied in terms of semantic security, the the goal is to only live in a product as before and so the functionality and nothing else about the play text. So we can also consider industry with security, where you want that these two ciphertext are for X zero and X one, our competition and distinguishable. And because you can always. If you have some security you can always perform descriptions, you want that you cannot trivially distinguish so you want to have this additional trivial relations, so that you cannot really distinguish. It turns out that if you have the keys. So, so here, for example, the keys for the canonical vectors. Then you can, you can decrypt and you can obtain the first component second point of X. In fact, you can compute, you can recover the entire plain text text. So as long as you have dealing your independent vectors, you can completely recover the plain text. And in practice, this means that you have to to keep track of the keys that you generate because as soon as you get to this then you don't have security anymore. I mean, the plaintiffs are completely recoverable. So, a natural question that we ask is whether we can, we can tune this liquid somehow. So here we consider a combination of inner product function encryption and attribute based encryption. Now ciphertexts also take an additional parameter piece or policy P, the encryption and secret keys also have this additional parameter the attributes. And when we decrypt we want that if the policy is satisfied then we can get the inner product and if not then you should get nothing should get bottom. So another way to think about this question is, you know how to construct a be and we know how to construct IPFE but is there any technical problem in combining them. And alternatively you can consider and consider the question of what is the richest functionality that we can get from standard assumptions. Our results are two schemes. One is in pairing groups. And here the policies can be monotone spam programs in a product benefit encryption so orthogonality testing where the attributes are hidden. And these schemes are adaptively secure. And we also propose some lattice based schemes, which achieve adaptive security in the random worker model and selectively the standard model. So take away at least in the pairing board would be that what we know how to achieve the policies that you know how to achieve with a be right now. We can we also know how to. Now we also know how to how to construct this, this, this, this scheme where we have functional encryption with the a be policies. So what's before I explained the some high level ideas of our scheme. Let's try a trivial approach. And here, let's see what happens if we just consider two layers layer of AB and a layer of IPFE. And the secret key so we encrypt with with an IPFE layer, we can deploy text and we add. On top of that and attribute based encryption later. We just to the pair of two keys. So the AB key and the other function encryption key. But this is insecure and to see why you can consider this keys for attribute zero for why zero and at one for why one where the policy is only satisfied by attribute zero but not by attributes one. So then what is the attack, you can decrypt using the blue component of the blue key, you can decrypt the AB layer. Because the policy is satisfied, and then you're left only with the IPFE layer. And then you use the green component of the green key to to decrypt the IPFE layer and get, you know, product of x with y one. But recall that when the policy was not satisfied when it was zero we should we're supposed to get bottom so instead of getting bottom, we get x one y one. And the reason for that is basically we can mix and match keys there is no. The two components here are not linked in any way, they are independent of each other. So we can mix and match. So let's look at the ideas on how to solve this. The very basic construction uses the following building blocks so we, we, we, we use the dual system AB of waters, and the ALS scheme for enterprise fashion and encryption from LSE. And we need an additional technical tool which is predicate encodings. This can be seen as a one time secure private key statistical variant of AB. And I will not explain in detail what this predicate encodings are, I will just take an example for identity base encryption. So here, the secret key will be will consist in three scalars from ZP to the three. And to encrypts. We have a one time path of alpha plus M, and these two additional. So this additional quantity of w zero plus ID w one. The region has the same quantity with respect to ID prime but it adds to it alpha. So now let's see how do we so you can see that all of this is linear with respect to alpha w zero and w one. So how do we do how do we decrypt we can decrypt linearly. And to do that we just subtract from the blues from the blue term we can subtract the green term. And the identities match is w zero plus ID prime w one is the same as w zero plus ID w one. The two terms disappear and we only left with alpha. And if ID is different from ID prime, then since we have two unknowns. And the ideas are different and we can argue that the two terms are pairwise independent and no information is statistically leaked about alpha so then M is also secure. And from from previous work that dual system encryption can boost the security of this one time primitive and this one time predicate encoding to to obtain fully fledged attribute based encryption. So let's look at if this predicates can be adapt somehow to have functional encryption for inner products. So what, what do you do for that. You consider some vector alpha now instead of the scalar alpha. And the kitchen so this term is the same and the kitchen now is changing alpha is dinner products now with white with a vector why and our secret key. If the key if the identities match, then we can decrypt linearly by subtracting so we multiply the gold part with white transpose. And with the way we subtracted the blue part. And we are the good part so as before when the identities match this term over here reduces this term over here. Alpha transpose so this is reduced from this and alpha transpose times y is reduced disappears because of this term. So we only left it in a product of x with y. And at a high level. What we do is to look at the previous compiler sent to get a compiler which also adds in a product functional encryption to the mix. So here we are interested in adding some, some kind of, you can think somehow this terms over here this alpha plus x, and this alpha transpose times y over here. So what would be a proof sketch for our scheme. If we wanted to. We could switch the challenge vector city x star star in the presence of the master public you so you can you can compute encryptions, honest encryptions, and you have some keys, SKY at the idea would be if the policy doesn't match, then you can argue this using the security of the security, that to be based on security, and if the policy doesn't match if the policy does match. Then, so this is a case which didn't appear in a be so maybe if the policies match then you can just keep the message, and you don't have to argue anything anymore. But in this case now we still need to argue that if the product is the same then the vectors are distinguishable. But that we need we we for this additional step that didn't appear before we have to use the security of the skin. And what I want to mention is that this can be selected within both the building blocks are adaptively secure. And to see why. We need to know the policy in advance and in fact we don't really need to know the policy we need to know just this beats zero or one. So that we know how to switch the key through which branch we switch the