San Francisco Is The First City In The World To Restrict Government Use Of Facial Recognition Technology. Hopefully It's Not The Last.

from the keep-it-going dept

We welcome the city of San Francisco’s decision to ban the use of AI-enabled facial recognition technology by police and other municipal agencies. Facial recognition technology is prone to misidentification and biased targeting, particularly among members of vulnerable communities. It also opens the door to intrusive surveillance -- beyond the scope of existing technology. Until the technology improves to avoid such harms, its use should be heavily restricted. And even with improvements, the public must confront tough questions about how closely governments should monitor their behavior.

Regrettably, global trends are headed in a reverse direction from San Francisco’s decision. From Azerbaijan to Singapore, governments are enthusiastically embracing facial recognition technology. Led by China, such systems are becoming increasingly ubiquitous. Facial recognition has been incorporated into smart city platforms. Cities are placing them on public lampposts and integrating them into security operations centers. While there is greater public awareness of China’s surveillance strategy – particularly its establishment of artificial intelligence-powered facial recognition repression in Xinjiang -- few realize that numerous other countries are developing facial recognition capabilities as well.

This is particularly problematic in countries that lack basic rule of law protections and are already committing major human rights abuses. In countries such as Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Zimbabwe, facial recognition is a dangerous tool that further augments those governments’ arsenals of digital repression by giving them an enhanced capacity to deploy targeted monitoring in public places, to track and harass dissidents and opposition figures at will, and to suppress democratic political activity.

But even in democracies like the United States, government use of facial recognition technology, in its current form, corrodes civil rights and civil liberties because its errors disproportionately impact vulnerable communities. Astudy published earlier this year by MIT’s Media Lab, for instance, found that Amazon’s facial recognition software, which the company has peddled to police departments and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, more frequently misidentified an individual’s gender if they were female or dark-skinned.

Concerned about such disparities, San Francisco’s decision prohibits municipal agencies from using facial recognition technology except at federal facilities like the airport. Taken under the Stop Secret Surveillance ordinance, municipal agencies must also seek approval for any new surveillance technology they want to acquire. The decision passed 8-1 with overwhelming public support.

Even for a state like California that prides itself on trailblazing legislation (among many ‘firsts’, California led the way in requiring that corporate boards include women and enacting a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade program), San Francisco’s decision is extraordinary. Most of the current commentary points out that San Francisco is the first American city to ban government use of facial recognition technology. However to our knowledge, it’s not just the first American city to do so-- it’s the first city in the world; a feat made only more remarkable by the city’s position as the seat of technological innovation -- a rare instance of Silicon Valley putting values ahead of profits.

San Francisco’s decision also has important international implications. Facial recognition surveillance remains relatively nascent in most countries. While governments are interested in expanding their use of it, few states are deploying facial recognition at scale…yet. The world still has an opportunity to institute global safeguards and norms to shape how governments use facial recognition.

San Francisco’s ban is receiving widespread attention. We sincerely hope that this attention will lead to technological innovations that fix facial recognition’s bias problem and, notwithstanding such improvements, a healthy public discourse about facial recognition’s repressive potential.

Charlotte Stanton is a fellow in the technology and international affairs program and the director of the Silicon Valley office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Steven Feldstein is a non-resident fellow in Carnegie’s democracy, conflict, and governance program and the Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs and Associate Professor in the School of Public Service at Boise State University.

Filed Under: bans, facial recognition, police, privacy, san francisco, searches

City Of San Francisco Bans Use Of Facial Recognition Tech By Government Agencies

from the FaceBlock dept

San Francisco is getting out ahead of the tech curve. Instead of waiting until after law enforcement had already deployed a suite of surveillance tools, city legislators have passed a ban on facial recognition tech by government agencies.

San Francisco, long at the heart of the technology revolution, took a stand against potential abuse on Tuesday by banning the use of facial recognition software by the police and other agencies.

The action, which came in an 8-to-1 vote by the Board of Supervisors, makes San Francisco the first major American city to block a tool that many police forces are turning to in the search for both small-time criminal suspects and perpetrators of mass carnage.

