Red Light Camera Company Says It's Dying Of Coronavirus

from the putting-it-out-of-our-misery dept

Things change. And the stuff that used to work just doesn't anymore. We've covered a lot of this over the years, mainly focusing on how the rise of the internet was greeted with rent-seeking and protectionist policies meant to extend the upper hand that incumbent industries had enjoyed for years.

But things are changing elsewhere, outside of industries reliant on intellectual property protection and Congressionally-approved monopolies. Marijuana is being legalized (or at least decriminalized) all over the nation, resulting in an upheaval of sorts in the drug dog industry. According to a few law enforcement officials, drug dogs can't live full lives without sniffing drugs and marijuana legalization is probably just going to result in some mercy killings. A life that doesn't involve being run around a car during an illegally-extended pretextual stop apparently isn't worth living.

We are again being asked to shed a tear for a law enforcement-adjacent industry. Social distancing and sheltering-in-place in response to the coronavirus has led to a downturn in driving. And if there's fewer drivers on the road, proxy cops are seeing their revenue streams dry up.

Redflex, an Australian company that operates "traffic safety programs" in roughly 100 US and Canadian cities, warned that less traffic and suspended construction amid the pandemic will be a stress on its balance sheet.

"Approximately 15% of group revenue is dependent on volume-based contracts," the company said in a regulatory filing Monday first spotted by The Wall Street Journal, hinting at its business line that includes enforcement cameras. "We anticipate our revenue from these contracts will be impacted broadly in line with the reduction in traffic volumes as well as the duration of the disruption."

Yeah, that's a real shame. It's too bad a company that engaged in bribery to grab market share won't be able to weather this unexpected downturn in questionably-obtained income. There are several competitors in the crowded "worst traffic cam ever" field, but Redflex did everything it could to stay ahead of the pack. This behavior resulted in other unexpected downturns, like refunding millions of dollars of tickets in multiple locations due to the tech's inability to do the little things… like accurately judge vehicle speed.

Hope springs eternal at Redflex, even with COVID-19's wet blanket dampening the company's enthusiasm.

On a call with investors Monday, Redflex CEO Mark Talbot warned that further travel restrictions could delay new installations and therefore impact revenues.

Let's hope there are no more installations ever, even if drivers return to the roads to undo the environmental damage reduction they inadvertently contributed to by staying home. Redflex is a terrible company with terrible ethics and terrible products. Its tech remains unproven, years after deployment. If the virus manages to take out Redflex, we'll at least have one thing to thank the pandemic for.

Filed Under: covid-19, pandemic, red light cameras, tickets
Companies: redflex

Verizon Quietly Stops Doing Broadband Installs, Repairs During COVID-19

from the damned-if-you-do... dept

So far the broadband industry has done a notably good job keeping their networks running during the COVID-19 quarantine. That said, some ISPs have been monumentally terrible when it comes to protecting the safety of their employees and the communities they serve.

Charter Spectrum, for example, spent precious weeks refusing to let non-essential employees work at home, even in cases where positive tests had been discovered at the company's offices. And instead of giving its field technicians the necessary safety gear and hazard pay, Charter execs somehow decided it would be a good idea to give these frightened employees $25 gift certificates to closed restaurants.

Other companies like Comcast have handled the problem far better, providing hazard pay and work-at-home opportunities where possible. As has Verizon, which this week took things one step further by quietly ceasing most new broadband installs and repairs. Users who had tech visits scheduled say they've been cancelled as the company reins in operations:

On the one hand, this is terrible for folks whose access to an essential utility has been disrupted during the pandemic. The broadband industry has long fought tooth and nail against broadband being classified as a utility in a bid to eliminate regulations and avoid price controls. That broadband is an essential utility and there's very real dangers in monopolizing it is a conversation big ISPs (and their countless policy and think tank advocates) don't really want to have.

At the same time, it's hard to fault Verizon for being cautious about its employees' lives. I've spent countless hours talking with field techs who already often risk their health stumbling through hoarding situations and other risks, and that's during more normal times. Given the 6' CDC distancing requirements may be a bit of a joke (some data suggests 20 feet outdoors and 27 feet indoors), it's hard to fault anybody (especially in NYC right now) not eager to spend an hour in confined spaces with a stranger.