key to to to get that security, which you also prove for different scheme. We need to generalize pedicat encodings and we introduce in a notion of functioning coatings. And here we deal with technical problems which were previously encountered in previous work. We're setting a fully hiding pretty good encryption for in your product testing. So what are functioning coatings again they are a one time secure private key statistically secure scheme. And if you want to see the exact definition you can take a look at the paper now I will just look at the identity base case. Here the secret key has it consists of two vectors w one and w two to encrypt we we do something similar to the predicate so we do x plus w one plus I did that w two. So this is what transpose times this. And as before, if the identity is match then we can just multiply to the left, what transpose. What the grid term and subtract the purple term, the blue term. How do you argue security well, if the identities match, then you want to, you know that you get the inner product of x with y, because you can partially decrypt. So, then we we just use the fact w one, since it's a random factor, plus this difference is identically distributed to some w one prime, because w one is uniform and random. And now we just look at the green term, and this w one, we will replace with this term over here. And x zero basically reduces itself and we only left to x one plus w one plus it times two, which is exactly the encryption of x one. So of course this only works if we have the trivial, trivial relation between x zero and x one. And if they are not if the, if we have the same identity for the ciphertext, but we don't have decryption, then we do we need to do something different, I mean, we do the same thing but you also need to consider the leakage that is provided by this additional term in the decryption, which doesn't allow to decrypt. And, but the idea is the same now, even in the presence of this w one, the first term is, you can make this difference appear here. And you can get from encryptions and x zero to encryption that's encryptions and x one. But for more details, I will point you to the paper. So, we get an adaptive secure scheme for multiple spam programs and for what are the testing with hidden attributes so in a product product encryption. And now I will discuss a bit related work. There is this three papers that have looked at the similar, similar schemes in the context. So their purpose was to use them to build affuscation and this was the affuscation candidates. And they can support richer functionalities so they can support quadratic functionalities. So we can, we have inner products and one of the spam programs, one of the spam programs from a practical point of view are the same as NC one. And what I wanted to say is that all of these constructions are relying on parents. Now what we have even though we only do it for inner products we do have adaptive security which is what we will want to practice. So we have three schemes over here only have selective security, and we do have public key. We have a public key scheme. But there is also very interesting related work which considers other functions so for example attribute with subs. And this work which has quadratic functional encryption, and the policies are also NC one. So, and the only drawback would be that the security select. But for more details you can see, you can see a discussion in the paper. And now I will talk a bit about talk a bit about the lattice construction. Here we have an adaptively distinguishable scheme in the random model based on the IPFE of a 16 and the identity based encryption of GP 2008. And selective scheme in the standard model, using a BB 10 and a 60. So this is the high level idea. We noticed that in the inner product function encryption of a less description keys are linear combinations of the master secret key. So, in particular the master secret keys matrix, and the description keys are just this matrix multiplied to just to some vector, and to the vector why that for which the keys are associated to which the keys are associated. So our idea is to to start with the idea schemes of either this, this game or the ABB scheme. And to consider linear combinations of description keys for identity of ID. So basically we project the description key for a particular identity ID on the vector why in the description key, which will be just what transpose times the matrix which is SK ID, these two schemes. And it turns out that the results is a combination of the two schemes. So the inner product function encryption scheme and either GPV 2008 or ABB 2010. And as before we argue using the security, either the ALS security or the identity based encryption security. So just to recall the proof sketch we want to switch the challenge. So this is a challenge to the x star with ID star. If we had in the presence of the muscle pick muscle public key and the keys, the description keys SK why with ID. So, similarly to before if the identities don't match then we we switch the key using the identity based encryption security. If the identities match then we can use the ALS security. You can ask why doesn't this yield a selective scheme and for example in the random worker model, it's not the case because we only need to guess the index of the random worker query. So each identity will correspond to to some matrix. This matrix is computed as the random worker applied on the identity. So instead of guessing the identity we only gets the the index of the random worker query. But for more details you can see the proof in the paper. And finally, I will conclude with an open problem of whether one can combine attribute based encryption for circuits with the production encryption. So, so here again we are in the lattice regime. And right now we don't know how to solve this for technical reasons, but it would be to be very interesting to see a solution to this. And just to conclude, and to recap, we we have bearing based schemes where the policies are more than spam programs and in a product benefit encryption and identity based encryption. So with adaptive in the security, and we have lattice based schemes, but only for identity based policies. And they are a battery secure in the random worker model and selective secure in the standard model. Next, thank you for your attention. I hope you enjoy the conference and hopefully see you at the live session. Thank you.


Today we're conducting tactical convoys in order to resupply DZ Cranberry. We're here conducting mode training and preparation for our deployment. It's really good. The OCTs keep throwing curveballs and keeping it interesting. It's not just your run and mill training. There's always something different going on each and every day. I think the OCTs are very professional out here. They're extremely knowledgeable and willing to help in any way they can and facilitate our training to be the best possible. So today we're running 645 ICTC through tactical convoy operations, react to UXO, react to IED, react to small arms or react to contact. Over the past 72 hours they've improved immensely. They started out a little rough and they've grown every single time. And today they've actually got to the point where we believe that they are good enough to actually deploy if needed. From today what I want them to do is be able to go anywhere in the world that the Army asked them to and perform this operation to standard so that they can always come back home safe and sound. Turn it on. It just moved a little bit quicker. He's not going with the med back. It's not going to take him. So at that point it's a real life. I can tell you that. But yeah, you guys work through it. That's all you do. Find the problem and solve it.