This move is being applauded by privacy and rights activists. Obviously, it has it critics as well. But the argument made here is pretty much a non-starter.

“It is ridiculous to deny the value of this technology in securing airports and border installations,” said Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law expert at George Washington University. “It is hard to deny that there is a public safety value to this technology.”

The ban doesn't affect federal agencies so the borders and airports will be just as protected as they ever were by software known mostly for its false positive rates. And in San Francisco, the use of facial recognition tech by law enforcement is -- and apparently will remain -- theoretical. To date, no local law enforcement agency has deployed facial recognition tech in San Francisco.

But the ban [PDF] also prevents local cops from pulling info from outside databases compiled using facial recognition tech, which means there won't be any backdoor searches for faces. This whole package of preemptives isn't popular with local cops… or at least not with their union representation.

[T]he San Francisco Police Officers Association, an officers’ union, said the ban would hinder their members’ efforts to investigate crime.

“Although we understand that it’s not a 100 percent accurate technology yet, it’s still evolving,” said Tony Montoya, the president of the association. “I think it has been successful in at least providing leads to criminal investigators.”

Upon information but mostly belief, the SFPOA touts the success of a tool it's never used and backs it with facts not in evidence. Undeniably, facial recognition software has been used to capture criminals. But there's little suggesting it's a regular occurrence, much less one that offsets citizens' long-held beliefs that their commutes in public should not become the tech equivalent of being tailed by police officers at all times.

Bells are easier to ring than un-ring. The city's decision to ring the ban bell before the deployment of facial recognition tech by local agencies shoves the burden on law enforcement to show it can be trusted with the surveillance tech it already has before it starts asking for this ban to be rolled back. Government agencies know better than most how much of an uphill battle repeals are. The SFPD lost before it even knew it was playing.

Filed Under: facial recognition, law enforcement, san francisco

Telecom Lobbyists Crushed San Francisco's Quest For Better Broadband

from the dysfunction-junction dept

While cities like Seattle and San Francisco are known as technology and innovation hubs, that hasn't historically been reflected by the broadband markets in those cities. Like everywhere else, the two cities suffer from little real broadband competition, with incumbent monopolies like Comcast leaving consumers and businesses with a dearth of options for quality, lower cost broadband. And, like the rest of America, as companies like AT&T and Verizon shift their ambitions to online advertising, they're refusing to upgrade aging DSL lines, leaving cable with an even more potent monopoly that 5G wireless isn't likely to fix.

Faced with decades of sub-par service, "tech hubs" like Seattle and San Francisco have pondered building their own broadband networks. More than 750 towns and cities have pursued the option, which is why ISPs like AT&T and Comcast have lobbied for laws in nearly two-dozen states attempting to ban or hamstring such efforts. It's not hard to see why. Chatanooga's Publicly-owned ISP EPB was ranked last year as the best ISP in the nation, and Harvard studies have shown that such community networks tend to offer better service at lower and more transparent prices than their private-sector counterparts.

If any city should be able to pursue and fund a public open access fiber network, you'd think it would be tech-obsessed and hugely wealthy San Francisco. That was the thinking of Mark Farrell when he took his seat on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors in 2010. He spent several years trying to convince his fellow city residents that an open-access, wholesale fiber network (where private ISPs come in and compete in layers on top) would improve life (and business) immeasurably in the city. But as with so many efforts, his plan ran face first into a buzzsaw of telecom industry lobbying:

"In fact, angel investor Ron Conway, one of San Francisco techdom’s best-connected figures, contributed $15,000 to two supervisors who then argued against the proposal, according to reporting by 48 Hills and the San Francisco Chronicle. SF.citi, a tech-heavy industry group, that included Conway and two AT&T executives on its board, lobbied hard against Farrell. And Comcast lobbyist Scott Adams made 16 visits to City Hall between late 2014 and 2017 to discuss matters relating to broadband deployment, according to records at San Francisco’s Ethics Commission.