That said, based on this Verge report, it's pretty clear Verizon could do a better job making its policies clearer. You apparently can still sometimes get a self-install, and sometimes get "future appointment priority” if you reschedule a tech visit, but who qualifies for what and how long you'll wait to get your broadband line installed or repaired isn't entirely clear. That said, it's an historic situation with no obvious path forward and no easy answers, especially for employees not keen on putting their lives at risk so the local telecom monopoly can make a buck.

Filed Under: covid-19, health, installs, self-installs, technicians
Companies: verizon

Content Moderation Is Impossible: Facebook's Attempts To Block Mask Gouging Took Down DIY Face Mask Instructions

from the impossibility-theorem dept

Content moderation at scale is impossible to do well. The latest example? Facebook's rules to takedown content deemed to be people trying to price gouge medical supplies like face masks resulted in tutorials on how to make your own face masks being taken down:

Facebook’s systems threatened to ban the organizers of hand-sewn masks from posting or commenting, they said, landing them in what is colloquially known as “Facebook Jail.” They said it also threatened to delete the groups. The issue has affected do-it-yourself mask makers in states like Pennsylvania, Illinois and California, they said.

As the NY Times notes, Facebook, like most other social media sites, has been aggressively trying to block price gouging medical supplies:

At the top of its list were ads for masks, hand sanitizer and others looking to profit from the sale of safety equipment. Facebook banned advertising for such equipment last month, and has taken down nearly all posts related to the sale of masks across its Craigslist-like section, called Marketplace.

But as the company ramped up efforts to crack down on scammers and other miscreants, volunteer coordinators may have been caught in the crossfire.

“The automated systems we set up to prevent the sale of medical masks needed by health workers have inadvertently blocked some efforts to donate supplies,” Facebook said in a statement. “We apologize for this error and are working to update our systems to avoid mistakes like this going forward. We don’t want to put obstacles in the way of people doing a good thing.”

This is not an attack on Facebook, but, once again, it's important to recognize just how impossible it is to do these things well, especially at scale, and especially in the midst of a pandemic where things are changing daily. With the US only changing its recommendations on face masks last week, demand for any kind of face mask, including homemade ones, has sky-rocketed. And if you trying to build systems that are trained to look out for posts "advertising" things having to do with face masks -- which was important in the first few weeks of the pandemic -- they're inevitably going to lead to false positives flagging those who are actually trying to help.

Filed Under: content moderation, content moderation at scale, covid-19, diy, facemasks, hoarding, masnick's impossibility theorem, price gouging

Another Coronavirus Side Effect: In-Home Surveillance By Remote Workers' Employers

from the spyware-but-for-people's-faces dept

Well, it took a pandemic to normalize domestic surveillance by [checks notes] employers. Not sure if this is the dystopia we needed or the one we deserved, but the shelter-in-place policies that have turned lots of office workers into telecommuters has led to incredible growth in one particular market sector.

With so many people working remotely because of the coronavirus, surveillance software is flying off the virtual shelves.

“Companies have been scrambling,” said Brad Miller, CEO of surveillance-software maker InterGuard. “They’re trying to allow their employees to work from home but trying to maintain a level of security and productivity.”

Axos spokesman Gregory Frost said in a statement that “the enhanced monitoring of at-home employees we implemented will ensure that those members of our workforce who work from home will continue” to meet quality and productivity standards that are expected from all workers.

This new surveillance obviously doesn't extend to the executive levels of these companies. It's the rank-and-file that will feel it the most -- the same that have been subjected to always-on monitoring of their computer and internet use while at the office.

It's another system -- one that can be gamed just as easily as those deployed in the workplace. Actually, these will probably be gamed even more easily considering some companies are using weird metrics like "emails sent" to gauge worker productivity.

But there's more to it than virtual bean-counting and hall-monitoring. The spyware that works-from-home will also alert clients if employees engage in certain behavior.

