Upload Filters Will Always Be A Bad Idea, But Germany's New Implementation Of Article 17 Is An Attempt To Provide Some Protection For Users, Which Others May Follow

from the but-what-will-the-CJEU-say? dept

The EU's Copyright Directive was passed back in 2019, and the two-year period for implementing the law in national legislation is almost up. The text's contradictory requirements to stop infringing material from being posted online without imposing a general requirement to monitor users, which is not permitted under EU law, has proved difficult for governments to deal with. France aims to solve this by ignoring even the limited user protections laid down by the Directive. Germany has been having a rather fraught debate about how exactly Article 17, which implicitly requires upload filters, should be implemented. One good idea to allow users to "pre-flag" as legal the material they upload was jettisoned. That led to fears that the country's implementation of Article 17 would be as bad as France's. But the final version of the law does attempt to ensure that automated filters -- now admitted as indispensable, despite earlier assurances they were optional -- do not block user uploads that are not infringing on copyright. Communia explains:

the German implementation relies on the concept of "uses presumably authorised by law", which must not be blocked automatically. For an upload to qualify as "presumably authorised by law", it needs to fulfil the following cumulative criteria:

The use must consist of less than 50% of the original protected work,
The use must combine the parts of the work with other content, and
The use must be minor (a non-commercial use of less than 15 seconds of audio or video, 160 characters of text or 125 kB of graphics) or, if it generates significant revenues or exceeds these thresholds, the user must flag it as being covered by an exception.

Although it's good that this "presumably authorised by law" use is enshrined in law, the actual limits are absurd. For example, the name alone of the EU Copyright Directive in German is longer than 160 characters. Copyright holders can still challenge the legality of material, but platforms have to keep the uploads online until the complaints have been reviewed by a human. As former Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda writes on the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (Society for Civil Liberties) site, there's another feature of the new German law that might help keep upload filters in check, at least a little (original in German, translation via DeepL):

In order to enforce freedom of expression and artistic freedom against upload filters gone wild, the draft law provides for a right of association action for non-commercial associations dedicated to protecting the interests of users. These associations can take legal action against platforms that repeatedly block legal content. In addition, users will be able to claim damages against false copyright claims. The Society for Civil Liberties will use these possibilities if it becomes necessary.

Those are important new options for getting material back online, and discouraging over-blocking. Reda notes that there is also good news for popular online activities such as caricature, parody and pastiche, which will be permitted without restrictions:

This copyright exception includes memes, remixes, mashups, fan fiction and fan art. The German government's draft proposal was to restrict this right to remix in the German copyright reform, although it was adopted as mandatory at the EU level as part of Article 17. The German government's proposal that these uses should only be allowed "provided that the extent of the use is justified by the specific purpose" generated an outcry in the fan fiction community. This has apparently had an effect, because the [German parliament's] legal committee has removed this restriction. Fans in Germany can now look forward to a solid legal basis for fan art and remix culture.

The new German copyright law also brings in copyright exceptions for online teaching, and text and data mining. Cultural institutions such as libraries or archives will be permitted to make their collections available online if these works are no longer commercially available. Those are all welcome, but it is the implementation of Article 17 that is likely to have the most impact. As the Communia blog post notes:

the German implementation law sets a new standard for the implementation of the [Digital Single Market] directive. This is especially true for the implementation of Article 17. With the Commission having missed the chance to issue guidance for the member states in a timely manner [discussed previously on Techdirt], other member states who seek to implement Article 17 in a fundamental rights-compliant way should look at the German law for guidance.

Since the new Germany copyright law could become the model for other EU nations as they implement Article 17 -- except for France, of course -- it's good news that it has a number of positive elements. Those are likely to prove crucial if -- or rather when -- the EU Copyright Directive faces another legal challenge at the CJEU, the Court of Justice of the European Union (Poland has already lodged one). The complaint is likely to be that Article 17 cannot be implemented without violating the fundamental rights of users. In that case, the CJEU will have to decide whether Germany's innovative approach goes far enough in preserving them.

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Filed Under: article 17, censorship, copyright, eu, eu copyright directive, fair dealing, fair use, germany, presumably authorized by law, snippets, upload filters

EFF Tells Court Defendants Must Be Allowed To Examine The DNA Software Used To Convict Them

from the rolling-dice-with-more-sides-but-they're-still-just-dice dept

A proper adversarial system means the accused can confront the accuser. But that's rarely the case when crime solving software is involved. The FBI doesn't allow accused child porn downloaders to examine the malicious software it used to identify their computers. Multiple law enforcement agencies have dropped cases rather than discuss Stingray devices in open court.