“They came up with every excuse in the book; from large costs to the fact that their companies could provide that low-income access,” Farrell says. “If it had come to a vote we would have won.” But it never did come to a vote, and once Farrell left office, the project was quietly shelved.

The high costs of such deployments often scare voters away, but San Francisco's plan never even got that far. And while the high costs of such deployments are certainly something to consider, few realize that we're already doling out billions to entrenched telecom operators who do little to nothing of public benefit in the first place. AT&T, for example, just received $20 billion (plus $3 billion annually in perpetuity) from the Trump tax cuts, and its response so far has been to fire employees. Taxpayers have thrown incalculable billions at these providers for decades in exchange for broadband networks only sparsely deployed.

In short the public is already paying an arm and a leg for broadband both in their monthly bills and in the tax breaks and subsidies thrown at giants like Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T for doing little to nothing of substantive benefit. If even half of those resources had gone to, say, lobbying reform or well-crafted community broadband efforts, data suggests these cities would already be reaping the benefits of better, cheaper, and faster broadband.

Filed Under: broadband, isp, san francisco

Another Report Shows That FOSTA Increased (Not Decreased) Sex Trafficking; Where Is The Outrage?

from the next-time-listen-to-experts dept

Before FOSTA passed, a ton of experts warned it would lead to bad things, and now we're seeing more and more stories about how FOSTA is actually increasing the sex trafficking problem, rather than decreasing it. Police have admitted that it's now harder to catch traffickers without the information they used to get from Backpage, and pimps have apparently seized on the opportunity to make use of the disappearance of Backpage and other sites to more aggressively position themselves as the only option for sex workers.

The latest such report to make this clear is in the San Francisco Chronicle, where police note that FOSTA has emboldened pimps to take control of sex workers' lives:

“Without being able to advertise online,” Long said, “a huge number of sex workers were forced to go outside, and many have reported that former pimps came out of the woodwork offering to ‘manage’ their business again since they were now rendered unable to find and screen clients online.”

[...]

“The very bill that was supposed to stop trafficking has quite literally given formerly irrelevant traffickers new life,” Long said.

I'm truly curious how the various folks who stumped for FOSTA now feel about this. A bunch of Hollywood stars, including Amy Schumer, Seth Meyers, Josh Charles and Tony Shaloub, all stumped on behalf of FOSTA, making claims that were blatantly untrue. It would be nice if these celebrities could respond to all of the new evidence showing that -- just as sex workers and experts predicted -- FOSTA has made the situation much worse for sex workers, and put many of them in serious danger.

Filed Under: danger, fosta, san francisco, sex trafficking

FBI Celebrates Taking Down A 'Terrorist' Who Told Undercover Agents He Couldn't Go Through With An Attack

from the wherein-'thwart'-means-'standing-by-idly-while-events-take-their-cou dept

The FBI has proudly announced its kicking of another goal into the unguarded War on Terrorism net. And the press rejoices:

The enthusiastic republishing of the FBI's narrative does little more than rewrite the DOJ's press release. Very few have dug into the charging documents. If they had, they might not have depicted a terrorist attack that was never going to happen as somehow being "thwarted" by the arrest of a 26-year-old man reeling from the recent loss of his children in a custody battle.

According to the criminal complaint [PDF], Everitt Jameson was planning to detonate explosives at Pier 39 in San Francisco, a popular destination for tourists. The lead-up to Jameson's arrest (and supposed "thwarting") was filled with FBI informants and undercover agents, but not a single actual member of a terrorist group.

The investigation began with a paid informant passing on Jameson's Facebook activity to the FBI.