Managers using InterGuard’s software can be notified if an employee does a combination of worrisome behaviors, such as printing both a confidential client list and a resume, an indication that someone is quitting and taking their book of business with them.

Companies that don't want to pay extra for snooping software are relying on existing systems to make sure their employees are earning their paychecks. But these methods are even more intrusive than software specifically crafted to track telecommuter productivity.

“I’ve heard from multiple people whose employers have asked them to stay logged into a video call all day while they work,” said Alison Green, founder of the workplace-advice website Ask a Manager.

Slightly less intrusive than this low-tech "solution" is a new product that acts like a low-power CCTV camera installed by proxy in every telecommuting employees' home.

In order to keep productivity high while working remotely, some companies are turning to tools like Sneek. The software features a "wall of faces" for each office, which stays on throughout the workday and features constantly-updating photos of workers taken through their laptop camera every one to five minutes.

Welcome to micromanagement hell:

If a coworker clicks on their face, Sneek's default settings will instantly connect the two workers in a live video call, even if the recipient hasn't clicked "accept." However, people can also configure their settings to only accept calls manually — and only take webcam photos manually — if their employer allows it.

Chances are, none of these employees were subjected to supervisory visits to their desks every few minutes while at work. There's no reason for them to be subjected to it now just because they're working from home. The only reason this is happening is because it can happen. It's seamless, automated, and makes zero physical or mental demands from their employers.

If you can't trust your employees to work remotely, you probably can't trust them at the office either. And if there was any mutual respect between the employer and its employees, efforts like this will erode that very quickly. Employees who feel their employers don't trust them aren't too motivated to add value to the company they work for. Always-on surveillance isn't going to result in productivity. It will result in pointless busywork and a shit-ton of resentment.

Sneek's CEO Del Currie issued one of stupidest defense of pervasive surveillance of employees while defending his product from critics.

The purpose of Sneek isn't surveillance, Currie said, but office culture.

Currie claims a wall-of-faces that's continuously connected to each other (as well as their mutual supervisors) will keep people from feeling "isolated" while working from home. Currie may sincerely believe his remote work tool is better for employees' wellbeing, but it's doubtful most of the companies signing up for Sneek accounts to deal with newly-minted teleworkers are concerned about anything more than ensuring no one's getting paid to do nothing -- even if they've paid for plenty of hours of zero productivity back when everyone was under one roof.

Things aren't going to go back to normal once the coronavirus is under control. Employers may find they can still get work done without needing everyone in the same building breathing the same air. Some will find they can get the same amount done with fewer employees. The only constant will be the ability to invade their employees' homes to "ensure productivity" or "build office culture" or whatever. That will be here to stay.

Filed Under: bad boss, covid-19, employees, employers, surveillance, work at home

Navy Deploys USS Barbra Streisand After Firing A Captain For Expressing His Coronavirus Concerns

from the walking-your-own-plank dept

In the midst of a pandemic, a Navy captain pleaded for the health and safety of his sailors. And for that, he was relieved of duty.

A letter to Navy officials, written by Captain Brett Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle. Social distancing doesn't work when you're stuck on a ship. Just ask anyone stuck on the handful of luxury cruise liners that became floating attack vectors for the coronavirus.

“This will require a political solution but it is the right thing to do,” Crozier wrote. “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die. If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

In the four-page letter to senior military officials, Crozier said only a small contingent of infected sailors have been off-boarded. Most of the crew remain aboard the ship, where following official guidelines for 14-day quarantines and social distancing is impossible.

“Due to a warship’s inherent limitations of space, we are not doing this,” Crozier wrote. “The spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating.”

Crozier went through the proper channels but one copy of his letter made its way to the press. This resulted in the acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, relieving him of command -- supposedly for not ensuring his letter was not leaked to the press.

On Thursday, after the letter was leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, the acting secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, declared that he’d “lost confidence” in the captain and was therefore relieving him of his command.

This wasn't necessarily Modly's idea. But it appears to be Modly's idea of what he thought the Commander-in-Chief would want him to do.

Two days later, David Ignatius reported in the Washington Post that Modly had told associates he’d acted at the behest of President Donald Trump. Modly then phoned Ignatius at 1 a.m. to deny the story, saying he’d moved against Crozier before he heard from Trump. Rather, he acted in anticipation that Trump would want him to do so.