All DNA analysis is handled by software. Most DNA analysis utilizes proprietary code created by private companies which license it to government agencies. The analysis may be performed by government agencies and employees, but when it comes to giving defense lawyers and their clients a chance to examine the software used to generate evidence, it suddenly becomes a very private matter.

Companies routinely intercede in criminal cases, telling judges that handing over source code or other information about their algorithms would somehow make it impossible for them to compete in the crime solving market. In most cases, judges are sympathetic to claims about trade secrets and proprietary code, allowing the accused to only confront their accuser by proxy, via a government expert or an employee of the software company.

In rare cases, the court actually finds in favor of the defendant. Earlier this year, a case involving third-party DNA software and the EFF's intercession went the defendant's way with a federal judge in Pennsylvania telling the government it couldn't hide behind third-party trade secret assertions to keep this code out of the accused's hands. As the court reasoned then, if DNA evidence is central to the case against the defendant, the defendant should have access to the evidence and the software that created it.

The EFF is hoping for a similar outcome in a case being handled in California. It deals with the possibly wrongful conviction of a 70-year-old man for rape. And it involves a DNA software company whose algorithm was the only one that tied the suspect to the crime.

An elderly woman was sexually assaulted and murdered in her home and two witnesses described seeing a black man in his 50s on the property on the day of the murder. Dozens of people had passed through the victim's home in the few months leading up to the murder, including Mr. Davis and another individual. Mr. Davis is an African American man who was in his 70s at the time of the murder and suffers from Parkinson’s disease. Another individual who met the witnesses’ description had a history of sex crimes including sexual assault with a foreign object.

DNA samples were taken from dozens of locations and items at the crime scene. Mr. Davis’s DNA was not found on many of those, including a cane that was allegedly used to sexually assault the victim. Traditional DNA software was not able to match Mr. Davis to the DNA sample from a shoelace that was likely used to tie up the victim—but STRMix did, and the prosecution relied heavily on the latter before the jury.

As the EFF points out in its brief [PDF], DNA software is anything but infallible. STRMix was caught a half-decade ago when a bug in its code possibly led to dozens of false arrests and convictions. Presumably that bug has been patched, but if no one outside of STRMix is allowed to examine the code, it's impossible to see if it might be leading prosecutors and government experts to overstate the certainty of DNA matches.

The necessity of independent source code review for probabilistic DNA programs was starkly demonstrated when FST (a counterpart to STRmix that was used in New York crime labs) was finally provided to a defense team for analysis. According to a defense expert, the undisclosed portion of the code could incorrectly tip the scales in favor of the prosecution’s hypothesis that a defendant’s DNA was present in a mixture. Reply Mem. of Law in Supp. as to Kevin Johnson at 19-21, United States v. Kevin Johnson, (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 27, 2017) (No. 15-CR-565 (VEC), D.I. 110). In fact, STRmix8 has suffered from programming errors that created false results in 60 cases in Queensland, Australia.

The problems caused by nondisclosure are especially acute in the context of the latest generation of probabilistic DNA analysis because there is no objective baseline truth against which the output from the program may be evaluated—and thus it is impossible to gauge the accuracy of these programs by examining their results.

If there's no objective baseline, every DNA analysis program is allowed to grade on its own curve. DNA matches aren't actually matches. They just reflect the likelihood of a match. With no baseline, the probability of it being an actual match is left to the discernment of prosecutors and their expert witnesses -- all of whom come out looking better if they can secure a conviction.

Unlike breathalyzers, the latest generation of complex DNA analysis tools cannot be measured against an objective truth. Instead, these DNA programs are more akin to probabilistic election forecasting models, such as those designed by FiveThirtyEight and The Economist. The outputted results are based on the calculation of the probability of events—that the defendant, rather than a random person, contributed to the DNA mixture or that person X will win an election—a value that is not an objectively measurable fact. This is why different DNA programs, and even different laboratories using the same program, will generate substantially different results for the same sample.

This is why courts should allow defendants to examine the software that has, for the most part, accused them of committing crimes. If different algorithms produce different outcomes using the same inputs, none are to be trusted until they're independently examined. And DNA software companies aren't interested in that happening -- not solely because of any trade secrets but because any defendant who successfully casts doubt on the accuracy of test results undermines their business model.

