Security

Vaping Death Toll Nears Double-Digits

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Update September 26th:

Twelve now reported dead and confirmed cases surging over 50% in a week into 46 US states.

The CDC has dispatched more than 100 doctors and investigators to identify the specific cause of the deadly illness, which resembles a rare form of pneumonia.

Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health, made a statement yesterday that the illness is a public health crisis and 25% of teenagers report they vape.

People often ask me about legacy tobacco products, where cancer/disease typically takes decades to develop. Doctors say vaping is different because far more acute damage that can lead to seizures with lungs “burnt” leading to death in under a year.

One issue seems to be that vaping was heavily marketed and sold without warnings about harms so users reported using the products far more often during a day, and without any self-regulation or sense of dangers (puffing on low-cost unlabeled/unknown liquids constantly indoors instead of just a high-cost labeled cigarette or two per day that regulators required to be inhaled outside).

Way back in July 2012 I wrote “Vaping Harmful to Health” because, after running into some kids in SF, I felt the need to warn about dangers that sadly weren’t obvious enough to them.

At the recent Structure conference, a young woman who had just moved from the east coast to San Francisco boasted of her boyfriends’ addiction to “Vaping”. She showed photos of all the accessories he has been obsessing about, from batteries to different colors and patterns. A young man visiting from New York echoed her story and said he was happy to be spending money on hip new e-cigarettes.

That post attracted a lot of random traffic (search engine success?) from people interested in vaping because it generated a huge amount of hate-filled and angry responses.

Literally hundreds of “die in a fire” variety harassment messages flowed into my queue for years afterwards. Many accused my blog of being a front for “big tobacco”. Here’s a typical example, from a St. Louis, Missouri reader:

Some also posted very lengthy counter-arguments to the comment section, which I then replied to as best I could.

Fast forward seven years and “all broadcast, print and digital product advertising in the U.S” is being halted by a big tobacco-owned vaping company under federal criminal investigation as their CEO steps down, and related death toll reaches double digits with confirmed illness approaching 550 people.

I’d say this qualifies as a slow response by regulators. 25% of American teenagers are reported to be at risk because of exposure and the CDC has asked people to immediately stop vaping as more death is expected from unknown illness.

Lately I’ve also been sad to discover Juul plastic cartridges laying all over the sidewalks and roads, as if toxicity of cigarette smokers tossing 4 trillion pieces of toxic trash into the environment (98% of cigarette filters are plastic fiber) was some kind of positive inspiration to vaping designers.

Shame on these engineers, their management and investors. Could I have done more over these past years to help wind up regulators by giving them some sticker suggestions?

Energy, History, Security

German Prosecutors Bring Criminal Charges Against VW Execs

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In a stunning move by German prosecutors, criminal charges have been brought against VW leadership for failing to disclose to shareholders (in a timely fashion) the huge financial risks of cheating diesel emissions tests.

It is certain the team bringing this level of charges against a CEO is very well aware what it means to the German economy; they are doing the right thing anyway.

In fact the American diesel companies effectively ran similar cheats as VW yet, politically speaking, they seem to be facing little or no reaction unless you count some legal wranglings starting in 2018.

…class-action lawsuit filed today accuses Ford and Bosch of knowingly installing emissions-cheating software devices in 2011-2017 Ford 250 and 350 Super Duty diesel pickup trucks, akin to the devices at the center of Volkswagen’s Dieselgate scandal, allowing the affected pickups to pollute at levels up to 50 times legal limits, according to Hagens Berman

In a completely unreported event earlier this year, Ford tried to tell the court their executives are immune to charges of cheating and fraud because “no true defeat device” can be defined.

Thankfully their silly fallacy seems to have been thrown out.

