Game Jam Winner Spotlight: ~THE GREAT GATSBY~

from the gaming-like-it's-1925 dept

This week, we announced the winners of Gaming Like It's 1925, our third annual game jam celebrating works that entered the public domain in the US this year. Over the next few weeks, we'll be taking a closer look at each of the winning games from the six categories (in no particular order), starting today with the winner of Best Visuals: ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games.

The first thing that strikes you about ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ is just how robust the graphics are for a game jam entry. It's a platformer presented in a retro pixel-art style — the designer explains that it has the same screen resolution as a Nintendo Game Boy, but one more color in its palette. The player is immediately presented with a beautiful title screen depicting one of the most iconic pieces of imagery from the novel:

From there, the game reveals itself to be more than just the mechanical prototype one might expect from a platformer in a game jam — rather, it's a fully-formed (albeit very short) experience that includes an opening "cinematic", some RPG-style interactions with NPC characters including simple dialogue choices, two main platforming levels (the first of which requires you to retrace your steps, finding the path more challenging in reverse — a classic level design technique — and the second of which feels distinctly different and introduces a new kind of obstacle), and a clear conclusion. In other words, there's some genuine thought put into the game design here, and an effort to make the game "complete" that really paid off. But it's still the graphics that stand out the most, from the detailed cityscapes with parallax-animated skylines in the background and pixelated haze drifting through the air...

...to the interior scene with its own set of unique sprites, the stylish character portraits, and the simple, easily-understood interface elements:

Note the attention to detail — it would have been easy and perfectly acceptable to slap the same simple window graphic from the outdoor scenes onto the interior wall, but instead we get a brand new custom sprite that includes the skyline visible outside in the distance. That kind of extra effort is apparent all throughout the graphics of the game, and that's why it was an easy pick for the Best Visuals award.

Play ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ in your browser on Itch, and check out the other jam entries too. Congratulations to Floatingtable Games for the win! We'll be back next week with another game jam winner spotlight.

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, great gatsby, public domain, winner spotlight

Hacked Florida Water Plant Found To Have Been Using Unsupported Windows 7 Machines And Shared Passwords

from the sigh dept

By now, you have likely heard about the recent hack into a Florida water treatment plant which resulted in the attacker remotely raising the levels of sodium hydroxide to 100 times the normal level for the city's water supply. While those changes were remediated manually by onsite staff, it should be noted that this represents an outside attacker attempting to literally poison an entire city's water supply. Once the dangerous part of all of this was over, attention rightfully turned to figuring out how in the world this happened.

The answer, as is far too often the case, is poor security practices at the treatment plant.

According to an advisory from the state of Massachusetts, employees with the Oldsmar facility used a computer running Windows 7 to remotely access plant controls known as a SCADA—short for “supervisory control and data acquisition”—system. What’s more, the computer had no firewall installed and used a password that was shared among employees for remotely logging in to city systems with the TeamViewer application.

If you're not in the IT space, this is base level stuff. Have your computer systems on operating systems that are under active support and are being patched. That is doubly so for any systems that are critical, or which have access to critical systems. And to not have any client security, such as a local software firewall, on such a machine is IT malpractice. On top of the above, it appears that TeamViewer hadn't been actively used by the staff there for nearly six months. So there, again, was poor administration of the environment, with an antiquated remote access application not being removed from the production environment.

Instead, the save in all of this came from the meatware that was fortunately sitting at the machine and actively watching.

The breach occurred around 1:30pm, when an employee watched the mouse on his city computer moving on its own as an unknown party remotely accessed an interface that controlled the water treatment process. The person on the other end changed the amount of lye added to the water from about 100 parts per million to 11,100ppm. Lye is used in small amounts to adjust drinking water alkalinity and remove metals and other contaminants. In larger doses, the chemical is a health hazard.

Christopher Krebs, the former head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, reportedly told a House of Representatives Homeland Security committee on Wednesday that the breach was “very likely” the work of “a disgruntled employee.”

It's a water treatment plant for an entire city. In an era where there is an extreme lack of trust in government, dumb stuff like this acts as a supercharger.

Filed Under: florida, scada, security, shared passwords, water plant, windows 7

Civil Rights Groups Argue That Biden Should Drop Assange Prosecution; Noting That It Is An Attack On Journalism

from the do-it dept

It's easy to dislike and distrust Julian Assange. He's done many things to inspire both reactions. Still, it's important to separate out personal feelings towards the guy with the question of whether or not he broke US law with publishing the things he did via Wikileaks. For years, the Obama DOJ refused to indict him, in part due to the recognition that nearly all of Assange's activities were similar to the kinds of things that journalists do all the time. The Trump DOJ had no such restraint (even as some prosecutors warned of problems with the idea), and as we and others have pointed out the indictment is a huge threat to investigative journalism and things like source protection.