Thank you very much. Thanks for coming to this talk about the toolbox containers Yeah, I've introduced them. I'm Jens Peterson. I work at Red Hat for quite a long time on OS development It's great to be back in person here And yeah, so just to motivate a little bit about I've been using these toolbox containers for quite a while. I just find it really nice to have it my sort of development environment is completely separate from the system environment so I can Choose to upgrade when I want or I can use an older system sometimes if I need something there Yeah, so today I'll mainly be talking about two projects Which I've contributed to but I'm not the main developer I just want to say upfront Taking credit to this but so one is toolbox another is district box. They're somewhat similar, but they also have Some slight differences Yeah, as we'll see So, yes, what's the toolbox container This is just a so-called pat container which means it's not something that you're taking care of that sort of that's Maybe it's valuable to you Something you might be using for a longer period of time and Yeah, so it'd be using podman or Docker and The special thing about it is that it has access to your home directory and desktop environment and system resources and so on so Yeah, but I mean obviously the environment in the container is different from the system environment usually Oh, well, it doesn't have to be you might want to have it Install packages which you don't want in the system because you don't want to mess around mess up your system But you just want you still need those tools or applications So I'm going to approach this For fundamental questions why how What and who so Let's start with why a bit more Yeah, so when the main yeah, I think I more has covered some of this but So yeah, there's two main use cases I mean originally the toolbox project came up in the context of OS tree Operating systems where you cannot have an immutable operating system But then it's a bit awkward to like have development tools and so on in that kind of environment So then you then you'd have a toolbox container where you could install your compilers and IDs and so on But Yeah, and Also another vantage of say of toolbox is compared to say using a VM or something is that it's a lot less resource intensive You can save memory and this space and so on or as a VM what might need 10 20 gigabytes to run in The toolbox container will just share memory with the system and also this space and so on so Yeah, it's quite good in that sense So I'm not really going to go into a lot of detail because it's a very short talk but yeah, so basically I just Especially under podman the rootless privileged user containers And then they're using like name spaces and bind mounts To bring like sockets and system directories and so on into your toolbox and So usually it's a sort of two-step process first you create the toolbox and then you enter it or you can also run directly from your host show but So yeah, so today I want to demo This toolbox and also destroy box, which is the two main projects which are kind of for sort of interactive graphical Environments So first, yeah, there's toolbox Which is now kind of stood in this Containers org on github So it's originally started by debauchy ray in 2018 Originally it was just a shell script But then it was rewritten later in go lang The idea was that go lang would bring it closer to podman and most of the container tools and so on a written in go lang so Though I think in practice, it's more just calling out to podman these days, but So yeah, it's packaged in fedora from the beginning also available in rel and arch and also it's available in Debian and Ubuntu now Yeah, I guess one of the differences between toolbox and destroy box is that toolbox requires custom container images, so it kind of assumes that certain tools and Well, some minor files are in place Unlike a distro box which can use a standard distro containers to build its toolboxes And yes, then for that we have this fedora toolbox image and Which I also help to maintain a little and also in rel. We also have a toolbox Yeah, this is the UBI, but there's also a official rel toolbox container, but then in last year the community kind of Got tired of waiting and so yeah various people also some of the red hat helped to create this new repository for other operating systems So now there are a lot more toolbox containers available for lots of different distros listed here So that's quite a nice development Yeah, so Maybe I can show a bit So this this is actually a VM running on my laptop and Yeah, and So here's a list of Yeah, you can see that there's various toolbox images here like for centos Ubuntu fedora rel And I've got a few so let's try to Enter one Box here at the side here in purple. It's just to show you it's a toolbox container and So yeah, I've actually well for example my host system I don't have a emacs, but I installed emacs over here So I just learned this soft code here too, but Anyway Perhaps I'll move on To in Ubuntu toolbox So yeah, it's yeah, so that's running Ubuntu inside This fedora system So I have access to all my home directory here and as you can see yes I could I could install some graphical application and run it. Let's move on to talk about the distro box. Sorry Graphic, so this is a community project Started in in 2021 and it's all I think it's written. It was a port of of the toolbox shell script So it takes a bit of different approach. Like I said, it doesn't need custom Custom images It supports a quite a wide range of distros probably more than toolbox does There's some we can see this This is the distros that it runs on I think and also You can also see where it's packaged here. I think open source is also using it So it also supports toolbox container. So you can use like this Repository I mentioned earlier of the toolbox containers. There's lots of different distros that are supported. That's quite nice Yeah, and it has another nice features. For example, you can set a different home directory. So if you're worried about interfering with so you Do your home directory files or something then you can create a distro box toolbox which uses different home directory It also has some other good things it has for example dry run option which will show you like the commands that are Like the podman command and so on that are being run There's also support for kind of ephemeral or short short lived toolboxes, so you can just start up an ephemeral toolbox test something and then Go out again and it will just disappear and So yeah, I think toolbox is good for developers and also testers I often use it I'm often want to compare something in one version of the operating system with another version or if I'm debugging something I want to check if something's fixed in a newer your library or things like that Also, it can be used so it's particularly particularly on say OS trees for sort of a system troubleshooting as well where maybe some tools that you want are not available in the system, but you can then put them in a toolbox and So that's really the talk The Projects and my contact details Happy to take any questions you may have Hello, thanks for the presentation Can I saw that you you open? GUI version of Emax, right? UI version of Emax So so my question is can we run any UI any GUI without complex configurations likes