The Court agrees that Plaintiffs’ claims are not contingent on their ability to prove that Ford used defeat devices in its vehicles. […] Ford fails to point out that even if Plaintiffs were no longer able to refer to Ford’s alleged use of defeat devices, Plaintiffs could still succeed with their fraud claims. The true issue with regard to Plaintiffs’ fraud claims is whether or not Ford materially deceived (under the various state laws) its consumers. The Court finds that Plaintiffs have sufficiently stated a claim for fraud, under state laws, without relying on Ford’s alleged use of defeat devices. […] Plaintiffs’ overpayment theory is sufficient to provide standing to sue Bosch LLC because of its role in the use and concealment of a cheat device that allegedly constrained the emissions control system of the vehicles purchased by Plaintiffs.

That’s still a very long way from Ford executives being accountable for anything, let alone facing criminal charges for deceptive practices.

Last time I checked the only CEO scandal at Ford was firing the guy who failed to build electric cars fast enough for market demand after the company proudly removed regulatory requirements to build electric cars faster and quickly destroyed its own fleet of them.

Try to figure that one out.

With the widely promoted news about VW cheating America basically lit a fire under German regulators, while seemingly doing little domestically about the same. Have you heard of any real diesel emission cheating impacts to Ford or GM? And those aren’t the only three. Many car companies were cheating…

The impact to VW has had the perversely competitive effect of passively warning American manufacturers about emissions cheating by making an example of a foreign company that is held back now under real accountability to its regulators.

I’d suggest we consider at this point whether German behavior is some kind of time-capsule from Allied 1940s ethical thinking about doing the right thing, instilled during the Eisenhower occupation of Germany; a mindset sadly that has faded away in modern America.

Imagine today seeing posters like this one that told Americans to read and appreciate black history in order to defeat fascism:

US anti-fascism posters encouraged Americans to read about black history and culture

Industries of Nazi Germany infamously went along willingly with obviously toxic policies of Hitler such as using slaves to build vehicles. Only when bombs were raining down on Nazi car executives’ own heads did change begin, and even then reparations have been slow.

“The ghost of the Third Reich will hang over every Volkswagen car unless the company takes action and provides justice to the thousands of its former slave labourers around the world,” Mr Weiss said.

Some Nazis who experienced the ill-gotten wealth from white-nationalism have even recently said they don’t object to how their company used to engage in slavery to increase their own wealth.

…her remarks that the firm did nothing wrong when it employed 200 forced labourers during World War II were thoughtless. […] Former forced labourers have failed to obtain compensation from Bahlsen in individual lawsuits, with German courts citing statute of limitations laws. […] Verena Bahlsen has also been criticised for boasting about her wealth and love of conspicuous consumption. “I own a fourth of Bahlsen and I am very happy about that. I want to earn money and buy a … yacht,” she said at a business event in Hamburg earlier this month.”

The difference today in Germany, after Allied bombing campaigns cleared the way, seems to be that government prosecutors are in position and willing to go after abusers early, with real authority to hold executives accountable and force their course-corrections.

History, Security

Google’s Loophole Army Fights “Right to be Forgotten”

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Google has successfully defended a plan to keep links in countries other than where people live, as a court has just ruled a citizen’s national right to delete information does not automatically extend to data stored in another country.

“The balance between right to privacy and protection of personal data, on the one hand, and the freedom of information of internet users, on the other, is likely to vary significantly around the world,” the court said in its decision.

The court said the right to be forgotten “is not an absolute right.”

This ruling allows narrow legal loopholes for Google similar to how they avoid national tax requirements, rotating a global identity among Ireland, the Netherlands, and Bermuda.

While the EU has successfully upheld privacy as a human right (“UDHR Article 12. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy…”), which is showing signs of being adopted by US states, Google is litigating for ways to delay or deny link deletion as part of that right.

And while I’m not a lawyer, I’m told the Court technically has stated there still can be a global application if ordered by the supervisory authority, but it is no longer considered an “automatism”.

The positive spin for the loophole is that Google doesn’t have to abide by a citizen’s request to be forgotten, even if that citizen has an entire nation backing their request as a legal one. Surveillance capitalism having a lack of responsibility to human rights means more money in Google’s pocket, just like if they avoid paying taxes or walk away from any other social-good contract that local markets require of them. In its most charitable light, a mechanism for preserving information against someone’s wishes could be justified if data loss would cause harms.