Now that Biden is President, a whole bunch of civil rights groups have sent a letter to Acting Attorney General Monty Wilkinson, asking him to drop the case against Assange. The letter notes that many of the signatories do not agree with Assange or Wikileaks, but that doesn't mean the case is a good one:

While our organizations have different perspectives on Mr. Assange and his organization, we share the view that the government’s indictment of him poses a grave threat to press freedom both in the United States and abroad. We urge you to drop the appeal of the decision by Judge Vanessa Baraitser of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court to reject the Trump administration’s extradition request. We also urge you to dismiss the underlying indictment.

The indictment of Mr. Assange threatens press freedom because much of the conduct described in the indictment is conduct that journalists engage in routinely—and that they must engage in in order to do the work the public needs them to do. Journalists at major news publications regularly speak with sources, ask for clarification or more documentation, and receive and publish documents the government considers secret. In our view, such a precedent in this case could effectively criminalize these common journalistic practices.

In addition, some of the charges included in the indictment turn entirely on Mr. Assange’s decision to publish classified information. News organizations frequently and necessarily publish classified information in order to inform the public of matters of profound public significance. We appreciate that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting bona fide national security interests, but the proceedings against Mr. Assange jeopardize journalism that is crucial to democracy.

Jameel Jaffer, who heads the Knight First Amendment Institute, which was on of the signatories on the letter, has written an article also detailing why the Biden DOJ should drop the case that is worth reading:

Of Trump’s many attacks on press freedom, however, it’s his Justice Department’s indictment of Julian Assange that could have the most significant implications over the long term. As I explained here and here, the Justice Department’s indictment of Assange focuses principally on activity that national security journalists engage in “routinely and as a necessary part of their work”—cultivating sources, communicating with them confidentially, soliciting information from them, protecting their identities from disclosure, and publishing classified information. As a result, a successful prosecution of Assange would have far-reaching implications both for national security journalists and for the news organizations that publish their work. This isn’t an accident. It’s likely why the Trump administration filed the indictment, as Jack Goldsmith observed here.

President Joe Biden plainly does not share Trump’s attitude toward the press. But the Assange case will present the Biden administration with an early test. One of the first questions Biden’s new attorney general will confront is whether to authorize prosecutors to continue to contest the decision of the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, issued earlier this year, denying the United States’ request for Assange’s extradition. In an interview with NPR, the outgoing U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Zachary Terwilliger, wondered whether the new administration would abandon the appeal. “Some of this does come down to resources and where you’re going to focus your energies,” Terwilliger noted.

Again, whether you agree with Assange's view of the world, or how you feel about Wikileaks' apparent decision to cozy up with Russians is a separate issue from whether the indictment itself is a threat to journalism. It is. And the new DOJ should drop the case. It would be unfortunately if Biden continued along the same path the Obama administration did in pretending that journalism is a form of espionage. Dumping the Assange suit would send a clear signal that Biden actually recognizes the value and importance of adversarial investigative journalism, even if it might embarrass him.

Filed Under: doj, espionage act, free speech, joe biden, journalism, julian assange

The Copia Institute To The Oversight Board Regarding Facebook's Trump Suspension: There Was No Wrong Decision

from the context-driven-coin-flip dept

The following is the Copia Institute's submission to the Oversight Board as it evaluates Facebook's decision to remove some of Trump's posts and his ability to post. While addressed to the Board, it's written for everyone thinking about how platforms moderate content.

The Copia Institute has advocated for social media platforms to permit the greatest amount of speech possible, even when that speech is unpopular. At the same time, we have also defended the right of social media platforms to exercise editorial and associative discretion about the user expression it permits on its services. This case illustrates why we have done both. We therefore take no position on whether Facebook's decision to remove former-President Trump's posts and disable his ability to make further posts was the right decision for Facebook to make because choosing to do so or choosing not to is each defensible. Instead our goal is to explain why.

Reasons to be wary of taking content down. We have long held the view that the reflex to remove online content, even odious content, is generally not a healthy one. Not only can it backfire and lead to the removal of content undeserving of deletion, but it can have the effect of preserving a false monoculture in online expression. Social media is richer and more valuable when it can reflect the full fabric of humanity, even when that means enabling speech that is provocative or threatening to hegemony. Perhaps especially then, because so much important, valid, and necessary speech can so easily be labeled that way. Preserving different ideas, even when controversial, ensures that there will be space for new and even better ones, whereas policing content for compliance with current norms only distorts those norms' development.