in Docker Like can you open browser or anything easily in toolbox? Anything Okay, so no no complex configurations required for that Okay, thank you. Any more questions by the hell of this destroyer boss Okay, and there will be the new image of us There is only one colonel and the process one then any other disorders is with these two boss Okay, I think it's interesting and I have another question is and because we talked about the container OS like always yeah, and the OS is Read only so very deep back you install a deep back container Yeah What kind of tools we will install in this debug to boss and is it suitable to for for the maintenance on the flight of the network you have or just It's just suitable for use for the SI team like this way Just put all the debugging tools in this container. It's okay. I think I Want to hear some Advices from you The Colonel yeah, so that the toolbox depends on the system colonel, so There can be issues with certain issues like with drivers and some like GPUs and things like that so ideally it should have the same Ideally the districts and the colonel should kind of be For the same colonel and also that there's no system D running in the In the containers, so that is a problem like some services may not work into a box, so that's an limitation As for the troubleshooting. Yeah, I haven't done it my love myself. But yeah, for example Even the chorus is moving to use toolbox. They previously had their own kind of simpler toolbox But yeah, I don't know it could be like some debuggers or Network I don't troubleshooting tools or something So these these green Toolboxes are still running actually even in the background and No, I know a thing. I That you can you can also run applications from the host. I mean for the toolbox this using is one command Only I think I forgot is the distro box also allows you to export Desktop files to the host host desktop So you can like see Think I had one example This this GTK demo It's not very exciting, but it's actually running in a So I just want to ask one question So how my understanding is that container you need a process key printing like PID one or something that so that the containers Stays alive looks like on your case. It's staying alive because you know, you can do it so how that is being handled and Is it being recommended? How how can we spawn up multiple processes? Is it recommended to do like, you know, you can spawn up multiple processes like how we can handle Good question. Um, the system is running and the whole system There's also something called con con one, which is kind of a container monitor Which sort of works together with pod man. So It checks that the container is sort of continues to run Yeah, you can run multiple processes in within one container it It feels like just a normal like shell or other desktop Environment so you can have multiple processes running there. Yeah, you can if you want, yeah I mean, I usually have two of us running in the foreground in my shell. So, yeah There's also integration in scone terminal so that if you create a new tab it automatically starts up in a In the same toolbox that you're already running. So thank you. Thanks for your attention


Earlier this year, I started getting emails about this book, The Plant Paradox, purporting to expose the hidden dangers in healthy foods that cause disease and weight gain, foods like beans and whole grains and tomatoes. Why? Because of lectins, which is a rehashing of the discredited blood type diet from decades ago. They just keep coming back. Yeah, but this was written by an MD, which, if you've seen my medical school videos, you'll know is effectively an anti-credential when it comes to writing diet books, basically advertising to the world that you've received likely little or no formal training in nutrition. Dr. Atkins was, after all, a cardiologist. But look, you want to give the benefit of the doubt? The problem is that it doesn't even seem to pass the sniff test. I mean, if lectins are bad, then beans would be the worst, and so bean counters would presumably find that bean eaters cut their lives short. Whereas the exact opposite may be true. With legumes, bean split peas, chickpeas, and lentils found to be perhaps the most important dietary predictor of survival in older people and countries around the world. As Dan Butner points out in his Blue Zone's work, lectin-packed foods are the cornerstone of the diets of all the healthiest, longest-lived populations on the planet. Plant-based diets in general and legumes in particular are a common thread among longevity blue zones around the world, the most lectin-lush food there is. And if lectins are bad, then whole grain consumer should be riddled with disease, when in fact whole grain intake is associated with a reduced risk of coronary heart disease. The number one killer of men and women strokes, too, and total cancer and mortality from all causes put together, meaning people who eat whole grains tend to live longer and get fewer respiratory disease, infectious diseases, diabetes, and all non-cardiovascular, non-cancer causes to boot. And not just in population studies, as I've shown, you can randomize people into whole grain interventions and prove cause-and-effect benefits. The same with tomatoes. You randomize women to a cup and a half of tomato juice or water every day, and all that nightshade tomato lectin reduces systemic inflammation. Car has waste-slimming effects, reducing cholesterol as well as inflammatory mediators. So when people told me about this book, I was like, let me guess, he sells a line of lectin-blocking supplements. And what do you know? Assist your body in the fight against lectins for only $79.95 a month. It's only like $1,000 a year, a bargain for pleasant bathroom visits. And then, of course, there's 10 other supplements, so for only $89,000 a year, you can lick those lectins. Oh, did I not mention his skincare line, firm and sculpt for an extra 120, all so much more affordable when you subscribe to his VIP club. But you still want to give him the benefit of the doubt. People ask me all the time to comment on some new blog or book or YouTube video, and I have to sadly be like, look, there are 100,000 peer-reviewed scientific papers on nutrition published in the medical literature every year, and we can barely keep up with those. But people kept emailing me about this book, so I was like, fine, I'll check out the first citation. Chapter 1, Citation 1, Forget Everything You Thought You Knew Was True. Diet books love saying that. For example, eating shellfish and egg yolks dramatically reduces total cholesterol. What? Egg yolks reduce cholesterol? What is this citation? This is the paper he cites, and here it is. By now, you know how these studies go. How do you show a food decreases cholesterol?  In this case, about 50%.  So they've got to drop in cholesterol, removing meat, cheese, and egg yolks. Yet that's the paper he uses to support his statement that egg yolks dramatically reduced cholesterol. I mean, it's unbelievable. That's the opposite of the truth. Add egg yolks to people's diets, and their cholesterol goes up. I mean, how dare he say this? And it's not like some harmless foolishness like saying the earth is flat or something. Heart disease is the number one killer of men and women. This could actually hurt people so much for my benefit of the doubt.


