RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Monday 1 August 2022 Volume 33 : Issue 35

ACM FORUM ON RISKS TO THE PUBLIC IN COMPUTERS AND RELATED SYSTEMS (comp.risks)
Peter G. Neumann, founder and still moderator

***** See last item for further information, disclaimers, caveats, etc. *****
This issue is archived at <http://www.risks.org> as
<http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/33.35>
The current issue can also be found at
<http://www.csl.sri.com/users/risko/risks.txt>

Contents:
Coding Error Caused Outage That Left Millions Without Service
(Alexandra Posadzki)
Push for innovation in artificial intelligence can create dangerous products
(Channel News Asia)
Drone Contraband Deliveries Are Rampant at US Prisons (WiReD)
Politicians want to crack down on payment systems like Zelle. Here's why.
(The Boston Globe)
Starlink Satellites Get Upgrades To Prevent Interference With Astronomy
(PCMag)
"I Was Wrong" (NYTimes)
China's Expanding Surveillance State (NYTimes)
Voice Jammer Stops Anyone from Recording Your Speech (Matthew Sparkes)
Tim Hortons Offers a Free Coffee and Pastry for Spying on People for Over a
Year (Vice)
Cyberattack Illuminates Shaky State of Student Privacy (Natasha Singer)
Hospital IT melts in heatwave, leaving doctors without patient records
(The Register)
Google, Oracle cloud servers wilt in UK heatwave, take down websites
(The Register)
How to Prevent Another European Transport Meltdown (WiReD)
Chess-playing robot grabs child opponent's finger and breaks it (TechSpot)
BMW's Heated as a Service Model Has Drivers Seeking Hacks (WiReD)
Online pricing algorithms are gaming the system, and could mean you pay more
(npr.org)
Lawsuit: Chicago police misused ShotSpotter in murder case (AP)
Undersea Internet Cables Can Detect Earthquakes -- and May Soon Warn of
Tsunamis (The New Yorker)
Average Data Breach Costs Hit a Record $4.4 Million, Report Says (CNET)
Messaging app JusTalk is spilling millions of unencrypted messages
(TechCrunch)
Researchers Discover Nearly 3,200 Mobile Apps Leaking Twitter API Keys
(Cloudsek)
The Default Tech Settings You Should Turn Off Right Away (NYTimes)
Uber avoids federal prosecution over data breach that exposed data of 57
million users (Engadget)
Martin Shkreli Is Back With a Web3 Drug Discovery Platform (WiReD)
It's Not Just Loot Boxes: Predatory Monetization Is Everywhere (WiReD)
The Surprising Fight Over Google's Downtown West Development (WiReD)
The price of solar modules has declined by 99.6% since 1976 (WholeMarsBlog)
How online misinformation threatens Fortune 500 companies (Fortune)
"Dr. Birx ADMITS She 'Knew' COVID-19 Vaccines 'Were Not Going to Protect
Against Infection' (VaxxedFox)
13 propositions on an Internet for a burning world (APNIC Blog)
Chip shortages hit hard at Yamaha's musical instrument business
(The Register)
Jeopardy! player causes `at-home-disturbance' (Sundry sources abridged)
Inside Ukraine's Thriving Tech Sector (The New York Times)
Students and staff are entirely prohibited from using Google Search --
Data privacy concerns trigger restrictions on Google Chrome in Dutch
schools (Android Police)
Tech giants, including Meta, Google, and Amazon, want to put an end to
leap-seconds (ZDNet)
BMW's 3,854-Variable Problem Solved in Six Minutes with Quantum Computing
(Francisco Pires)
Re: UK proposes new rule for AI (Dick Mills)
Re: MIT scientists think they've discovered how to fully reverse climate
change (goldy)
ACM Launches New Journal on Responsible Computing (Lauren Weinstein)
On-demand education program of medical safety (MSPO)
Abridged info on RISKS (comp.risks)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2022 11:34:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: ACM TechNews <technews-editor@acm.org>
Subject: Coding Error Caused Outage That Left Millions Without Service
(Alexandra Posadzki)

[This is an update to the Interac item in RISKS-33.32 on the outage. PGN]

Alexandra Posadzki, *The Globe and Mail* (Canada), 25 Jul 2022)