On September 19, 2017, a credible FBI Confidential Human Source (CHS) who has accurately reported to the FBI on national security matters in the past, reported a suspicious Facebook account. The Facebook persona was Everitt Aaron Jameson, vanity everittj. The Facebook id # was hidden. The CHS reported Jameson was "Liking" and "Loving" posts that were pro-ISIS and pro-terrorism. To provide an example of the types of posts Jameson was "Liking" and "Loving" during this time period, the CHS reported to the FBI that Jameson "loved" a post on November 29, 2017 that is an image of Santa Claus standing in New York with a box of dynamite. The text of the post reads, "ISIS post image of Santa with dynamite threatening attack on New York." The Propaganda poster shows Santa Claus standing on a roof next to a box of dynamite looking out over a crowd of shoppers with the words "We meet at Christmas in New York… soon." Under this post, Jameson selected the "Like" option and then selected the "Heart" option to signify that he "Loved" the post.

As we've noted before, "liking" social media posts is not the same thing as endorsing the content. Jameson may have liked the sentiments expressed, but it doesn't immediately follow he would be willing to engage in violent acts of terrorism. That's not what the FBI thought, though. Rather than monitor the account and open a preliminary investigation, the FBI decided to get involved. Undercover agents began communicating with Jameson pretending to be ISIS members. Over the next couple of months, agents frequently exchanged messages and met with Jameson, nudging him towards committing an act of terrorism.

Jameson pledged his limited utility to the cause, fulfilling the expected "material support" charges by offering use of his tow truck and his (very brief) background as a US Marine. (Jameson was discharged shortly after basic training for failing to disclose his asthma.) He also said he could kick in about $400 a month.

Jameson did state he was considering something along the lines of the San Bernardino shootings or the New York attack in which a vehicle was driven into a crowd. But the FBI was more interested in getting Jameson to build bombs. Jameson was compliant, but seemingly unable to actually acquire the supplies to build them.

UCE2 asked Jameson what assistance the UCE2 could provide. Jameson stated that he needed ammunition, powder, tubing, and nails. When asked what kind of a weapon he would need, Jameson noted that he would prefer an assault rifle. He also explained that he was trained in both the M-16 and an AK-47 rifle. Jameson also stated that he needed timers and remote detonators (presumably for the explosive charges Jameson previously described to the UCE2). Jameson said that he could get the PVC pipe, nails, and powder (presumably, black powder used for commercial explosives and ammunition).

That conversation happened on December 16th. On December 18th, no further preparation for the attack had been done by Jameson. The undercover agent tried to arrange another meeting about the attack plans, but was rebuffed by Jameson.

Later during the evening, the UCE2 contacted Jameson to discuss arranging a follow-up meeting. Jameson responded by indicating that he had been "very busy tonight." Moreover, Jameson told the UCE2, "I also don't think I can do this after all. I've reconsidered." The UCE2 stated, "We only can do Allahs will," and Jameson replied "In Sha Allah one day I can. But I can't."

Rather than keep tabs on the little terrorist that couldn't, the FBI decided to call in its markers. It acquired a search warrant for Jameson's residence one day later. The search uncovered some handguns, a rifle, 13 rounds of ammunition, and four fireworks. The feds also found his handwritten note pledging allegiance to ISIS and Jameson's will, signed and executed on November 11th.

As far as the complaint states, Jameson was never in contact with any suspected ISIS members. All discussions about a terrorist attack involved at least one FBI undercover agent. Jameson himself took himself out of play by stating he couldn't go through with the planned attack. This statement was made before supplies were gathered or a storage area obtained to assemble and store the bombs. The "terrorist" who "thwarted" his own attack sounds very much like a person looking for some sort of direction in his life after a traumatic divorce and chose exactly the wrong sort of people to identify with. That his closest contacts during this period were FBI agents interested in securing a terrorism bust does little to further the narrative of ticking terrorist time bomb disarmed at the last minute by heroic G-men.

One wonders how many discussions about attacking America Jameson would have engaged in if simply left alone. Or if he would have come up with plans to blow up part of San Francisco if he hadn't found supposedly like-minded ISIS supporters to talk to. It's impossible to say Jameson never would have engaged in violence, but the criminal complaint shows Jameson did nothing more than click Facebook buttons before the FBI got involved. And for that, he's probably going to go to prison for a long time. It seems Jameson would have benefited from a few more positive role models. But steering confused and depressed people away from sympathizing with ISIS doesn't make headlines. And it certainly doesn't help keep the lights on at the FBI.