But protecting a business model isn't the court's business. The courts are there to serve justice, which means protecting the rights of the accused from accusers utilizing proprietary tech while waving around signed NDAs.

Filed Under: dna, due process, evidence, software

Babies & Bathwater: WSJ OpEd Suggests Banning Cryptocurrency Entirely To Stop Ransomware

from the good-luck-with-that dept

The hack of the Colonial Pipeline has already made lots of news, and with that, the government is rushing to come up with new regulations, which will almost certainly be overkill. While the transparency aspect of the expected rules (requiring reporting of "cyber incidents" to the federal government) was more or less expected to come at some point no matter what, the other rules are likely to be fighting the last battle. There are constant changes to these kinds of attacks, and seeking just to prevent them is a fool's errand.

However, we're now seeing some truly silly suggestions. Lee Reiners, who runs Duke Law School's Global Financial Markets Center, has published an op-ed in the WSJ that truly is an astounding example of throwing out all the babies with the bathwater. Reiners says the way to stop these attacks is to just ban all cryptocurrency. This is silly on many levels -- mostly because (1) that's impossible, (2) it wouldn't work, and (3) it would destroy a ton of important and valuable projects. Frankly this op-ed does not speak well to the Global Financial Markets Center and its understanding of anything. Here's the core of the argument:

Ransomware can’t succeed without cryptocurrency. The pseudonymity that crypto provides has made it the exclusive method of payment for hackers. It makes their job relatively safe and easy. There is even a new business model in which developers sell or lease ransomware, empowering malicious actors who aren’t tech-savvy themselves to receive payment quickly and securely. Before cryptocurrency, attackers had to set up shell companies to receive credit-card payments or request ransom payment in prepaid cash cards, leaving a trail in either case. It is no coincidence that ransomware attacks exploded with the emergence of cryptocurrency.

There is no doubt that cryptocurrency does aid the ability to pass around money without being traced -- and that certainly can (and does) help some criminal enterprises. But, the idea that it makes their job "safe and easy" is simply not true. We've seen plenty of criminal operations that relied on cryptocurrency run into issues, including being taken down by law enforcement. This is for a variety of reasons -- including that in the process of converting cryptocurrency into other forms of money, you often end up introducing friction that may require some identification. Similarly, there are a lot of steps involved in transferring around even large sums of cryptocurrency that can leave trails. Are there ways to hide yourself? Absolutely, but it's not as "easy" as the article makes it out to be.

And the claim that the rise of ransomware is because of cryptocurrency seems like a "correlation does not mean causation" kind of situation. There are many reasons why ransomware may have increased over the past few years -- including improvements in a variety of hacking tools, the increased online nature of many businesses (especially during the pandemic) and some other factors as well.

Banning anything runs counter to the American ethos, but as our experience with social media should teach us, the innovative isn’t always an unalloyed good. A sober assessment of cryptocurrency must conclude that the damage wrought by crypto-fueled ransomware vastly outweighs any benefits from cryptocurrency.

I mean... what? No one has ever argued that any innovation is "an unalloyed good." Basically everyone recognizes that innovation has a variety of different impacts -- some good, some bad, some indifferent. They're tools. Some people use them for good things. Some people use them for bad things. That's true of social media. And it's true of cryptocurrency. But Reiner then takes the leap from saying it's not an "unalloyed good" to insist that, actually, cryptocurrency is all bad. Why? Because he says so.

It isn’t obvious that cryptocurrency provides any benefit at all beyond the chance to make a quick buck. I have been studying the crypto market since its inception, and I have yet to identify a single task or process that crypto makes easier, better, cheaper or faster. Don’t take my word for it. Ask any friend why he owns cryptocurrency, and the answer will invariably be “to make money.” In other words, speculation. (The blockchain technology that underpins crypto does have promising applications in supply-chain management and other areas.)

This paragraph is the kind that should be remembered in the future. I know that many people probably do agree with this assessment, but it shows a real lack of imagination about how cryptocurrency could be useful, as well as a real lack of understanding of the nature of innovations and how they progress over time. We certainly heard similar statements regarding home computers, the internet itself, mobile phones and many other things as well. It may be true that the killer apps for cryptocurrencies are not well recognized now, but that hardly means they don't exist, and it really isn't an excuse for trying to ban the entire concept.