The removal of Crozier from the ship should have been the first indication the Navy would be unable to control this narrative. Several recordings exist of Crozier's exit from the ship, accompanied by sailors applauding him and chanting his name. Here's one of them:

Modly made it worse by boarding the ship and addressing the sailors. His efforts to win hearts and minds consisted of telling sailors to stop complaining and do their jobs, punctuated by him insulting the man he had fired.

“If he didn't think, in my opinion, that this information wasn't going to get out into the public, in this day and information age that we live in, then he was either A, too naive, or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this,” Modly told the Theodore Roosevelt’s crew on April 5. “The alternative is that he did this on purpose. And that's a serious violation of the UCMJ which you are all familiar with.”

A recording of this speech leaked, too. An unknown sailor speaks for everyone at the 1:57 mark, when he responds to Modly's "too naive or too stupid" comment with a very audible "WHAT THE FUCK?"

The Navy's damage control continues, but it appears to consist solely of dispatching more shovels and shovel operators to its hole. A self-serving communication from Navy brass telling sailors to STFU about the Crozier debacle was leaked to another journalist, which made its way to social media immediately.

Here's the best bit of Navy's insistent self-Streisanding:

*** Please engage with your sailors onboard and let them know that they need the person's permission to record them and put them online. If they posted SECNAV's 1MC remarks on social media, they need to take them down immediately. ***

It does not get any less laughable:

I know everyone's emotions are running high but posting negative comments on social media regarding Senior Leaders will not help our current situation.

[...]

Bashing a Senior Leader online will not rally the troops.

Looks like the troops are plenty rallied already, judging from the fond farewell they gave to their unceremoniously shit-canned senior officer. And they seemed pretty united in their rejection of SECNAV Modly's "shut up and go back to work" speech.

Modly appears to have belatedly realized his speech to the Theodore Roosevelt sailors was a mistake. But his non-apology isn't going to make things any better. Modly wants people to believe he was misunderstood by everyone that heard his comments, rather than actually take responsibility for the things he said.

I want to apologize to the Navy for my recent comments to the crew of the TR. Let me be clear, I do not think Captain Brett Crozier is naive or stupid. I think, and always believed him to be the opposite. [...] I apologize for any confusion this choice of words might have caused.

Shorter Modly: "I'm sorry you thought I called Crozier naive and stupid when I was calling him naive and stupid."

This whole response has been the epitome of "naive and stupid." The Navy's best option for letting this debacle get swept under the tidal wave of news that flows through social media every day would have been to let its original response -- given to the San Francisco Chronicle -- be its only response. Within 48 hours, no one would have cared. But it chose to fire an obviously-beloved and respected captain, insult him in front of his crew, and threaten unhappy personnel with punishment for sharing anything about this on social media. The Navy's measured response to the leak of Crozier's letter is all but forgotten now, buried under layer after layer of self-sabotaging hubris.

And, of course, as the finishing touches were being put on this post, Modly announced he was resigning. Apparently he realized that he was either "too stupid or too naive" to run the Navy, if he didn't realize how nearly all of his decisions in the last few days would play out.

Filed Under: brett crozier, coverup, covid-19, donald trump, leadership, leaks, streisand effect, thomas modly, us navy, uss theodore roosevelt, whistleblowing

Bad Idea Is Bad: Senator Sasse Wants To Give Whoever Patents COVID-19 Treatments 10 Extra Years Of Patent Protection

from the because-we'll-still-be-fighting-it-in-2050? dept

It's amazing how two people can look at the same situation and see the exact opposite conclusions. As experts are pointing out that to fight COVID-19 we should be relaxing intellectual property laws to enable more experimentation and collaboration, some have decided what we really need is more locking up of knowledge, and apparently Senator Ben Sasse falls into that ridiculous camp. We joked a few weeks ago about a law professor who's never seen an intellectual property law he didn't want to make worse, saying that pharma companies needed longer patent terms to incentivize the creation of treatments, but we didn't think anyone in power would actually take that nonsense seriously.