Most of you know how big a problem drugs have become in this country. You turn on the TV, you watch a movie, and it's pretty easy to get the idea that everyone is using drugs, but the truth is most kids don't. Most kids want nothing to do with drugs. Today you're going to meet three teenagers who can show you what I mean. Oscar, William, and Alicia lead pretty ordinary lives. They go to school, they hang out with their friends, and they're trying to figure out what the future holds. They've all found good ways to avoid drugs, like setting goals for themselves, finding friends who don't use drugs, and working hard to develop their talents. You're also going to meet one girl, Tracy, who learned the hard way that drugs are a dead end.  But what's important about Tracy's story is that she found the courage and help she needed to change her life. If you're worried about drugs, if you feel like they're all around you, remember that you can find ways to protect yourself. Think about what makes you special. Think about the people who care about you. Saying no to drugs is really about saying yes to your life. Oscar is the first kid I want you to meet. He lives in the Mission District of San Francisco. In the mission, drugs and violence have become a way of life for some. For Oscar, the choice is simple.  It used to be a life neighborhood, at least that's what my parents told me. They said it was real nice, and they showed pictures of it, and it was real nice. But like drug dealers started coming in, they started dealing with drugs, and with that they brought in all the crime, and then people were afraid to just walk, you know, it was real bad. Somebody get shot at least once a week, somebody go down, and personally too I even know some friends who they were the same age as me, same thing, we were like, you know, almost like brothers, and then boom, you got shot and like, man, how did it happen? And I was starting to think, man, why did you get involved in that? Why did you get in the gang in drugs? I said, well, I don't want that happening. I want to keep living. I want to stay alive. I'm so young, I'm only 16, so I want to make it, I want to make at least 80. Not everyone who gets involved in drugs ends up in a gang or dead. Sometimes the damage is harder to see. Smoking pot, for example, makes it difficult to concentrate and remember what you read and hear. Other drugs, like PCP, can make you angry and violent. As Oscar says, the only way to make it out of a tough situation is to stay in school and away from drugs. To me it's like a mission to not go down like some of the people I knew, to survive, to actually make it to go to college, to live a good life and not waste it like some of my friends did. The inner city can be a tough place to live, but Oscar loves his neighborhood and his friends.   Just doing things that are fun as long as it doesn't do any harm, such as drugs, you know. Oscar's circle of friends includes his two older cousins. Alberto and David also grew up in the Mission District, but they both graduated from high school, went on to college and now have jobs they really love. Oscar spends a lot of time with his cousins. He looks up to them and tries to be like them. For them, I think I'd be like, you know, in the wrong crowd, I'd be doing the wrong things. It's like an older, older brother figure, you know, somebody you can look up to and say, yeah, I want to be like that or, you know, I want to go his way, not do that. That's wrong, you know. I want to go like the right path and do the right thing. They're always there, like, if I need to talk to somebody, I can talk to them about anything. Oscar has a big family and they all look out for each other. The fact that he loves his parents and doesn't want to disappoint them is another reason he won't do drugs. Oscar is right when he says you have to learn to take care of yourself, but it helps to have people who love you on your side. They can't make the right decisions for you, but they can be there when you need advice or support. Don't make up your mind about drugs, but my advice to you is this.  So stay in school, graduate, get a good job, and after that, the sky's the limit. Oscar's family is really there for him. Not everyone is so lucky, but you know there are other places to turn to if you have a problem or just need someone to talk to. A favorite teacher, for instance, or a support group or hotline. A lot of people out there really do care and want to help. It helps too if you can find activities that develop your talents. The next kid you're going to meet, William, has been dancing since he was 10 years old. He dreams of being a professional dancer. To make that happen, he knows he's got to stay in control of his body and his mind. And that means keeping far away from drugs. William loves the energy and creativity of dancing. He's also found that dancing is a good way to make friends and fit in. There was like dance contests in the neighborhood, and everyone knew how to dance, it was like if you didn't know how to dance, you would like standing on the outside, just looking at everybody dancing, you would just feel sort of out of place. William dances with Lysia and Nakea in a group called ADC. They've been rehearsing a routine they hope to perform at New York's Apollo Theater. I was supposed to jump over his head, you didn't? No. I looked down on your feet, we're right there. Somehow we all clicked and we got to know each other and then we started working together and we worked well, so we continued to work together. Goofy, he's just like a brother now. He's William. Yeah, William. We kid a lot, we go to the movies, we go roller skating, displace that place, and we always have fun. You have to have some seriousness and some goofiness at the same time, because it just makes it easier. William practices with his partners every day after school. They avoid drugs because they know drugs would destroy the balance, timing, and control they've worked so hard to achieve. I think drugs would affect my commitment in my practicing because I might hurt myself in a certain way and then once I hurt myself I may not be able to dance again. William's success as a dancer has given him the confidence to set some pretty high goals for himself. He really likes his science classes and he's thinking about being a doctor someday. I need to stay in school because I want to be a doctor and if I was to drop out of school what would I be