(Sarah Read is an author, editor, yarn artist, and pen/paper/ink addict. You can find more about her at her website and on Twitter. And her latest book, The Atropine Tree, is now available!)

Writers around the world are experiencing an upset to their November plans. The organization behind the annual National Novel Writing Month is imploding due to its own incompetence, and writers, like myself, who have participated for decades are leaving the community in droves.

The death of NaNoWriMo has been drawn-out, ugly, and depressing for a lot of longtime participants. Arguably, the trouble began, as so much trouble did, in 2020 with the Covid pandemic. That year, it was prohibited for groups to gather for NaNoWriMo sponsored events (for obvious reasons). Municipal Liaisons (who are in charge of regional events) were forbidden from hosting or planning any in-person activities. Which was good! That was a good rule. But a lot of them didn't listen. That led to a lot of liaisons getting fired and banned, resulting in the disassembly of a lot of local chapters. NaNo was in the right, there. But that might have been the last time.

In 2022, scandal broke when NaNoWriMo partnered with a scam artist vanity press called Inkitt, which preyed on ambitious young writers who didn't know they were being scammed. NaNo's endorsement of the company was called out, and eventually an apology was issued, but a lot of damage was done to the good faith people had in them. It was another huge hit to the platform's popularity.

And then 2023 dealt what should have been the final blow. The story broke that a moderator who was in charge of the Young Writers Program forums had been grooming, exploiting, and harassing the children participating in the program. And he hadn't just been doing this himself, but also allowing other internet predators access to those forums in order to groom victims. It's a terrifying, reprehensible thought. And what upset people the most was that this had apparently been happening--and had been reported--for YEARS. NaNoWriMo's initial response was that they knew nothing of these happenings, which fell apart pretty quickly when these very organized young people provided proof that they not only knew, but that the concerns had been repeatedly brushed aside. It was truly a pathetic lack of accountability--an exact demonstration of what not to do. What followed was a mass exodus of both participants and org staff. There didn't seem to be anything left of NaNoWriMo, and it seemed like that might be for the best.

But it's a new year, and as November draws closer, there seems to be room for one more scandal. This time, NaNoWriMo seems determined to finish the job by abandoning literally everything they stand for. The challenge that was based on putting in hours of hard work in order to embrace the creation process has decided to take the stance that it's cool if you just want to use AI bots, tho. Forget the work and discipline, which was the whole point. Forget the creativity, which was also the whole point. Just push a few buttons, and BAM, you'll have a fresh project ready to be exploited by a network of scam artists.

Anyway. This is the time of year when I usually post about what I'm planning to work on for NaNoWriMo. For obvious reasons, that's not happening this year. I was done after last year, seeing how they had ignored the very serious problems in the forums. Last year, they were monsters. This year they're just a joke. I'm actually too mad to be bummed about it.

I'll still be writing, as always. I'll still write with friends, and I'm still going on my annual writing retreat to the lake. We can still make goals and track our progress. But NaNoWriMo is over for good.

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This post describes how to install Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS) onto a domain controller. It’s for labbing purposes which means I’m going to run this all on a single server instead of a more realistic setup with offline root, issuing CA, and possibly intermediate CA. Don’t use this post for anything designed to go into production!

To add the ADCS role. Go to Server Manager, click Add roles and features. Click Next until you get to Server Roles. Select Active Directory Certificate Series:

Click Add Features. Click Next. Click Next. Then a warning is displayed that it’s not possible to change the computer name or domain settings:

Click Next. Select Certification Authority and Certification Authority Web Enrollment:

Selecting Certification Authority Web Enrollment will install IIS and a small web site will be built to provide certificate services.

Click Add Features. Click Next. Click Next. Select Restart the destination server automatically if required:

Click Install. The installation starts:

When the installation has finished, click Close. Click AD CS in Server Manager. Click More… where it says Configuration required for Active Directory Certificate Services:

Click Configure Active Directory Certificate Services on the destination server:

Select an account with permissions to configure the role services:

Click Next. Select Certification Authority and Certification Authority Web Enrollment:

Click Next. Select Enterprise CA:

Select Root CA:

Click Next and then Select Create a new private key:

Click Next. This is a lab so we’ll use the default cryptographic provider (RSA) with a 2048-bit key length and SHA256:

Click Next. Then it’s time to name the CA. Note that the server name can be different from the common name used for the CA. The name used here is what you will see in the certificates issued by the CA:

Click Next. I’ll go with the default validity period of five years:

Click Next. I’m using the default location to store certs and cert logs:

Click Next. A summary is shown on the Confirmation page:

Click Configure. The services are configured:

Click Close. Now open the CA app:

It should look similar to the one below:

Look for the green check mark symbol.

That’s all that’s needed to setup a basic CA! In another post we’ll look at setting up certification templates. Once again, this setup is for labbing only. Don’t use it for production! You shouldn’t run a CA on your domain controller. See you in the next one!

Maureen Farrell, writing for The New York Times:

In May 2022, the chief financial officer of Boar’s Head, the processed meat company, was asked a simple question under oath.

“Who is the C.E.O. of Boar’s Head?”

“I’m not sure,” he replied.

“Who do you believe to be the C.E.O. of Boar’s Head?” the lawyer persisted.

The executive, Steve Kourelakos, who had worked at the company for more than two decades and was being deposed in a lawsuit between owners, repeated his answer: “I’m not sure.”

It is odd, to say the least, when a top executive of a company claims not to know who his boss is. And Boar’s Head is no fly-by-night enterprise. The company is one of the country’s most recognizable deli-meat brands; it generates what employees and others estimate as roughly $3 billion in annual revenue and employs thousands of people.

There’s secretive, and then there’s secretive.