Senator Sasse, however, took up the ridiculous challenge, and has introduced the Facilitating Innovation to Fight Coronavirus Act. It's a bad, bad, bill that makes no sense at all, but it's separated into two sections that have no business being together in a single bill other than as a ridiculous way to try to convince people who want one provision to support the other. Let's start with the first provision, that actually does make sense. It would take away laws that are blocking some doctors from helping, and also blocking doctors from making use of unproven but potentially valid treatments:

Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, no health care provider shall be liable in any Federal, State, or local civil proceeding for—

(1) using or modifying a medical device for an unapproved use or indication;
(2) practicing without a license or outside of an area of specialty if instructed to do so by an individual with such a license or within such an area of specialty; or
(3) conducting the testing of, or the provision of treatment to, a patient outside of the premises of standard health care facilities;

where such action was carried out to test, treat, or otherwise counter the effects of the Coronavirus Disease COVID-19 during the duration of the national emergency...

Those issues have been blocking doctors from being able to help during this pandemic. And, yes, there are reasonable fears concerning snake oil treatments and nonsense spewed by cranks and non-doctors, but most doctors are not pushing snake oil and aren't cranks. If they can help out, they should be able to do so -- and as we learn more and more about what works, having to wait until something is an "approved use" has already been frustrating many.

But, those good ideas are completely drowned in the muck of the horrible idea Sasse has tied to it: extending patent terms for COVID-19 treatments. First, the bill says that the patent term won't be considered to start until after the national emergency is over and then, on top of that, it grants any COVID-19 related patent 10 extra years of protection, which would mean more than 50% more than any other patent.

EFFECTIVE DATE.—Notwithstanding any provision of title 35, United States Code, with respect to an eligible patent, the term of the patent shall not begin until the date on which the national emergency declared by the President under the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) with respect to that disease terminates.

LENGTH OF TERM.—Notwithstanding any provision of title 35, United States Code, with respect to an eligible patent, the term of the patent shall extend for 10 years longer than it otherwise would under such title.

And what is an "eligible patent"? Well, basically anything that is helpful in treating COVID-19, even if it's already patented:

In this section, the term ‘‘eligible patent’’ means a patent issued for a new or existing pharmaceutical, medical device, or other process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof used or intended for use in the treatment of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID–19).

If this became law, you can bet tons of ancillary drugs and devices would suddenly try to claim those ten extra years of exclusivity. I'm not even sure how this law would apply to things that are already off-patent but are used. Would they suddenly go back on patent for 10 years? The bill is terribly drafted and appears to have been written by someone who doesn't understand how any of this works.

I get that there's a desire to create incentives for stopping the pandemic, and that some very ignorant people think the patent system is the only incentive lever that exists for innovation, but that's utter nonsense. You just need to look around. Tons of companies are stepping up to work on this problem, because another incentive is not watching millions of humans die. That's kind of a big one. Also, just being a good citizen of the world.

Second, it's difficult to see how any of this makes any sense anyway. If the treatment is something that's actually new and patent-eligible, then patents filed now won't be approved for quite some time, possibly over a year at which point one hopes that we're out of this pandemic. But, even so, the bill is written to suggest that we'll be fighting COVID-19 for the next 30 years. And if that's the case, we're going to have much bigger problems on our hands than how long some pharma company's patents last.

Finally, this is completely brain-dead public policy. The entire point of patents is to create a monopoly so that the creators can charge monopoly rents. We already have some general issues with how that makes any sense in a free market economy, but, in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, this makes less than no sense at all. It's a law that is literally designed to jack up the cost of treating COVID-19. Because that's what patents do. They create a monopoly so the sole supplier can increase prices. Right now we need widespread solutions that can quickly be deployed globally. Jacking up the price of it makes that impossible.

There is no sensible model in which this approach makes any sense at all.

