Tag Archives: DMV

No Uber to the rescue

That is the setting that CBC gave me today and it angers me. For the most any situation that sets danger to children angers me. I reckon that is within all of us. Our first care is to a child, any child and that takes precedence over almost anything else.

The CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/uber-drives-off-with-child-1.7513379) is giving us ‘An Uber drove away with her kid. Then Uber wouldn’t connect her or police with the driver’ with the subtext “Uber representatives refused to help them or Toronto police contact the driver” a blatant setting that optionally will endanger a child. Lets be clear, there could be a setting that a person is not to be connected to a driver, but the police? The Toronto metropolitan police force towards the protection of a child? As I personally see it, all Uber activities will stop immediately until this setting is resolved. No matter what the impact is, to optionally endanger a child is something you don’t get back from.

So when we get “An officer called Uber to get contact information for the driver but Julia says a representative for the ride-sharing company refused to provide it — stating the police needed to fill out a form” your blood should be boiling, as did mine. So, I do get part of this, still the operator could have contacted the driver and take it from there. The driver could then have called, the operator could have logged the event and within 1-2 minutes there would have been clarity. Now, the child was left in danger, as such I have no value for the statement “Toronto police found her child about an hour and a half later, without the company’s help” or the ‘official’ excuse “An Uber spokesperson said in a statement the safety of everyone who uses the platform is the company’s top priority”, well that setting is a downright lie, because the setting of the operator calling was seemingly overlooked. And the setting that a child was without her mothers care for 90 minutes should wake up every mother in Canada ignoring Uber as a solution for them for some time (or ever again), the latter setting is not to be ignored. Especially against “We immediately began reviewing the details of this incident internally to identify opportunities to improve our processes and support systems.” In under a minute I found a solution that ANY call centre operator could have considered in seconds. But it was to no avail, Uber fell short everywhere (Überall in German) and it goes from bad to worse from there. You see the setting of “The company says its support team followed Uber’s standard protocols, which are designed to protect the privacy and safety of all users” is a debatable one, I reckon that Uber set that setting to protect themselves and optionally illegals that might get some cash by becoming an Uber driver. You see, in villages like New York they have the setting “Under New York’s Vehicle and Traffic Law, ride-share companies such as Uber and Lyft are regulated as “transportation network companies” (“TNC”). To become a TNC driver, a worker must be at least nineteen years old and hold a valid New York State driver’s license issued by the DMV.” I reckon that this rule applies in many American cities, as such, as Uber needs drivers, they need to get space to keep their illegals ‘somewhat’ safe. And this setting with the child, a freak, one in a million events got in the way from what I personally see, the ‘protection’ of illegals. Now it is fair to say that I am wrong, but consider the simplicity of a call centre operator contacting the driver, optionally handing the data to a police officer against the escalation that the CBC is handing us implies that my version is likely correct. Just the setting that Uber refuses to aid the police department to resolve this situation gives it a much nastier turn and as such there is a larger setting that actions against Uber becomes essential, if only to guarantee that children get a much better safety net under this unsafe premise. And for those who state that I am wrong. Consider the following scenario. The child fell asleep, the mother was moving the three children and when she returns the cab is gone. So far, so good. Now the taxi driver rides off, hits a bump or pit in the road, as mother is no longer there, the child is thrown in the cab optionally causing damage to neck or other body part. This could have been not noticed (because mother is gone) and she falls out of sight and the taxi driver might be unaware. This is a possible setting and calling the driver could have stopped this from happening within minutes, and the child was ‘found’’ 90 minutes later, so for over an hour she remained in optional danger. 

As we get the last insult with “Julia’s boyfriend later received a $10 credit from Uber, which she considers “a massive slap in the face.””, as I see it, make Uber not an option for 10 months in Canada, a dollar a day so to say.

Yes, I am going for the larger danger, but as I see it, there is a clear need for this. In this I also oppose the setting that Carmi Levy, a technology analyst give with “traditional elements of customer service have been lost in today’s gig economy”, I oppose it, because as I see it the proper setting that seems to apply is “traditional elements of customer service have been lost in today’s gig economy for the larger need of profit, margins of profit and the pleasing of shares and stake holders” Yes, you forgot that, didn’t you? Uber works for profit slashing as many of the margins that they can to remain profitable and the funny part is that the phone call of the operator to the driver would not have impacted it. 

I will let you decide what the proper form of action is, consider that Uber gives us “Whether you’re in the back seat or behind the wheel, your safety is essential. We are committed to doing our part, and technology is at the heart of our approach. We partner with safety advocates and develop new technologies and systems to help improve safety and help make it easier for everyone to get around”, yet the website give us no information on where they are. So where do Canadians send their complaint letter to? For that matter, the line “technology is at the heart of our approach”, really? So is a phone call to the driver not technology? As such technology is not in any heart of approach and as I see it, a clear reason to block Uber from operating In Canada (optionally for 10 months), how does that go over with the share and stake holders?