As for that closing sentence about blockchain, the paragraph totally misses that the underpinnings of what makes a blockchain effective is the integration with cryptocurrency. Yes, you can create cryptocurrency-less blockchains, but they tend to be significantly less interesting, and almost certainly need to create some other incentive system. That generally means that they only work when controlled by a few centralized players, dropping the benefits of a more truly decentralized system with cryptocurrency.

And, the line that most people investing in cryptocurrency are doing so to make money is... meaningless. Yes, that's one of the important functions of money. It acts as an incentive system. But some of the clever aspects of how cryptocurrency and blockchain work together is that built-in incentive structure that makes the distributed/trustless system function. Yes, the fact that many people are in cryptocurrency to make money does open it up to speculation (and scams). But that incentive is a feature, not a bug.

Most importantly, this ignores that there are interesting ideas and innovations that are just starting to come out of the cryptocurrency world. Obvious, we've talked a lot on Techdirt about dealing with other issues -- competition, privacy, free speech, content moderation, etc. -- with a more distributed internet. And one way to help make that a reality is using cryptocurrency. We're already seeing some interesting elements of that start to play out with things like FileCoin and the projects that are just starting to show up around that space. To claim that there's nothing valuable at all is to show a near total ignorance of the more interesting elements of what's happening. Yes, there are plenty of silly scams and headline grabbing nonsense, but to insist that means there's no redeeming value is missing the point. Entirely.

Reiner then includes a paragraph that basically says people will mock him for these claims, and insisting that because people will attack him for his short-sighted ideas, it proves that "the emperor has no clothes." Huh?

A day after the Colonial Pipeline shutdown, cryptocurrency champion and self-proclaimed “Dogefather” Elon Musk went on “Saturday Night Live” and admitted the obvious: The dogecoin cryptocurrency is a “hustle.” He then performed an encore by tweeting that Tesla was suspending the use of bitcoin for vehicle purchases due to the coin’s carbon footprint.

Tarring all cryptocurrency because Elon Musk's random flights of fancy -- and focusing on Dogecoin of all the cryptocurrencies out there -- does not make the argument more compelling. It screams out that Reiner is cherry picking examples. Yes, there are silly cryptocurrencies. Yes, there are scams. Yes there is ransomware and yes sometimes cryptocurrencies can make some aspects of criminal behavior easier. But this article fails to tackle any of that in a meaningful way, simply pulling some edge cases and tapdancing around the rest.

And, of course, as we noted above, the idea that you could even ban cryptocurrency is ludicrous. The entire idea behind them was that there is no central node that you can shut off. Reiner tries to get around this by noting the government could put in place a whole bunch of annoying hurdles, but that's not going to stop cryptocurrencies at all.

Any solution must at least reduce the use of cryptocurrency. Governments and retailers should be encouraged not to accept payment in it. An outright ban could get the job done, but if it would be too difficult to enforce or get through Congress, regulators could crack down on the off-ramps and on-ramps, the points at which crypto is converted into fiat currency and vice versa.

Cryptocurrency firms serving U.S. customers are supposed to be subject to the same anti-money-laundering requirements as traditional financial institutions, but more can be done. Late last year, the Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network proposed a rule to establish new reporting, verification and record-keeping requirements for certain cryptocurrency transactions. Last week Treasury proposed granting more resources to the Internal Revenue Service to address crypto and called on businesses to report receipts of more than $10,000 in cryptocurrency. Both proposals should be adopted, but they will be effective only if other countries follow suit.

I mean, it's kinda funny, because up top I noted that the idea that criminals can easily get away with ransomware because of cryptocurrency wasn't always true because of regulations at the "on-ramps" and "off-ramps" and then later in the article he more or less admits that's true.

Of course, there are other risks associated with heavily regulating cryptocurrency -- again in potentially throwing out babies with the bathwater. Putting too many restrictions on the usage of cryptocurrency could hinder adoption of the actual useful elements of it.

We can live in a world with cryptocurrency or a world without ransomware, but we can’t have both. It is time for the adults to tell the children: Party’s over.

That's nonsense. There's no way to get rid of cryptocurrency, and if we just overly burden it with excess regulations as he proposes, that will just lead to more creative workarounds, that will get even more adoption among criminal elements, rather than for more socially useful activities. Second, there is no such thing as "a world without ransomware." This is just wishful thinking based on the false premise that ransomware only exists because of cryptocurrencies.