Filed Under: doj, everitt jameson, fbi, own plot, san francisco, terrorist

San Francisco, Seattle Tire of Comcast, Mull Building Citywide Fiber Networks

from the breaking-the-duopoly-logjam dept

It probably goes without saying that while improving in spots, American broadband isn't much to write home about. Americans pay more money for slower service and worse customer support than a long list of developed countries. Some of that's thanks to geography, but more of it's due to a lack of competition. That lack of competition is, by proxy, thanks to our refusal to address the stranglehold these giant companies have over our federal and state regulators and lawmakers. Instead of fixing this problem, current regulators seem more interested in weakening deployment definitions to help industry pretend the problem doesn't exist.

In a growing number of towns and cities, residents have increasingly pushed to either build their own broadband networks, or strike public/private partnerships to help improve service quality and availability. Instead of trying to make these efforts irrelevant by offering better service at lower rates, incumbent ISPs have focused on paying often clueless lawmakers to help pass protectionist bills restricting what locals can and can't do with their own local infrastructure and taxpayer dollars. More than twenty states have now passed laws to this effect quite literally written by ISP lobbyists.

Both San Francisco and Seattle have considered building their own broadband networks in a quest to end this duopoly logjam. In Seattle, Mayoral Candidate Cary Moon is promising to build a citywide fiber network if elected, something lobbying spending indicates is making regional ISPs Comcast and CenturyLink nervous. And in San Francisco, the city is now promising to build the biggest municipal broadband network yet, with a new report (pdf) indicating the cost to connect every home and business in the city would be somewhere around $1.9 billion.

Unlike some projects where the city owns both the network and the service provided on top, San Francisco's model would be open access -- meaning any ISP -- small or large -- would be invited in to compete:

"Our approach is to create as much market competition as possible at both the dark fiber and lit services layers. In this approach, the City’s concessionaires would not enter the internet business, but rather would enable robust private sector competition."

Back in 2009, an FCC study found that such open access models result in more competition and lower rates (pdf). But, overly-influenced by large ISPs terrified of competition, the FCC promptly put the study in a drawer and forgot about it. Isolated municipal broadband deployments still sometimes embrace the idea, however. Like in Ammon, Idaho, where the municipal network there lets consumers switch between multiple ISPs in a matter of seconds if they're dissatisfied with their carrier. Open access was the model Google Fiber originally promised it would pursue with its own gigabit fiber build before promptly backpedaling.

Over at Wired, Harvard Law Professor Susan Crawford argues that the open access model provides a good balance to ISP worries that the government itself would somehow be a competitor incentivized to disadvantage private sector companies:

The city would not be in the business of competing with existing providers in this model, but would, instead, be providing basic infrastructure that any company could use—the connectivity equivalent of a city street grid. The cost to the public of borrowing the money to build this basic network—estimated at about $1.5 billion by CTC—would be significantly lowered by leasing revenue from advance arrangements with operators. The city would subsidize low-income residents wishing to subscribe for fiber services from those private operators. CTC sets forth a detailed timeline for getting all of this done.

What’s great about this suggestion is that it removes any political argument that the city is somehow undermining the private market for internet access services. At the same time, a dark fiber public-private partnership would dramatically lower the cost for the private market to do what it does best: directly serve customers in a competitive environment that, on its own, produces low costs and innovation.

Over the years big ISPs and their policy armies have worked tirelessly to demonize municipal broadband as inevitable taxpayer disasters. But again, municipal broadband isn't a panacea; like any business plan it depends on the proposal and implementation. But neither is municipal broadband an automatic boondoggle, and those that adhere to this over-simplistic absolutist thinking often like to ignore a few things.

Like the fact that many of these networks struggle or fail because they're immediately met with either lawsuits or massive disinformation efforts bankrolled by ISPs, designed to kill many of these efforts before they've even gotten their footing. Also ignored is the fact that taxpayers have already spent billions upon billions on incumbent ISPs that consistently engage in outright fraud and waste, leaving citizens on the financial hook for fiber upgrades promised but never deployed. Most ignored however is the fact that these towns and cities wouldn't be considering such drastic measures if they were happy with existing broadband services.