Millions of Canadians lost their cellphone, Internet, or home phone service
for at least a day due to a coding error on 8 Jul 2022, when Rogers
Communications was upgrading its wireless/broadband infrastructure. The
telecommunications company has one core network that supports all its
services, and company documents indicated a piece of code deleted a routing
filter during the sixth phase of the seven-phase infrastructure upgrade. The
deletion caused all possible channels to the Internet to pass through the
routers, resulting in several devices exceeding their memory and processing
capacities, inducing a network shutdown. Rogers uses equipment from
different manufacturers in its network, and its router suppliers have
different traffic management and overload safeguards, which the documents
identified as the source of the outage.

https://orange.hosting.lsoft.com/trk/click?ref=znwrbbrs9_6-2ef56x234f88x070683&

[Single point of failure? PGN]

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2022 04:17:33 +0000
From: Richard Marlon Stein <rmstein@protonmail.com>
Subject: Push for innovation in artificial intelligence can create dangerous
products (Channel News Asia)

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/ai-legal-liability-boeing-tesla-uber-car-crash-2828911

"There is a perverse incentive for firms to design AI that is artificially
innocent. A better approach would involve more extensive harm reduction,
says a professor of management."

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 01:48:51 -0400
From: Gabe Goldberg <gabe@gabegold.com>
Subject: Drone Contraband Deliveries Are Rampant at US Prisons (WiReD)

Law enforcement officers face an air assault as drugs, weapons, and
phones are flown in to prisoners.

https://www.wired.com/story/drone-contraband-deliveries-prisons-united-states

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 31 Jul 2022 13:01:27 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@roscom.com>
Subject: Politicians want to crack down on payment systems like Zelle.
Here's why. (The Boston Globe)

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/07/25/business/politicians-want-crack-down-payment-systems-like-zelle-heres-why/

------------------------------

Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2022 18:50:44 -0700
From: geoff goodfellow <geoff@iconia.com>
Subject: Starlink Satellites Get Upgrades To Prevent Interference With
Astronomy (PCMag)

*The improvements promise to stop Starlink satellites from reflecting too
much sunlight as they travel over the night sky.*

SpaceX is working on several upgrades to the company=E2=80=99s Starlink
<https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/what-is-starlink-spacex-satellite-internet-service-explained> satellites in an effort to prevent them from bothering
astronomers.

The upgrades try to address how Starlink satellites can reflect sunlight as
they orbit the Earth. This same light can accidentally photo-bomb
<https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-satellites-are-photo-bombing-astronomy-images> astronomical observations, which has sparked concerns within the
scientific community.

In response, SpaceX has been working with astronomers to develop ways to
reduce the amount of sunlight Starlink satellites will reflect over the
night sky. On Thursday, the company published a document (Opens in a new
window) that outlines the upgrades, which involve altering some design
elements to the Starlink satellites.
<https://api.starlink.com/public-files/BrightnessMitigationBestPracticesSatelliteOperators.pdf> [...]

https://www.pcmag.com/news/starlink-satellites-get-upgrades-to-prevent-interference-with-astronomy

------------------------------

Date: Sun, 24 Jul 2022 20:46:42 PDT
From: Peter G Neumann <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: "I Was Wrong" (NYTimes)

This is a remarkable piece of honest journalism, with eight NYT opinion
columnists revisiting their earlier incorrect predictions.

*The New York Times* Sunday Opinions, 24 July 2022

Thomas L. Friedman highlighted one of our recurring themes in RISKS,
in his piece entitled "I was wrong about Chinese censorship":

``Trust is a byproduct of truth, and truth is a product of a free
and independent press -- not everywhere and always, but more
often than not.''

In RISKS, we try to let the truth tell the story, with some help from
readers to get it closer to truth. Thanks again. However, as we have said
before, ground truth is getting more difficult to ascertain. PGN

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 27 Jul 2022 21:18:53 PDT
From: "Peter G. Neumann" <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: China's Expanding Surveillance State (NYTimes)

Muyi Xiao, Paul Mozur, Isabelle Qian and Alexander Cardin
*The New York Times* National Edition 27 Jul 2022 centerfold pp. A10-A11,

China's ambition to collect a staggering amount of personal data from
everyday citizens is more expansive than previously known. ...
Phone-tracking devices are everywhere. The police are creating some of the
largest DNA databases in the world. And the authorities are building upon
facial recognition technology to collect voice prints from the general
public.