And, yes, clearly there's a real risk with ransomware and attacks like the Colonial Pipeline that the end result could be quite problematic. However, the fact is the real cybersecurity risks from ransomware are monetary risks. The risks associated with taking down or breaking critical infrastructure tends to come from nation-state attacks, not ransomware attacks for money. The whole op-ed is a silly, nonsensical attack on cryptocurrency that doesn't seem based in reality. If that's the level of the work that comes out of the Global Financial Markets Center, it does not speak highly of Duke's ability to produce good scholarship on this subject.

Of course, I will note that Reiner's hatred of cryptocurrency has not stopped his own center from asking the public to donate cryptocurrency to support the center. How curious.

Filed Under: cryptocurrency, lee reiners, ransomware

Daily Deal: The Ultimate 2021 White Hat Hacker Bundle

from the good-deals-on-cool-stuff dept

The Ultimate 2021 White Hat Hacker Bundle has 10 courses to teach you how to defend any system from digital attacks. You'll develop an understanding of the threat and vulnerability landscape through threat modeling and risk assessments, and build a foundation for which to expand your security knowledge. It's on sale for $39.90.

Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all sales from Techdirt Deals helps support Techdirt. The products featured do not reflect endorsements by our editorial team.

Filed Under: daily deal

DC Court Says Recordings Of Capitol Rioters Must Be Made Public, But Only On A Case-By-Case Basis

from the getting-prejudiced-by-your-own-livestream dept

Here's a small victory for the First Amendment and presumption of openness that's supposed to apply to court proceedings. A recent opinion [PDF] by the DC Circuit Court will give everyone more access to recordings covering the dozens of prosecutions of insurrectionist cosplayers who raided the Capitol on January 6th. The court comes down firmly on the side of openness and transparency, but has hung a rather large asterisk on that statement.

ProPublica is the entity that made the request for an administrative order, but it's the in-court figurehead for a group of fourteen journalistic concerns. The US Attorney's Office hasn't exactly been proactive when releasing recordings entered as evidence in the Capitol raid cases. It has even (temporarily) withheld recordings that were pulled from social media services and YouTube -- something that indicates these recordings were public before the government made them private.

While these recordings are viewable during court proceedings, limited access has prevented some journalists from accessing them. And once the proceedings are over, they're no longer viewable. The DC Circuit Court has made some permanently accessible but only on a case-by-case basis. Considering the volume of criminal cases being handled by the court -- combined with limited access prompted in part by the COVID pandemic -- this no longer appears to be acceptable.

In the pending petition, the group of fourteen media organizations express frustration with the case-by-case approach to providing media access to video exhibits, explaining that petitioning for the release of video exhibits in individual cases has led to delayed release of those exhibits, and objecting to the absence of a platform to provide broad and convenient public access to video exhibits in the numerous Capitol Cases in which such exhibits have been presented to the court but are not available to the public. Consequently, they seek a standing order directing the government to contemporaneously release copies of video exhibits admitted in pretrial proceedings in the Capitol Cases to a designated press representative, ProPublica, for further distribution to news organizations and to the public at large.

The government doesn't necessarily disagree. It would prefer to handle things its way -- giving press members access through a shared "drop box." Recordings would be placed there after being reviewed for any necessary redactions. But that would mean a 72-hour delay between their presentation in court and their accessibility by outsiders.

On the other side, the defendants' legal reps are arguing that releasing recordings during the pre-trial phase would potentially prejudice their clients, decreasing their chances of receiving a fair trial. This includes possibly tainting jury pools or giving the government the upper hand with edited footage that might mislead members of the public.

Given these three conflicting interests, the court decides the records are definitely public. But how public and how quickly can't necessarily be resolved with a broad order. It's not that anyone isn't aware of the January 6th Capitol raid or the arrests stemming from this. But there's still a small chance defendants might lose access to a fair trial if selectively edited recordings are released.

Certainly, the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, generally, and the Capitol Cases in particular, have already been the subject of extraordinary attention both nationally and even globally. Given this context, disclosure of video exhibits in individual Capitol Cases may not generate any more prejudicial attention than already attaches to this event. Nevertheless, disclosure of particularly egregious or inflammatory conduct associated with an individual defendant or a particular video clip that “does not contain the whole event but rather a deliberately chosen or edited clip to support a certain argument or narrative,” FPD Resp. at 3, may present sufficient unfair prejudice at this stage that the presiding judge may decide to delay or limit access in some way. Evaluation of such risks must be carried out on a case-by case basis.