Again, none of this is to say municipal broadband is a silver bullet, either. But it should be clear to anybody that has spent more than ten seconds dealing with Comcast or their local telco that the industry is broken, and it's going to take some creativity to fix it. And whether to build and run a local broadband network should be left up to local residents, not ISP lobbyists and policy wonks, living half a world away, whose entire goal is simply to keep the dysfunctional but hugely profitable status quo intact.

Filed Under: broadband, competition, fiber, muni broadband, open access, san francisco, seattle

San Francisco Ponders The Largest Community Broadband Network Ever Built

from the if-you-build-it-they-will-come dept

Despite being considered one of the technology capitals of the country, San Francisco and the Bay Area continue to suffer from a lack of broadband options -- just like the rest of us sorry sods. If they're lucky, most locals there still only have the option of one of two large ISPs: AT&T and Comcast. Both companies have a long, proud history of fighting competition tooth and nail, often by quite literally writing shitty state telecom law that ensures the status quo remains intact. Attempts to break through this logjam and bring faster, better broadband service to the city have seen decidedly mixed results.

Like most areas, ultra-fast next-generation broadband in particular is notably lacking. Some estimates suggest that just 2.6% of San Francisco residents have access to gigabit broadband service. Sonic CEO Dane Jasper, whose company is also busy deploying gigabit services to the Bay Area, tells me he believes those figures are stale and gigabit penetration rates in the city are closer to 17%. And while Google Fiber had tinkered with the idea of bringing fiber to the city, the company's pivot to wireless has left that added avenue of competition up in the air.

Last week, numerous Mayors and city officials in California and Arizona penned a letter to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson, complaining that not only is AT&T not upgrading many DSL customers to fiber, they're not adequately maintaining existing copper (now that AT&T's primary focus appears to be media, and acquiring Time Warner):

"All too many Californians and Nevadans have waited far too long for AT&T to build the high-speed broadband infrastructure promised to them," the officials said in a letter to AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson. "Not only is AT&T failing to provide access to 21st-century high-speed connections to many communities, but it is also not maintaining the copper lines that are vital to landline phone access, 911 and emergency services and basic Internet service."

For most of the last fifteen years, bubbling under the surface of this dysfunction, a growing number of cities have decided to bypass broadband's duopoly and just build next-generation, citywide broadband networks from scratch. That effort received renewed attention this week in San Francisco when the city announced it was convening a panel of "business, privacy and academic experts" to debate and discuss just what such a network would look like. On that panel will be Harvard Law School Professor Susan Crawford, who has been consistently at the forefront of criticizing this country's broken broadband market.

The panel has been tasked with how best to build a network capable of delivering gigabit speeds at more reasonable prices:

In the coming months, the San Francisco Municipal Fiber Blue Ribbon Panel will conduct research and provide recommendations on the most efficient and effective ways to blanket the city with broadband, an effort that could cost up to $1 billion.

If it becomes reality, San Francisco would be the largest city in the country to implement citywide high-speed Internet. City officials are currently targeting speeds of 1 gigabit per second. The average Internet speed in the U.S. is 31 megabits per second according to the most recent data published by the Federal Communications Commission, so this could be about 30 times faster.

The problem is convincing people to pay for it. Seattle has spent the better part of the last fifteen years pondering its own network after being historically disappointed by ISPs like Comcast and CenturyLink. But locals have consistently shied away from funding such a massive project -- especially given the city's current focus on shoring up mass transit ahead of an ongoing population boom. Incumbent ISP lobbying also consistently tangles these efforts with disinformation and legal shenanigans, usually adding additional costs as the cities have to deal with lawsuits and other pay-to-play regulatory headaches.

We've long noted how while municipal broadband is often demonized, it's a perfectly organic reaction to market failure -- and if companies truly want to keep towns and cities from getting into the broadband business, the solution should be fairly obvious: provide better, cheaper broadband.