This, however, is not that case as the “loss” would be revenues Google wants to realize without getting authorization by owners of assets/data. Google litigates this as a “responsible actor” for preservation of data against censorship to appear interested in freedom of speech, yet there are far better ways to avoid censorship than litigating loopholes and havens for advertising revenue databases.

The negative spin for the loophole is that Google is using its ad-revenue warchest to fund its role as a freeloader, using infrastructure and collecting data in order to create high-walled hiding places where they can charge access. This is not unlike the colonial model designed to embed local “business networks” for exploitation and expropriation (theft) of local assets to remote locations to be held against the wishes of creators and owners.

Did the French or British ever argue its museum collections are really preserving speech against censorship in nations they colonized? Asking for a friend who worries their high salary at Google is dirty money.

…thousands of African cultural artifacts taken during the colonial period to be returned to their respective countries, if requested.

Energy, Security

CHP “Spike Stop” Tesla Driving Wrong Way Across Bay Bridge

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Was the driver asleep? Failure of the car’s “intelligence” seems the most likely explanation, although we can’t yet rule out a human deciding to drive into oncoming traffic across a bridge at 230am. The driver looks alert and standing freely, surrounded by CHP:

KTVU Footage

Here’s the map view of the Freemont entrance to the Bay Bridge, with yellow lines to demarcate I-80 and its various tentacles gripping the city. It’s been going through renovations and at least confusing enough that Google felt a need to place directional arrows on their map:

Again, it’s tempting to say Tesla has nothing to do with this. Perhaps some will say a human would have had a reason (from being confused to willful disregard) to enter the wrong deck (upper, westbound) while headed east over bridge. They may even argue the computer could have done a better job.

However it’s even more likely and tempting to discuss whether a SF driver asleep like so many other cases put too much trust in their car (typical tech worker living in East Bay taking Tesla into city because awesome supercar autopilot is awesome, duh why don’t you believe in the ubergenius of Musk?).

Remember drunk Tesla driver who parked on Bay Bridge?

Officers say he failed a sobriety test but told them it didn’t matter because his car was on auto-pilot.

And then there was Tesla guy asleep while driving south on 101 at 3:30am at 70 mph. CHP put themselves in front of the Tesla and hit the brakes to convince the computer to stop:

CHP could not confirm that the vehicle was on Autopilot, but “considering the vehicle’s ability to slow to a stop when Samek was asleep, it appears the ‘driver assist’ feature may have been active at the time.”

And another Tesla was spotted in LA operating without a driver, apparently because a “little thing” defeated Tesla’s best safety attempts to detect human alertness

the Tesla driver appeared slumped over with something tied around the steering wheel.

“If his little thing tied around that steering wheel fell off, and he was still sleeping, he would have slammed into somebody going 65 miles per hour,” Miladinovich said.

When the system doesn’t sense adequate torque on the steering wheel, Tesla says…[it does something about it]

It may turn out Tesla engineers didn’t think about common safety issues for upper and lower deck bridges. That’s what we’re waiting now to have CHP confirm, based on the story so far and that screen grab of the driver.

In birds-eye view you can see the reports of Tesla going the wrong-way at Freemont Street and I-80 puts the car right at the start of the upper/lower deck split:

Entering upper deck means a primitive navigation tool still would register right path on map and be unable to react until it was far too late (separated past Treasure Island) and restricted by barriers…continuing about 10 miles into the 880 northbound on the wrong side.

All that above begs the question whether a 2019 computer would allow such navigation variances that it wouldn’t prevent a car from driving directly into oncoming traffic on the wrong deck of one of the longest bridges in America, close to Tesla HQ.

Tesla engineering has been known to misread road lines, misread road-signs, slam into barriers and even spontaneously explode into fireball…at this point I’ll wager a stacked double-decker bridge entrance was all it took for Tesla AI to willingly start driving wrong way.