Just a small merry thought, so you all have a lovely day and if you are Canadian consider City Taxi Toronto, 130 Westmore Drive, Suite 219, Toronto (reachable at (416) 740-2222)and keep yourself and your children safe, a random taxi service in Toronto was chosen. I personally do not know how good they are, but as I see it, optionally better than Uber.

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Cutting corners

Something did not sit well with me yesterday. I have been mulling things over for most of today and it all started with Politico (at https://www.politico.com/news/2023/09/12/pentagon-cyber-command-private-companies-00115206) where we are given ‘The U.S. is getting hacked. So the Pentagon is overhauling its approach to cyber.

This setting comes in a few stages. Lets start with the given that I have no opposition to the Pentagon getting involved. But the stage is not that simple. So we start with the quote “attacks on critical U.S. companies and federal agencies, and as the Pentagon eyes Chinese hacking efforts with increasing concern.” The first issue is that I would have said “Chinese and Russian hacking efforts”, it would be more accurate. There is an additional side to all this. If American corporations had done their job BETTER, this issue would not be the critical issue it currently is. 

Equifax (2017)
Marriott International (2018)
Capital One (2019)
First American (2019)
Solarwinds (2020)
Colonial Pipeline (2021)
LikedIn (2021)
Microsoft Exchange Server (2021)
Twitter (2022)

This is merely a small grasps, this grasp has millions of records online for each of these cases, In this Linked in stood out with “Personal records of over 700 million users – 92% of the user base – were scraped from the platform and put up for sale in a hacker forum. Why did this happen? Attackers found a public API without authentication and breached it to scrape content.” This case is also the larger issue (beside the fact that it was an API and I wrote about that risk in ‘A simpleminded A, B, C’ On August 30th (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2023/08/30/a-simpleminded-a-b-c/) a simple setting now out in the open. People still think I was grasping at straws? Now here we see (in the LinkedIn case) “Attackers found a public API without authentication”, as such couldn’t they do their bloody jobs? I understand the setting of the Pentagon, but there needs to be a bill for utter stupidity and a link to your data without authentication is definitely one.

Corporations have been cutting corners on cost and staff and now that the consequences are out in the open, the Pentagon needs to rescue them? Screw that!

It is nice that the Pentagon comes to the rescue, but every rescue needs to come with an audit of that company and a hefty bill for the action. Consider a pointless rescue by coast guard and Marine rescue, these people get a hefty fine, I see that someone employs an API without authentication in pretty much the same way.

Yet the article is merely the start. You see, we can all agree on “Hackers are increasingly infiltrating private companies and government agencies far outside the Pentagon’s usual purview, and the hacks are being perpetrated by cybercriminals who honed their strategies abroad before striking the United States.” OK, that is fine and the fact that the Pentagon and its digital weapon systems are brought to bear is fine, but the utter stupid setting by corporations that cut corners is part one and that is on those corporations. I am even willing to accept that it took a disgruntled employee to hand visibility to the wrong people. Yet that also implies that these corporations have a larger problem and THEY have to pay for that. 

So about Three weeks ago, we were handed the 2023 DoD Cyber Strategy guide. The PDF (see bottom) is a nice piece of work. My issue is with page 6 where we are given “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organization, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicize this information as circumstances permit.” As I personally see it, it should say “The Department will continue to persistently engage U.S. adversaries in cyberspace, identifying malicious cyber activity in the early stages of planning and development. We will track the organisation, capabilities, and intent of malicious cyber actors, whilst registering corporate shortcomings. We will leverage these insights to bolster the cyber resilience of the Nation and will coordinate with interagency partners to publicise this information as circumstances permit, where corporate shortcomings will not be silenced.” In this case some will state that this is not the job of the DoD and they would be correct, but Corporate America fell short and they now want help, that shortcoming needs to be illuminated as well. You cannot have it both ways.

The document gives us a lot to think about and I agree with 99% of it all, especially when it comes to the Department of Defense Information Network. 

I created the Hub+1 intrusion solution in 2014 (or 2015). As far as I know, no one is at this time ready for that creative little caper. I got there shortly after the Sony hack. The information never added up to me and I started to wonder how it could have been done (always a nice way to find the issue by re-engineering the possibilities). And all this is long before we consider issues like non-repudiation, a simple setting I learned about in UTS (University of Technology Sydney) about 3 years before the Sony hack and corporations have been cutting corners ever since. Consider the routers of the FBI, DoD, DMV, Department of Homeland Security and the postal services. Now check EVERY router and tally the ones where the password was Cisco123. I reckon you will find close to a dozen routers. I know it is more presumption than speculation on my side, but that is the larger failure and that is BEFORE we check all the corporate routers. People in IT have been too lazy (for many obvious reasons) and most of them involve resource shortages and why should the Pentagon pay for that bill?