For the first time in a long time, the government agrees with the press. It argues the risk of prejudice is so low as to be speculative and supports ProPublica's request for a blanket order affecting all recordings entered as evidence. Of course, this has nothing to do with supporting free speech protections and everything to do with getting as much damaging info about the Capitol raid suspects out there as possible, even if it means utilizing the Fourth Estate.

In the end, the press (and its new buddy, the government) wins. But only barely. And with a handful of stipulations.

For these reasons, petitioners’ request for issuance of a standing order to provide a streamlined means in this Court for making video exhibits in Capitol Cases accessible to the media will be granted but, in accordance with applicable law and rules, access to these video exhibits may be authorized after the presiding judge has the opportunity to consider the positions of the parties.

Yes, with a but. That's probably all we can expect at this point in the judicial process. But it's good to see the DC Circuit reiterate its belief in the presumption of openness. This is the circuit that hosts the highest percentage of sealed cases and dockets -- something that has earned it a lot of justified criticism over the years. Hopefully it will maintain its support of this presumption when it's the government arguing that filings and evidence should be withheld from the public.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, insurrection, january 6th, journalism, transparency

27 'Right To Repair' Laws Proposed This Year. Giants Like Apple Have Ensured None Have Passed So Far.

from the this-isn't-going-away dept

We've repeatedly noted how the "right to repair" movement has been gaining a full head of steam as consumers, independent repair shops, schools, farmers, and countless others grow tired of corporations' attempts to monopolize repair. Whether it's Sony and Microsoft creating repair monopolies for their game consoles, Apple bullying independent repair shops, or John Deere making it a costly hassle just to fix a tractor, the more companies restrict access to cheap repair, parts, tools, and documentation, the more this movement seems to grow. Especially in the COVID era where the problem has also hindered health care.

Bloomberg notes that 27 states have considered right to repair legislation so far this year, making access to essential tools and less expensive repair options a legal right. But corporations have shot down all of them so far, in part thanks to a misleading, coordinated lobbying campaign falsely claiming that reform on this front poses dramatic privacy and security harms:

"One reason these legislative efforts have failed is the opposition, which happens to sell boatloads of new devices every year. Microsoft’s top lawyer advocated against a repair bill in its home state. Lobbyists for Google and Amazon.com Inc. swooped into Colorado this year to help quash a proposal. Trade groups representing Apple Inc. successfully buried a version in Nevada. Telecoms, home appliance firms and medical companies also opposed the measures, but few have the lobbying muscle and cash of these technology giants. While tech companies face high-profile scrutiny in Washington, they quietly wield power in statehouses to shape public policy and stamp out unwelcome laws."

Bloomberg doesn't even get into many of the sleazier efforts on this front, like the auto industry's false claims that right to repair reform would be of great benefit to stalkers and sexual predators. Or Apple's false claim that giving consumers more rights over things they own would turn states into dangerous meccas for hackers. Despite the fact the FTC recently released a report making it clear the vast majority of these claims aren't substantiated, the scare mongering has been extremely effective at befuddling confused or financially-conflicted lawmakers.

The existing broken, wasteful system is hugely lucrative for major companies, even if it harms the planet, annoys countless consumers, and makes everyday life more expensive for school districts:

"Around 10 to 15% of a district’s devices end up needing repairs during a typical school year, according to Millman. One Long Island district he works with has over 13,000 iPads in circulation. He estimates that they have around $130,000 a year in repair costs. If the district had to replace all the broken iPads, rather than fix them, that cost jumps up a quarter of a million dollars.

“That’s why Apple doesn’t answer my emails,” Millman said. “For them, it’s just dollars and cents. They don’t think about the person on the other side of the iPad."

It's tough to pass reform when you've got a vast coalition of extremely wealthy and powerful corporations all working in concert to fight it (see: the long uphill climb on passing even a very basic US privacy law). But with right to repair, there's a massive, bipartisan coalition of folks whose ranks only grow bigger the more these companies press their luck.

Filed Under: lobbying, ownership, right to repair
Companies: apple

Crime-Reporting App Citizen Apparently Attempting To Get Into The Law Enforcement Business

from the bad-ideas-from-worse-people dept

It looks like app developers want to be cops. Late last week, a Los Angeles resident spotted a Citizen-app branded patrol car roaming the city. Citizen is yet another app that allows residents to send crime alerts and other news to each other, following in the steps of Ring's Neighbors app and Nextdoor, a hyperlocal social media service that only lets actual neighbors connect with each other.

