Ohio Government Asks Companies To Snitch On Employees, Gets Hit With Auto-Generated Bogus 'Tips' Instead
from the defeating-a-fraud-portal-with-fraudulent-submissions dept
Asking citizens to snitch on other citizens never seems to work out very well. The federal government has been doing it for years, maintaining "See Something, Say Something" hotlines that have mostly collected tips from people concerned about what their browner neighbors are doing. The same thing happens in the private sector. Ring's proprietary app -- Neighbors -- collects the same sort of garbage, empowering bigots to feel like they're acting on behalf of the common good.
With lockdown orders in effect and social distancing rules in place in several cities and states around the country, local governments are asking residents to pitch in with enforcement efforts by reporting those who are breaking the rules. New York City opened a tip line for reports of social distancing violators and collected a bunch of Hitler-related memes, videos of the mayor going to the gym, extended middle fingers, and dick pics instead.
The state of Ohio is asking for the same trouble. Its unemployment fraud portal is supposed to collect reports from businesses about employees of theirs that are collecting unemployment rather than coming into work. Some employees are opting out of potential infection when employers haven't shown the willingness to protect them by enforcing social distancing rules and/or providing them with personal protective equipment.
The state is now going to have to sift through a whole lot of algorithmically-generated crap to find genuine reports of work shirkers, thanks to the efforts of one anonymous coder.
The script, which began circulating on social media earlier this week, automatically fills out a “fraud reporting” form on the state of Ohio’s unemployment insurance website. State officials created the form to encourage companies to snitch on workers who are refusing to work under unsafe conditions, drawing outrage from workers and labor rights advocates. The script’s creator says the goal is to overwhelm the site with a flood of fake submissions, making it harder to process claims and thus deny people their benefits.
Flooding government websites with garbage data isn't the ideal solution but this will possibly make it more difficult for businesses to punish employees they're putting in harm's way by refusing to protect them from potential infection. The downside is this may also delay processing of legitimate claims from people who've been laid off. But if claims continue to be paid while investigations are still ongoing, it's probably a net win for employees who'd rather not roll the dice on dying while the pandemic runs its course.
The state is now aware of the scripted submissions and has deployed a new CAPTCHA that's a bit more difficult to defeat with a script. But the coder is already working on a way to bypass it so the flooding should resume momentarily. Unfortunately, there's no way to personalize submissions with dick pics or Hitler memes, but it should at least slow the roll of vindictive employers who'd rather see their employees punished than protected.
Filed Under: covid-19, lockdown, ohio, pandemic, safety, snitching, tipline, unemployment, workers