Filed Under: munibroadband, municipal broadband, san francisco

San Francisco Police Department Kicks FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force To The Curb

from the thanks,-but-no-thanks dept

In the wake of President Trump's travel ban, the San Francisco Police Department has offered up an unprecedented response: it's breaking up with the FBI.

On Wednesday, San Francisco officers took a bold stance against Trump’s new immigration laws. In response to Trump’s Muslim ban, they are cutting ties between the police department and an FBI task force.

The San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) has worked with the FBI on a Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) since 2007, with the purpose of investigating terrorism threats, collecting intel, and making arrests.

Generally speaking, federal partnerships are forever… especially in Forever Wars. Local law enforcement agencies have been working side-by-side with federal agencies since the Drug War began. The same goes for the War on Terror. Wars keep government agencies in good health, awash in perpetual funding and repurposed military gear. Local governments are seldom interested in ending these lucrative arrangements, whether or not the underlying activity is productive.

But San Francisco already sees its supply of federal funding drying up. President Trump has made it clear he'll cut off this flow to cities that care more about immigrants than he does. So, there's some gamemanship in this move -- one that sends a message to Trump while expressing some resignation to the eventual fiscal punishment to come. The city of Austin, Texas is doing the same thing, but fighting the battle on two fronts, as its decision to call itself a "sanctuary city" has also earned it the displeasure of the state's governor.

But the SFPD's rejection of the FBI's "assistance" in the War on Terror suggests a couple of things -- neither of them complimentary -- about the federal agency's usefulness in this "war."

The first is explained in the Think Progress article.

[T]he SFPD will no longer work with the JTTF on the grounds that the federal agency will likely increase efforts to surveil Muslims, following Trump’s recent executive order to prevent Muslims from entering the county.

The other part is implied. By telling the feds to beat it, the SFPD is suggesting the FBI isn't doing much to acutally make San Francisco safer. The Joint Terrorism Task Force seems to be more about expanding surveillance and obtaining perpetual funding than preventing terrorist attacks or uncovering their conspiracies.

This much can be ascertained by the FBI's counter-terrorism efforts to date. For the most part, the FBI's terrorism busts have relied heavily on FBI informants being the brains, muscle, and wallet behind supposed future acts of terrorism. Undercover agents have pushed some of the weakest humans in the nation towards acts of violence -- acts which would likely never have materialized on their own. The FBI has poked and prodded easily-influenced people -- some elderly, some with mental problems -- into professing their support for [Current Top Terrorist Organization], helped them plan trips to [Top Terrorist-Associated Foreign Country], and purchased everything from duct tape to latex gloves to weapons for would-be terrorists that seemingly would have difficulty opening a savings account, much less coordinating an act of terrorism.

The SFPD feels it will be fine without the FBI's dubious assistance, which appears to be mostly limited to trampling civil liberties and ever-expanding surveillance with minimal oversight. The city can apparently handle the terrorism threat without federal intervention -- suggesting it's not much of a threat… and the FBI isn't much of a counter-terrorism agency.

What the city's rejection says about President Trump's orders and directives is pretty damning. What it says about the FBI and its counter-terrorism efforts is even worse.

Filed Under: fbi, joint terrorism task force, police, privacy, san francisco, sfpd, surveillance

Uber And California DMV Fight Over Definition Of Self-Driving Cars

from the policy-fight! dept

In highly regulated private industries the law means what it says – right up until a regulator decides that it doesn't. For that reason Uber, a company with a reputation for aggressively challenging legal norms, must have been particularly frustrated when the California Department of Motor Vehicles decided to publicly rebuke it for complying with the law of the Golden State.

The crux of the issue is that Uber decided to move forward with deploying some of its vehicles with automated technologies onto California's roads without a permit which, the California DMV believes, it must first obtain before rolling out.

In a statement, the DMV said that it has a "permitting process in place" through which twenty manufacturers have obtained permits. Then, so as to leave no double about its position on the matter, stated that "Uber shall do the same."