The only thing missing here is the replicant hunters.

"Few things make you feel like you live in a bleak dystopian reality like a Citizen App patrol car that looks like a cop car," Brandon Wenerd tweeted, along with a photo of the vehicle, on Wednesday.

The all black vehicle with tinted windows has the Citizen logo emblazoned across its side, as well as Citizen's tagline "Making your world a safer place" and the phrase "Private Patrol."

Also emblazoned on the dystopiamobile was the logo for Los Angeles Professional Security, a private security firm with its own fleet of vehicles. That only added to the list of raised questions about the app and its plans for the future.

Like any other app or service that allows locals to report crime and other suspicious activity, Citizen has proven to be a handy conduit for bigots and racists to expose their biases and, unfortunately, find like-minded "citizens" in their area. This app may have been more empowering than most. It allows users to send crime alerts and Citizen encourages the livestreaming of crimes in progress. While it may not actually encourage users to don their Batsuits and start fighting crime on their own, the app did make its debut under the name "Vigilante." Its booting from Apple's app store resulted in its less-overtly-worrying rebrand.

But here's what's actually going on: Citizen wants to get into the cop business. That's according to internal documents shared with Joseph Cox and Motherboard shortly after residents began reporting the existence of this Citizen-branded mock cop car.

Crime and neighborhood watch app Citizen has ambitions to deploy private security workers to the scene of disturbances at the request of app users, according to leaked internal Citizen documents and Citizen sources.

[...]

"The broad master plan was to create a privatized secondary emergency response network," one former Citizen employee told Motherboard. Motherboard granted multiple sources anonymity to protect them from retaliation from the company.

"It's been something discussed for a while but I personally never expected it to make it this far," another Citizen source told Motherboard.

The car observed on the streets is Citizen's "security response" vehicle. Presumably, Citizen is planning to add more cars to this fleet so it can better serve users who feel they might need some additional security. Whether that includes responding to calls of crimes in progress remains to be seen, but the addition of Los Angeles Professional Security to the mix suggests that it does. This firm offers a "subscription law enforcement service" that includes a "potent combination of technology, K-9 support, and patrol personnel."

That's not the only private security firm in the mix.

Citizen has been actively testing the program, with what the company describes as quick response times and instant communication between Citizen and security partners, according to the emails.

One of those companies, according to the emails, is well-known private security contractor Securitas. The email about the tests says that Securitas average response times have improved to around 20 minutes.

It looks like Citizen believes there's a large market for private cops. Unfortunately, it looks like local law enforcement agrees. According to internal emails seen by Motherboard, Citizen approached the Los Angeles Police Department with its proposal to expand into the police business and this was (allegedly -- we are talking about a document that will probably be used to market Citizen to other cop shops) warmly received by LAPD officials, who said it would be a "game changer."

And, to be sure, it might be. Los Angeles has a property crime problem cops can't seem to fix. Adding roving bands of vigilantes would be a "game changer" too, but no one really thinks that's a solution. That's just an additional problem. Citizen's expansion may change the game, but it also encourages Citizen to embrace the ideals that saw it debut as "Vigilante."

We don't need tech companies thinking they're just an extension of the government, especially the parts of the government allowed to deploy deadly force and deprive people of their freedoms. Blurring the line between public and private tends to work out poorly for those supposedly being served by these partnerships. Members of the public will be expected to treat both as law enforcement, even though only actual cops have the power to enforce the law. Private companies can do things cops can't -- like engage in searches of property ostensibly under their control -- and cops can swoop in and directly benefit from searches they themselves cannot legally engage in. The end result will be more government power -- not derived from laws or Constitutional amendments but from app developers who see themselves as crime fighters.

Filed Under: crime reporting, law enforcement, los angeles, private law enforcement, snitch app, vigilantes
Companies: citizen

Getting Absurd: Twitch Creates A 'Hot Tub' Channel, Says It Should Have Communicated With Streamers About Demonitization

from the sigh dept

Twitch seems to be putting on some sort of master class in how to respond to a crisis on its platform in as confusing a manner as possible. Without writing a thousand word summary, this whole thing started when Twitch nuked a bunch of streamer content in response to a backlog of DMCA notices, changed its affiliate program without notice, hung its streamers out to dry over the DMCAs when the backlash occurred, and basically angered the hell out of its most important asset, it's creative community. This basically set the theme for the public that Twitch wasn't treating its community very well.