Being too willing to remove content also has the effect of teaching the public that when it encounters speech that provokes the way to respond is to demand its suppression. Instead of a marketplace of ideas, this burgeoning tendency means that discourse becomes a battlefield, where the view that will prevail is the one that can amass enough censorial pressure to remove its opponent—even if it's the view with the most merit. The more Facebook feeds this unfortunate instinct by removing user speech, the more vulnerable it will be to further pressure demanding still more removals, even when it may be of speech society would benefit from. The reality is that there will always be disagreements over the worth of certain speech. As long as Facebook assumes the role of an arbitrator, it will always find itself in the middle of an unwinnable tug-of-war between conflicting views. To break this cycle, removals should be made with reluctance and only limited, specific, identifiable, and objective criteria to justify the exception. It may be hard to employ them consistently at scale, but more restraint will in the long run mean less error.

Reasons to be wary of leaving content up. The unique challenge presented in this case is that the Facebook user at the time of the posts in question was the President of the United States. This fact cuts in multiple ways: as the holder of the highest political office in the country Trump's speech was of particular relevance to the public, and thus particularly worth facilitating. After all, even if Trump's posts were debauched, these were the views of the President, and it would not have served the public for him to be of this character and the public not to know.

On the other hand, as the then-President of the United States his words had greater impact than any other user's. They could do, and did, more harm, thanks to the weight of authority they acquired from the imprimatur of his office. And those real-world effects provided a perfectly legitimate basis for Facebook to take steps to (a) mitigate that damage by removing posts and (b) end the association that had allowed him to leverage Facebook for those destructive ends.

If Facebook concludes that anyone's use of its services is not in its interests, the interests of its user community, or the interests of the wider world Facebook and its users inhabit, it can absolutely decide to refuse that user continued access. And it can reach that conclusion based on wider context, beyond platform use. Facebook could for instance deny a confessed serial killer who only uses Facebook to publish poetry access to its service if it felt that the association ultimately served to enable the bad actor's bad acts. As with speech removals, such decisions should be made with reluctance and based on limited, specific, identifiable, and objective criteria, given the impact of such terminations. Just as continued access to Facebook may be unduly empowering for users, denying it can be equally disempowering. But in the case of Trump, as President he did not need Facebook to communicate to the public. He had access to other channels and Facebook no obligation to be conscripted to enable his mischief. Facebook has no obligation to enable anyone's mischief, whether they are a political leader or otherwise.

Potential middle-grounds. When it comes to deciding whether to continue to provide Facebook's services to users and their expression, there is a certain amount of baby-splitting that can be done in response to the sorts of challenges raised by this case. For instance, Facebook does more than simply host speech that can be read by others; it provides tools for engagement such as comments and sharing and amplification through privileged display, and in some instances allows monetization. Withdrawing any or all of these additional user benefits is a viable option that may go a long way toward minimizing the problems of continuing to host problematic speech or a problematic user without the platform needing to resort to removing either entirely.

Conclusion. Whether removing Trump's posts and further posting ability was the right decision or not depends on what sort of service Facebook wants to be and which choice it believes it best serves that purpose. Facebook can make these decisions any way it wants, but to minimize public criticism and maximize public cooperation how it makes them is what matters. These decisions should be transparent to the user community, scalable to apply to future situations, and predictable in how they would, to the extent they can be, since circumstances and judgment will inevitably evolve. Every choice will have consequences, some good and some bad. The choice for Facebook is really to affirmatively choose which ones it wants to favor. There may not be any one right answer, or even any truly right answer. In fact, in the end the best decision may have little to do with the actual choice that results but rather the process used to get there.

Filed Under: appeals, content moderation, donald trump, facebook supreme court, free speech, oversight, review
Companies: facebook, oversight board

Announcing The Winners Of The 3rd Annual Public Domain Game Jam!

from the best-of-the-best dept

It's that time again — the judges' scores and comments are in, and we've selected the winners of our third annual public domain game jam, Gaming Like It's 1925! As you know, we asked game designers of all stripes to submit new creations based on works published in 1925 that entered the public domain in the US this year — and just as in the past two jams, people got very creative in terms of choosing source material and deciding what to do with it. Of course, there were also a lot of submissions based on what is probably the most famous newly-public-domain work this year, The Great Gatsby — but while everyone expected that, nobody expected just how unique some of those entries would be! So without further delay, here are the winners in all six categories of Gaming Like It's 1925:

Best Analog Game — Fish Magic by David Harris

David Harris is our one and only returning winner this year: he won the same category in Gaming Like It's 1924 with his previous game, The 24th Kandinsky, which as the name suggests was based on the artwork of Wassily Kandinsky. This year's entry, Fish Magic, continues in a similar tradition, but now drawing inspiration from Paul Klee's 1925 painting of the same name. The game itself is very different, but just as captivating: it turns Klee's painting into a game board which players navigate to collect words, then tasks them with inventing new kinds of "fish magic" or "magic fish" with the words in their collection. Where The 24th Kandinsky was tailored to Kandinsky's abstract art, with players focused on manipulating the shapes and forms of his compositions, Fish Magic's gameplay is more suited to Klee's surreal and expressionist style, shifting the focus to the magical ideas and mysterious underwater world evoked by the titular painting. Our judges were immediately drawn to this clever and original premise, and impressed by how complete and well-thought-out the final product is, making Fish Magic a shoe-in for the Best Analog Game.