I see that corporate America needs to pay for their cutting corners, the Pentagon has enough issues to work through and when it needs to step in (and when shortcomings are found) that corporation needs to get billed. This is specific. Corporate players cannot shield themselves from top tier hackers, that is BS. But letting the Pentagon pay for corporate stupidity is equally stupid and that needs to be out in the open. 

So this was my rant on stupidity, enjoy the day.

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We get it, but we don’t

There are times when we love to see the big boys getting sued, yet this is not that time. When I saw the Guardian (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/03/apple-lawsuit-facetime-car-crash-iphone-patent), I had to wonder whether I had to laugh out loud, or just let my head hang down and shake it slowly. I get it, when a bad thing overcomes you and your family, the one you sue is the one who has the cash to settle or pay largely (read: deep pockets). That part I learned in my first week of Torts, so the fact that a couple goes for Apple makes sense, yet it does not. You see, in this global community there are these pesky things called ‘traffic laws’, so to make a point I decided to take a look at the traffic laws of California and that was a trip so psychedelic, that no amount of mushrooms could ever equal it. It all started with the California Driver Handbook (at https://www.dmv.ca.gov/web/eng_pdf/dl600.pdf).

I was off to a great start, because on page 21 we see ‘distracted driving‘ with “Anything that prevents you from operating your vehicle is a distraction” and it mentions ‘Visual-Eyes off the road‘ and ‘Cognitive-Mind of the road‘, so it seems that there was a good start. Then on page 86 we see the things that you must not do, which states ‘Do not operate a cell-phone without the use of a hands-free device‘ as well as ‘Do not drive a motor vehicle whilst using a wireless Communication device to write, send or read text-based communications‘ as well as ‘do not drive a vehicle equipped with a video monitor, if the monitor is visible to the driver and displays anything other than vehicle information‘. So, I saw the ground pretty much fall away from me whilst I realised that the first mention was ‘Do not smoke at any time when a minor is in the vehicle. You can be fined up to $100‘. Is this for real? Smoking is fined, yet the more hazardous issues are not dealt with? I cried wolf almost too soon. The DMV (at https://www.dmv.com/distracted-driving-penalties) gives us for California: $20, so we now know that we can plan for the accidental execution of ex-wives, people we do not like and people with a price on their head, because California has decided that this act of ‘gross’ negligence carries a fine of $20, or perhaps $40, because it could be proven that both visual and cognitive were transgressed upon. We just need to look really really sad, remorseful and get a great lawyer. If you have any such plans, after the deed is done in for example San Francisco, you should call Chris Dolan of the Dolan Law Firm (at https://dolanlawfirm.com/), they might be able to help you all the way avoiding jail.

So, as some places take distracted driving serious, there is a clear indication that plenty of states do not. This is upsetting in a few ways as the level of distracted driving (video chatting whilst driving) amounts to nothing less than manslaughter. Now the California Penal Code gives us Penal Code 192(a) voluntary manslaughter and Penal Code 192(b), involuntary manslaughter. The second one is set apart as it does not require intent to kill. I thought that we were in the clear with voluntary manslaughter as there is the option of vehicular manslaughter. Although here we see the needed:

A. in an unlawful way (not amounting to a felony), with or without gross negligence;
B. during the commission of a lawful act which might produce death in an unlawful manner, or
C. knowingly causes the accident for financial gain (which is also a violation of California’s automobile insurance fraud laws).

Now part c seems not to be the case. In my fictive example the prosecutor would require proof. Good luck getting that part from my banks in Riyadh! Hah!

Yet part A and part B are still filled at present. The issue is that distracted driving is not said to be a felony or unlawful. In that regard video chat driving is gross negligence through common sense, yet the California driving rules and the DMV do not state it as such (as far as I can tell at present) and as such someone’s 5 year old little daughter ended up with a dead one, for the fine (as currently stated in the DMV penalties list) no larger than the price of merely 4 MacDonald happy meals? How screwed up does that sound? The fact that the DMV could have clearly set in motion the change that caught with more than one element of distracted driver means an automatic suspension of the driver’s license for no less than 5 years as well as setting the bar towards a felony and not keep it at a misdemeanour, an act that would clearly be turning faces real quick. As minors and adults seem to worship their cars and their needs to drive somewhere, setting that change in motion could have resulted in a living child, very likely loads of non-dead individuals because of acts of utter stupidity. The fact that the DMV was very willing to add statistics to the drivers guide shows that this is a massive amount of lives that could be saved.