This continued to the present. Most recently, we discussed one streamer suddenly having her channel demonitized, ostensibly over so called "hot tub meta" streams, in which she appears in a bathing suit in a hot tub. While Twitch can do as it pleases with its platform, the real issue here was that all of this was done without any communication or notice from Twitch to the streamer, who goes by the handle Amouranth. Well, it turns out that she wasn't alone in having her channel suddenly demonitized in this fashion.

The company also addressed the recent controversy surrounding the sudden, uncommunicated demonetization of Kaitlyn “Amouranth” Siragusa’s channel, which took place earlier this week in reaction to complaints which Siragusa says came from from a single advertiser (Siragusa told Kotaku in an email that Twitch would not say which advertiser). Twitch’s post seems to dispute this characterization, instead attributing it to “the majority of our advertiser base.” Siragusa, however, was not alone. Sources have since told Kotaku that a number of streamers had advertising removed from their channels, though it seems that not all of them noticed or said anything publicly. This has alarmed Twitch streamers, who are now in the dark as to what’s considered advertiser-friendly content and what’s not—meaning they, too, are at risk of suddenly not being able to make money off Twitch ads anymore. In the blog post, Twitch did not do much to assuage their fears, but it did confirm that demonetization is a thing that can happen now.

“On Twitch, brands get to decide where and when their ads appear,” the company wrote. “Today, they can target or avoid specific categories of content and flag channels that don’t meet their standards. This means that Twitch, in rare cases, will suspend advertising on a channel at the advertisers’ request. We absolutely do not permit brands to use protected characteristics as a filter for advertising targeting or blocking.”

Note that this is all communication that occurred after the fact. Acknowledging that, Twitch specifically stated that the way it had treated Amouranth was a "mistake." As was the lack of communication with all of the other streamers who had their channels demonitized. As was not getting the communication about what control advertisers had over channels receiving ad revenue until after all this occurred. Mistake after mistake, all of which quite frankly appear to be conscious decisions rather than oopsies.

And, in an almost exact replication of the ready-fire-aim method Twitch employed for its DMCA debacle, the company's remedy for this now is to roll out more tools for advertisers and creators to avoid this situation that should have been avoided with those tools in the first place.

To remedy this and other issues, Twitch said it’s “working to develop more robust controls for advertisers and viewers to enable them to control their experiences on our service.” It’s also working on figuring out how to communicate to streamers what exactly “brand safe” means, but this functionality will apparently “take time to build and implement.”

The other plan Twitch has coming out of this latest situation is, and I cannot stress enough that this is real, the introduction of "hot tub" channels and the like.

In a new blog post today, Twitch announced that it has created a new category: “Pools, Hot Tubs, and Beaches.” Previously, hot tub streamers largely used the catch-all Just Chatting category, which led some streamers and viewers to accuse them of somehow breaking the rules—despite the fact that they were not actually breaking Twitch’s rules. In the blog post, Twitch clarified this.

“While we have guidelines about sexually suggestive content, being found to be sexy by others is not against our rules, and Twitch will not take enforcement action against women, or anyone on our service, for their perceived attractiveness,” the company wrote, adding that it discourages harassment against all streamers regardless of their actions or intentions. “Under our current Nudity & Attire and Sexually Suggestive Content policies, streamers may appear in swimwear in contextually appropriate situations (at the beach, in a hot tub, for example), and we allow creative expression like body writing and body painting, provided the streamer has appropriate coverage as outlined by our attire policy.”

So, Amouranth did nothing wrong as far as Twitch is concerned, but it still demonitized her channel at the request of "advertisers" for reasons never fully articulated, not against Twitch's rules, without notice or communication, and with an almost perfect lack of transparency. But, hey, here's a new hot tub category for you all to stream in? The only real use I see for that is I can finally pitch Mike on my idea for a speedo-clad Twitch Techdirt stream where I yell about beer trademarks in a kiddie pool.

This is where I remind you that Twitch is an Amazon property and has hefty resources to pull from to do its platform and PR right. It just doesn't seem to want to and the one left holding the proverbial bag is its creative community.

Cool.

Filed Under: advertisers, content moderation, monetization, streaming
Companies: twitch