Now, whether the new Volvo XC90's equipped with Uber's technologies are "autonomous vehicles" as a matter of perception or regulatory projection is up for debate. Different people have different ideas about what fits that mold. But, when it comes to whether the DMV should take action to slow Uber's work, the question turns from one of perception to one of law and textual interpretation.

California, by way of the DMV, has chosen to define an autonomous vehicle in regulation as a vehicle equipped with technology "...that has the capability of operating or driving the vehicle without the active physical control or monitoring of a natural person...." Thus, the factual question that confronted Uber before it made its decision to deploy the vehicles in California was simple: "is this vehicle capable of driving without being monitored or controlled by a driver?"

For all of their impressive capabilities, it is a matter of public record that Uber's vehicles often require human intervention. By extension, those vehicles require constant monitoring by a human driver. On that basis, Uber likely thought that, while not toeing the industry line, its vehicles do not meet the definitional threshold necessary to trigger the state's autonomous vehicle testing regulations.

Of course, what regulatory history there is that points to a different intent, one that tracks with the DMV's argument, is no doubt informative and interesting as a matter of historical record, but it should not overcome the obvious strictures of the regulation as written.

In the meantime, the DMV has sent Uber a cease and desist letter. While the merits of regulation are often a matter of debate, the even application of the plain language of the law should not be. Unfortunately, it appears that Uber, by dint of its reputation, is facing unwanted "special treatment" by its regulator. Worse, the DMV may be expanding the reach of its regulations after the fact. If that's the case, and certainty is lost, so too will be the very definitional purpose of the DMV's regulations – to make regular.

Filed Under: autonomous vehicles, california, dmv, regulations, san francisco, self-driving cars
Companies: uber

San Francisco MTA Forced To Give Free Rides After Network Infected With Ransomware

from the pwned dept

We've noted consistently how the medical industry has become a hotbed of ransomware attacks thanks to too many incompetent IT administrators, and too many hardware vendors for which security is a fleeting afterthought. In fact, hospitals are now seeing more than 20 ransomware attacks a day; attacks that in many instances have forced the cancellation of scheduled surgeries and wreaked havoc on the day-to-day operations of many in the healthcare sector.

But security incompetence isn't restricted just to the healthcare industry. Last week, the San Francisco mass transit system learned this the hard way when hackers effectively took over transit systems used by the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency, infecting them with ransomware and refusing to return control unless the city was willing to pay $73,000 in bitcoin. The hack hasn't just disabled the city's transit systems, but apparently has crippled the SF MTA's payroll systems, email servers, Quickbooks, NextBus operations, various MySQL database servers, and staff training and personal computers for hundreds of employees.

All told, it's believed that hackers compromised about 2,112 of the 8,656 computers attached to the SF MTA's network. As a result, the city had to simply unlock all turnstiles and let riders ride the system for free as it tried to climb out from underneath the mess:Like most ransomware attacks, the SF MTA is being told to make a payment to an anonymous bitcoin wallet if they want the key to decrypt compromised data on its hard drives:

"if You are Responsible in MUNI-RAILWAY ! All Your Computer’s/Server's in MUNI-RAILWAY Domain Encrypted By AES 2048Bit! We have 2000 Decryption Key ! Send 100BTC to My Bitcoin Wallet , then We Send you Decryption key For Your All Server's HDD!! We Only Accept Bitcoin , it’s So easy! you can use Brokers to exchange your money to BTC ASAP it's Fast way!"

The SF MTA's backups don't appear to have been impacted, so it should be able to save at least some data (depending on how old they are). But local San Francisco news outlets say that SF MTA employees aren't sure they'll be getting paid this week, and the agency stands to lose around $559,000 per day for as long as it's forced to suspend charging fares. All told it's just another reminder that we have a lot of work to do securing necessary and highly vulnerable domestic infrastructure before we get too busy internationally expanding the cyber.

Filed Under: encryption, malware, ransomware, san francisco, sf muni
Companies: sfmta