able to do? William knows that doing well in school is the key and that controls the body. William works several days a week at the Boston Children's Hospital in the Research Lab. Not only is he learning what it takes to be a doctor, but it's a way for him to help his community. I see that's taken a very minute amount, which is very handy in a pediatric environment because this patient is only six days old. I like my job. It's fun. People ask me, how can you stand stuff like that? Well, it's not really standing, you just got to think about it. I may be helping someone out in the world that needs my help. Everyone needs someone help out at some point in time and I think this is how I can help other people is by working here in the lab. So as soon as we finish the washing, William can go in with the next specimen. Setting goals and working hard to achieve them has helped William say no to drugs. He believes in himself, which is why he won't do things he knows are wrong or dangerous.  Don't be pressured into doing anything that you don't want to do. Be your own person. Make the right decision. If you make the right decision, you'll be happy within yourself. Don't make a decision that concerns anyone else.  Make control of your life. Make a decision for yourself, for no one else but yourself. William knows how important it is to stay away from drugs, but some teenagers find that drugs and alcohol aren't just out on the streets, they're on the dining room table. It can be pretty tough if you've grown up with someone who uses drugs or abuses alcohol. Take Tracy for example, the next kid you're going to meet. Tracy is a recovering drug addict and alcoholic. She's been clean and sober for four years, but she's still struggling to undo the damage she caused herself and her family. Tracy found out the hard way that drug addiction is really scary. Drugs made her feel totally helpless. They took control of her life and they caused her to drop out of school and hurt the people she loved the most. And they almost killed her. I was 11 years old when I started drinking. I used to finish off the wine glasses that my parents had after they finished eating. And then I'd be with friends every now and then and they would have alcohol in their house. When their parents weren't looking, we would take little sips of it here and there. By the time Tracy was in the seventh grade, she was drinking every day. Within a year, she was addicted to other drugs as well. She started cutting classes and eventually dropped out of school altogether. Tracy was in a lot of trouble, but she couldn't turn to her mother for help. Even though Tracy's mother loved her, she wasn't giving Tracy the support she needed. I'm sure that Tracy saw me drunk many, many times. I think my own use of alcohol and other substances just kept me from seeing what was truly happening with Tracy. Tracy didn't cause her mom's drinking problem. Any more than her mother caused Tracy to drink and use other drugs. They were both suffering from a disease, alcoholism, and it took a crisis before they could see what it was doing to the family. One night Tracy overdosed on drugs and nearly died. After several weeks in the hospital, she was moved to a treatment center where she began the process of recovery. But Tracy wasn't the only one who needed to change. I had a test today. I had known for several years that I was an alcoholic, but I certainly wasn't taking care of the problem or wasn't admitting it, and I just kept on drinking. The crisis, though, was precipitated by the fact that my child was dying. I decided that if I was going to help her, then I needed to clean up my act. Tracy's mother joined Alcoholics Anonymous, a group of people who help each other learn to live without alcohol. She hasn't had a drink in four years, but she and Tracy have had to work hard to rebuild their family. When people use drugs, everyone around them is affected. My sister went through a lot with me. I can remember just scaring her to death because I would come home high. I'd take a lot of my anger out on her, and she would get hurt. I would hurt her. So I think that she's learned from my lesson. I hope so because I don't want to wish this on anybody. Tracy's determined to avoid a relapse. Drugs cost her a year of her life, a year she's had to work hard to make up. But I had to go to summer school every summer, and I had to go to night school at night. I'm just so glad that I was able to finish high school. If I didn't finish high school, I mean, I wouldn't be able to have a job. I wouldn't be able to go to college. I'd basically, you know, be a nobody. Can you now tell Eric to talk about his day? Tracy gets a lot of support from a drug and alcohol rehabilitation program called the US Project. She hopes to work in a TV station one day, and the US Project is giving her some valuable experience. Great. Now I want you to widen back out. I'm involved with a group called the US Project, and it's a bunch of young people like me that are also recovering from drug and alcohol addictions, and we get together and we write and produce our own scripts for our TV shows. We write stories about recovery and other fun things that can happen in your sobriety. Okay, in five, five, four, three, two, one, roll tape, up on audio, up from black, and cue talent. Hi, I'm Greg, and I'm with the US Project. Today we have Eric Shapiro with us from an adolescent drug treatment center. But it's really important that I have other people that I know that are also clean and sober so that they can help me support myself. Tell the guys to take three. I've worked so hard to stay off of drugs and alcohol now that I don't want to harm myself by getting into really hard or scary situations. Maybe we could focus on one of you guys and one of your issues that you want to talk about today. The US Project also offers support groups, where kids can talk about their problems and help each other stay drug-free. Support groups are really important for people like Tracy. It's hard to go through this by yourself. I don't know, this week has been really hard, I mean it hasn't been hard, I just feel like it's been really hard for me to accept because I want to control everything. And it's also nice to hear other people going through the same fears and the feelings that I'm going through so I know that I'm not alone. You know, for me it's just real hard for me to make friends and when I do I just don't want to let them