Filed Under: ben sasse, covid-19, exclusivity, patents, rent seeking

Disney Is Making Damn Sure That None Of You Watch An Unauthorized Version Of Samuel L. Jackson Reading 'Stay The Fuck At Home'

from the copyright-yo-psa dept

Lots of famous folks have been making (often amusing) "Stay Home" public service announcements. One great one showed up last week, in which Samuel L. Jackson read a copy of a new "poem" by Adam Mansbach, the author (a decade ago) of the infamous Go the Fuck to Sleep. This time, it was Stay the Fuck at Home. As with the original, Mansbach wrote it, and they got Samuel L. Jackson to read it -- though it debuted on the Jimmy Kimmel show (filmed with everyone at home, of course). You can see it embedded below (hopefully starting at the right part):

As you can see, this was in the middle of a much longer clip from the show (an interview of Jackson by Kimmel). Many, many people snipped out just the reading and posted versions of it to Twitter and YouTube. In fact, the first version I spotted was a tweeted version that only had about half of the reading. A bunch of versions showed up on YouTube as well... and, of course, Disney had to step in and shut that shit right down with a copyright takedown (ht to Plainsite, who first spotted this).

While there was some confusion as to how Disney held the copyright on this, it's because it was originally aired on Jimmy Kimmel's show which is on ABC, which is owned by Disney. So, pretty straightforward, and you might argue, a legitimate use of copyright. The clip's copyright is held by Disney, and so it's not a bogus takedown.

But that doesn't make it smart. After all, the whole damn point of this is to make it be seen by as many people as possible. That's the nature of a Public Service Announcement. And the Kimmel clip buried the reading in the middle, whereas many people making clipped versions of it made it that much easier for people to see it. And, I should remind you, the whole damn reason that the original Go the Fuck to Sleep became popular in the first place was because of "piracy" sharing the original around (oh, and also, the original artwork was done without licensing some of the artwork).

But, hey, it's the middle of a pandemic and Disney's going to Disney everything up, I guess.

Filed Under: copyright, covid-19, jimmy kimmel, psa, samuel l. jackson, stay the fuck at home, takedowns
Companies: disney

Benjamin Netanyahu, Hater Of Fake News And Purveyor Of Fake News

from the what-a-yahoo dept

As most of you will know, the term "fake news" has been so bastardized at this point so as to be more a moniker of quite literally the opposite of its original intended meaning. Once used to label the sort of nonsense news stories that people would share haphazardly on social media, the term is now almost exclusively used by government strong-men with paper-thin skin and entirely too much power. Still, the term does have a real meaning, if only we made a point of getting back to it.

Perhaps in one story, we can illustrate both sides of this. One of the aforementioned leaders that has enjoyed shouting "fake news!" at any media coverage he doesn't like has been Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu. You would think "fake news" would be something Netanyahu really hates. And, yet, Netanyahu also apparently gathered his cabinet members, sat them down, and then solemnly showed them video of Iranian government officials secretly dumping dead bodies in garbage dumps so as to conceal how many COVID-19 deaths the country was enduring.

There was just one tiny problem...

The backdrop: Iran has been Netanyahu's top foreign policy focus for 25 years. Israeli intelligence believes there have been up to five times more coronavirus deaths there than the 3,036 that have been officially acknowledged, an Israeli official tells me. Netanyahu thought he'd seen evidence of a cover-up.

Behind the scenes: Several hours later, Netanyahu's office realized the video had nothing to do with Iran, or with the coronavirus crisis. It was a clip from “Pandemic," a 2007 Hallmark Channel mini-series.

Whoops.

So, how does real, actual "fake news" happen? Well, usually it occurs when a relatively ignorant person, often of older age, encounters media or content that is easily shared and also aligns with their own pre-existing worldview and conceptions, and then that person does the sharing without bothering to vet the truth of the content at all. Were there a more perfect example of this than Netanyahu pushing a Hallmark movie clip as Iranian bad deeds, I cannot possibly imagine what it would be.

And Netanyahu's people aren't denying any of this.

The prime minister’s office didn’t deny this account. It said the video had only been sent to three Cabinet ministers who requested it and were told it came from social media and its authenticity was unclear.

Boy, if ever there were a time for Netanyahu to call a story fake news, I'd have thought this would be it.

Filed Under: benjamin netanyahu, covid-19, fake news, free speech, iran, israel