Let’s face it, in the world of common sense, video chatting whilst driving seems to be one of the more stupid acts to pursue. It is at the end that I disagree with Nora Freeman Engstrom, a Stanford law professor, who states “Apple’s inaction in the face of that knowledge may not trigger liability here. But it may well expose Apple to liability down the road”, in that I disagree as the pressure should have been on the irresponsible driver from the very start and the driving laws should have been adjusted as such for a long time. It is time to set the blame where it should have been, with the driver!

Now, we all understand that the personal injury lawyers tend to have a go at those with the deeper pockets, yet how fair is that? Actually, fairness does not come into question, the law was already clear on distracted driving, it just needs to become a little more clear and let those relying on distracted driving either have a really good insurance, or let them feel the sting of prison when harm comes to victims due to their negligent actions. In that we can agree that texting, video chatting whilst operating a vehicle will always have a negative impact on the lives of people they hit.

The fact that this is not addressed on a national level is equally disturbing. When we see statistics like ‘Every year, about 421,000 people are injured in crashes that have involved a driver who was distracted in some way‘, whilst we see in addition, that ‘64% of all the road accidents in the United States had a cell phone involved‘, so any clear change will have an adverse effect on those two statistics. That seems clear enough a reason to make distracted driving a much harsher transgression with a penalty and fine large enough making it a felony. In that logic, the misconception that people can drive and text or video chat is a mismanaged perception that should be addressed as soon as possible, or better stated, with the statistics shown this should have been addressed years ago. So in that we do get that the parents want to lash out against the guilty parties, yet we don’t get that this is done, making guilty a party that had not implemented a patent, to be more precise a patent that might have gotten itself circumvented as well as the clarity that any usage in combination with driving is already defined as dangerous. The fact that the State of California regards this to be a $20 transgression makes the situation just sad and not really a valid guilt trip for Apple, Google or any other Android mobile smartphone brand.

You see, in itself, the article is not that important. So someone is suing Apple, la di da! Yet behind all the fun, frolic and charade is the hidden issue of responsibility. We seem to avoid responsibility, feign unawareness or advocate stupidity the difference in this case seems to be mere semantics depending on your point of view. There is a decent argument to be made that the law makers have been too lax, yet to what extent? To what extent can any nation continue when common sense is thrown out of the window? It is an equal valid view that not the law, but the person in situations can be the point of decision, yet when we decide to avoid that, we do get to spend life in jail, especially when our own negligence and lack of common sense gets other people killed. There is no ‘I’m sorry‘ and ‘I thought it was OK‘ or ‘It was not illegal‘, I especially like that part. Well, I got my in-laws killed, but it was not illegal, so have a nice day Justice! We can even argue whether killing a person we know is less punishable then killing a stranger, but that is a discussion for another day. What is very much the issue is that Moriah Modisette died because Garrett Wilhelm, of Gainesville thought that he could safely drive a car on the interstate at 65 Mph whilst using FaceTime. Yet, this did not happen in Santa Clara, it happened in Texas on interstate 35W, near mile marker 81. Now we see a change, because Texas has harsher rules, and here we see “Denton bans texting and driving on city streets, but the city ordinance does not include the interstate“, so now we get a new ballgame, even as we see “Manslaughter is a second-degree felony in Texas and carries with it the possibility of up to a $10,000 fine and a prison sentence of at least two years, but no more than 20 years” yet the DMV states that distracted driving applies to Drivers younger than 18, which Garrett Wilhelm was not, so is it mere luck that he is up on a manslaughter charge? How come that death gets a different value, that stupidity is rewarded in some states? The fact that there are rules, regulations and city ordinances all giving a different value to this serious transgression. Now, as an Australian I accept that the US has different values and even though they too work on the premise of Common Law, doing so on a national level is not easy. Yet should this matter not have been dealt with more severe and on a national level? Especially when we see the statistics and a massive gap as to how the transgression and the implied consequence of the transgression holds up?

In case of Garrett Wilhelm, the trial date got set in the end to 26th September 2016, whilst the report of June stated that a request for continuance is to be expected, so over two years later there is still no justice for Moriah Modisette which would drive any parent insane with grief, rage, bitterness and sadness. All these emotions at the same time would be devastating. It still is not fair to have a go at the mobile maker, but that is only my personal view.

Perhaps it is time for someone like Bill O’Reilly to champion another law, just like he did with Jessica’s Law. Perhaps the US needs a Moriah Law, a law that makes the use of any mobile, other than hand free voice calling whilst driving a car a felony and it would be a law that covers all if the US, every state, regardless whether it is in the city or not. They shouldn’t need a law like this, yet the acts of Garrett Wilhelm (who is not the only one mind you) clearly state other whiles.

 

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