go. I have a lot of fun today, but today now I know that I was really hurting myself when I was drinking and using drugs, you know, I was doing a lot of damage to myself. You know if you're hurting now then maybe you can find some buddy, some friend, even a counselor at school that you can talk to about what's going on. So it's so important to talk to people so that you won't have to hurt yourself like I hurt myself. Tracy's come a long way since the night she nearly died. She still has to deal with the problems her drug use caused and she knows she'll never be really free from her addiction. But Tracy has learned where to go for help and that's made all the difference. Knowing who to ask and where to go for help is especially important for kids who are surrounded by drugs and violence. The next person I want you to meet, Delisha, has seen firsthand how drugs and the crime they cause can destroy a community. But as Delisha has discovered, you can take charge of your life and make things better for yourself and your community. Delisha works hard at things she enjoys, playing basketball and doing volunteer work. Keeping busy helps her avoid bad situations and it reminds her that the more you put into your life, the more you get out of it. There was a lot of pressure and trouble and the best way to stay out of it was to do something constructive and positive. Through her school, Delisha found out about a group called the Youth Congress. After speaking to a few members and making some phone calls, she decided to join. She's one of about 100 teenagers from all over Boston who meet each week to discuss the problems they face, drugs, violence, teen pregnancy, and homelessness. The whole aspect of having this Youth Congress is for teens to get together in peace and harmony and you know to learn about and come up with recommendations for different topics that are important in their community and that are a problem in their community like gang violence, drugs and alcohol. Last year, Delisha organized a program to help prevent teenage pregnancy. This year, she's the head of the media committee which is working to publicize the Congress's activities. Last but not least, Malayla is going to do a mail-in to radio stations. She says she will get in touch with them and let them know what the Youth Congress is going to be about. That's it. The Youth Congress helps me because in there, I'm able to speak out on what I feel and organize and make up ideas that help the Youth Congress so that it will come off good. The Youth Congress is just one way Delisha contributes to her community. She also volunteers at the New England Baptist Hospital, designing the rows and card bouquets that are given to each patient. There are days where I help a person or give them advice because there's a lot of people come in and say, little things, like is this flower better than the other and I feel good when the patient likes the flower or something, the flowers that they receive, so it makes me feel good to know that someone is thankful. I'm proud to do what I do and I have the confidence that these things are what I need to be done and these things will help in the community so that I can look back and say I did something. Delisha also has a lot of fun. It's not all work. She goes to a lot of sports events and plays on the girl's basketball team. She also enjoys tutoring her classmates in math, English and science. Getting a good education is really important to Delisha and she's not going to let drugs interfere with it. You know what I did? I did X to the second plus 7X plus 10. The peer tutoring that I do at the school helps me. It really makes me feel good. I think staying in school is going to be important for what I want to do in the future because I hope to go to college and major in computer science. You've got X to the second minus 6X minus 9. That's the only thing I need to check up on so to be 2, 3, 2 plus 3 plus 1. If I were to start taking drugs, all my goals and dreams that I hope to do when I get older will be ruined. My activities help me to see that I'm a strong person and I can say no. This is the answer. Delisha wants her friends to see how important it is to find something you like. Sports, music, art, dance that will help you stay away from drugs. I tell them I like what I do and when you like something that you do, you do it. I guess until you die and some of them they get jealous but I say you can do it too and I invite them to do the things that I do and I invite them to my meetings and encourage them that they can do it too. Oh, look what you're saying there, an older man. You see how you see him here? Delisha gives a lot of support to her friends and community but sometimes she needs support too. She gets it through a mentoring program run by her local community center. The program finds adults who are willing to spend time with inner-city teenagers. Delisha and her mentor Lorraine get together each week to talk or sometimes just hang out. Lorraine helps Delisha remember that she's not alone, that there are adults out there who support her efforts to stay away from drugs.  We do a lot of things that are helpful and that keeps me out of trouble and she helps me when I need help and that's not, she's just someone there that I can talk to when I don't want to tell things to my mother. Where's it from? Vesuvius. Vesuvius. Vesuvius. I guess I think I have something to offer in the relationship but she gives me a lot back too so she's my buddy forever you know. I'll be there when she needs me. I would like to say to viewers is to stay in school and there'll be a fool and drugs and ain't no joke. Peace.  They've all found different ways to keep drugs out of their lives. Of course it's not always easy to avoid drugs, sometimes it might seem like everyone's doing them or that they'll make your life easier but they won't. Drugs are nothing but trouble and that's why it's important to have friends who don't do drugs like Tracy's support group or role models like Oscar's cousins and Delicia's mentor. Being involved in activities whether it's dancing, sports or helping out in the community is another way to stay straight. Talk to a teacher or guidance counselor if you want to find a mentor or get involved in activities that use your talents. Remember there are a lot of people out there who care about you. So as Oscar, William, Tracy and Delicia all say your future is too important. Don't risk it on drugs.


So, I really feel like, or I should say, I really hope that the Supreme Court, choosing to allow Texas to just explicitly violate Roe v. Wade serves as the wake-up call that a lot of Americans needed because having a far-right Supreme Court for a generation that has really, really negative implications for the future of America, you know, it's not like Roe v. Wade is super-president and they're going to leave it alone because they know that it would be politically unpopular if they overturn Roe v. Wade. They don't care. This is a branch of government that is shielded from no elections and that's part of the reason why the court is supposed to be, you know, more valuable because they don't make decisions based on what is or isn't popular. They just rule on the basis of what is and isn't a constitutional. But that also insulates them from any threats of, you know, getting ousted from government, right? So they can do whatever. They can be as tyrannical as they want to be. And when you have a lot of activist judges, when you have a lot of ideologues on the court, things are going to get bad. And I hope that people know that remaining complacent and not fighting isn't an option anymore because things aren't just bad, but they're going to continue to get worse. And I don't think people truly are grappling with the reality of how bad this is. Like for them to undercut Roe v. Wade, like they're taking us back to medieval times and we can't just let this stand. We have to fight. We have to actually make noise about packing the Supreme Court or codifying Roe v. Wade into the U. S. Constitution. But I don't think people really understand what they need to do in order to fight. So, you know, they they're just left feeling hopeless and they throw their hands up and think, well, everything else is bad. So I guess this is just another, you know, bad thing. But I want to read an article from LGBTQ nation because John Gallagher makes a really good point about how bad this is for the Supreme Court to just like willingly let Texas violate Roe v. Wade. But on top of that, what to expect next in the immediate future if the Supreme Court continues on this trajectory, which all signs pointed them continuing on this trajectory. So Gallagher writes the five right wing justices on the Supreme Court who decided to uphold Texas's anti-abortion law last week are sending a strong signal about the shaky future of LGBTQ rights, including marriage equality. Samuel Alito, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas cleared the way for a new law in Texas, which bans abortions after six weeks to take effect with just the single paragraph. The five justices clearly had an ideological goal in mind and they weren't about to let legal niceties such as a court hearing stand in the way. The justices used the request to use what is known as shadow docket, which they used to issue an expedited decision for emergency cases to settle this incredibly controversial case while holding no oral arguments. For conservatives, it was the equivalent of applying for college and being told they had graduated summa cum laude without having to take any courses or pay tuition. By allowing the Texas law to take effect, the justices essentially threw out any regard for precedent overnight. Roe v. Wade, the 50 year old Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion simply didn't matter. So ask yourself, is it really that implausible to believe that if they were willing to just willy nilly disregard a 50 year precedent in Roe v. Wade, they wouldn't also disregard five, six year precedent with Obergefell and allow for states to start banning marriage equality again. It's not just possible. I'd argue it's likely and that's what John Gallagher is arguing in this article. He continues. Guess what else conservatives would like to see overturned? Obergefell vihages the Supreme Court ruling that legalized marriage equality. The idea that the court would strip away this right so soon after bestowing it may sound far fetched. Certainly commentators like to insist that the court would never do any such thing, except that Alito and Thomas have made it abundantly clear that they think Obergefell was wrongly decided in a decision last year involving Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who refused to give same sex couples a marriage license. Thomas said so point blank quote by choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment. And by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem that only it can fix wrote Thomas in an opinion joined by Alito. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty. There's every reason to believe that Barrett with her ultra conservative background and previous anti LGBTQ history shares this sentiment. Indeed, the Federalist Society, the anti LGBTQ group that Donald Trump outsourced judicial appointments to has consistently claimed that Obergefell was wrongly decided. The group has promoted the idea that marriage equality is, as one of its writers put it, a legal and cultural mistake. The Federalist Society sets the litmus test for judicial appointees on the right. What it says isn't just an opinion. It's the template that its adherents are meant to follow. As they're ruling on Texas's abortion law shows, the five extremists on the court don't care about precedent, nor do they care about public opinion. More than half of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases. They care about ideology. So what if most Americans think marriage equality is a good thing? If five justices on the Supreme Court think otherwise, that right could be gone in a flash. And that is exactly correct. People underestimate just how nefarious these reactionaries are and how low they're willing to go. We are in the middle of a new Lochner era. We're in a Lochner era, and it's going to get bad. Not only do I expect them to basically undermine, if not overturn Obergefell, things are going to get worse. They're not just going to undo the progress that we've made socially, but they're going to prevent us from making any future progress. Like, if you're if you're not really grappling with the implications of this yet, let me put it this way. Let's assume that in 10 years, 15 years, we actually get a progressive president and we pass Medicare for all and that president signs it into law. This court like that can invalidate that law by claiming that it's unconstitutional. So it doesn't matter if, you know, Congress in writing this law, they try to, you know, make it constitutionally soundproof and they literally cite provisions of the Constitution to make sure that, you know, there's no way that they can overrule it. We're working with the reactionaries here. These aren't, you know, individuals who are trying to actually follow the Constitution to the best of their ability. These are reactionaries. These are activist judges. These aren't judicial scholars.  So we should treat them as such and stop being naive of the situation that we find ourselves in. And the only way out of this mess is to, A, pack the Supreme Court or B, codify all of these rights into law. Neither of these are likely scenarios that are going to come to fruition, right? Because in order to introduce a new constitutional amendment, I mean, we can't even get rid of the filibusters. Of course, Congress won't pass any constitutional amendment protecting abortion, marriage equality. We can't even get the Equality Act passed into law. So of course, you know, Congress isn't going to do something like that, no matter how popular gay marriage or abortion becomes. But when it comes to packing the Supreme Court, this conversation around this issue, it just diminished after the election. I guess liberals and Democrats think that it's no longer necessary. So, you know, I just feel like they don't necessarily care. And this might be a little bit overly cynical, but I think it's true. I think that Democrats, they want to let things get bad, at least some Democrats, they want things to get bad. They want the Supreme Court to overturn our rights so they can A, fundraise off of the bad things that are happening and B, use this as a tool to, you know, pitch to voters to come out and vote for them. You know, it's kind of like this issue that is a gift to the parties that keeps on giving. Democrats can use this to say, hey, elect us and we'll fight this. And Republicans can say, hey, elect us and we'll protect the progress that we've made in repealing abortion and gay marriage.  Like this barbarity that we're seeing, it's like, I don't think that it's sustainable.  Democracy is going to collapse. I mean, I don't know. I'm not trying to make any prediction, but this is unacceptable. And, you know, if we want to live in a country that is egalitarian, that is modern, then we can't keep allowing reactionaries to control everything that we do. It's just, it's not sustainable. It's not just that reactionaries have captured the Supreme Court for a generation and they're undoing social progress. Around the country, Republicans are imposing draconian voter suppression laws. They're planning on gerrymandering themselves back to victory. They're explicitly authoritarian. So if we don't treat them like the threat that they are, the fascistic threat that they are, then we're going to lose our country to them.  Stop being complacent, wake up, and get involved.