Best Digital Game — Rhythm Action Gatsby by Robert Tyler

Anyone working on a game based on The Great Gastby for this year's jam knew they'd be facing competition, and would have to do something unexpected to truly stand out — and that's just what Robert Tyler did with Rhythm Action Gatsby. Rhythm action games are a simple premise, and it would have been easy to just slap one together, but this entry was lovingly crafted with an original music composition, recorded narration of a famous passage from the book, and carefully choreographed animations, all presented via a representation of the iconic cover art that we all recognize in a pretty, polished package — plus, bonus points for taking the time to include a basic accessibility option to turn off screen flashes. Our judges immediately found it cute, delightful, and genuinely fun, even taking multiple runs at the roughly-two-minute game to improve their scores, putting it straight to the top of the charts for the Best Digital Game.

Best Adaptation — The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Segoli

One of the things we loved most about last year's entries was that, beyond just using newly-public-domain materials, several of them brought themes of copyright and culture into the games themselves. While there was less of that this year, The Great Gatsby: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game by Segoli puts these concepts at the core of its game mechanics in a fun and amusing way that won some of our judges over before the end of the first page of rules. The game is a robust, well-thought-out framework for improvising and roleplaying a new version of the story of The Great Gatsby, with the traditional setup of a Game Master and a group of players — with the twist that those players are encouraged to play as other public domain characters. Indeed, the comical character creation rules aren't about rolling dice to assign skill points, but about figuring out what's in the public domain where you're playing, and the core mechanic for player actions can be more or less challenging depending on whether the action invokes a still-copyrighted work. And yet despite all this playful copyright fun, the game also encourages a genuine exploration of the book and aims to produce great alternative versions of its story — all of which makes it the winner of Best Adaptation.

Best Remix (Tie!) — Art Apart by Ryan Sullivan, and There Are No Eyes Here by jukel

The Best Remix category, for a game that draws on multiple 1925 works, is one of the most interesting and most challenging categories in the jam. This year, there wasn't a single stand-out winner, but rather two games that are at once very similar and very different, and both deserving of the prize.

Art Apart by Ryan Sullivan is a game that, at first glance, nobody expected very much from — it's just a series of digital jigsaw puzzles of 1925 paintings. But once they dove in, our judges were pleasantly surprised by just how charming it was thanks to a great array of paintings and a selection of gentle background music (also from 1925, of course!) This attention to detail carries through in other features, like a timer with a "best time" memory and a full-featured interface that lets the user switch between puzzles and background tracks at will. Mostly, it's a showcase of how the act of mixing multiple creative works can be valuable in and of itself when someone takes the time to choose those works well.

There Are No Eyes Here by jukel is its own kind of painting-based puzzle, taking an approach that is more focused on the elements of the artwork. Indeed, one wonders if the game was at least partly inspired by last year's The 24th Kandinsky, as it is also based on paintings by the famed Russian abstract artist, but this time ones from 1925. The game makes the elements of the paintings themselves into the levers of the puzzle, essentially becoming a spot-the-hidden-object game in which players locate the elements of the paintings that they can manipulate to complete each stage. It carefully mixes and matches elements of multiple Kandinsky paintings, forcing the player to carefully study their elements in a way most people haven't taken the time to do, and rewarding them with hand-crafted animations. It's a simple game that is as abstract and intriguing as the works it draws from.

Best Deep Cut — Remembering Grußau by Max Fefer (HydroForge Games)

Building on public domain works doesn't have to be all about chopping up and changing them, and games don't always have to achieve their goals in an oblique way. Sometimes, there are games like Remembering Grußau by Max Fefer/HydroForge Games that tell you exactly what they are: in this case, a guided reflection on the death of Jewish artist Felix Nussbaum and a work he painted in 1925, nearly twenty years before he was killed at Auschwitz. The game is calm, meditative, and deeply moving, remaining entirely focused on the painting and prompting the player to study it and consider its meaning with the knowledge of Nussbaum's life and death. It's the only Twine game among this year's winners, but it also goes beyond the browser-based interactive story, tasking players with writing a letter on paper and returning to the game after spending time to contemplate it. Our judges found it impactful and highly effective in its goals, and by drawing on one specific lesser-known work and truly exploring it to the fullest, it became the clear choice for Best Deep Cut.

Best Visuals — ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games

In terms of its visual presentation, ~THE GREAT GATSBY~ by Floatingtable Games is one of the most polished submissions we've ever had in these jams. It's a simple, classic platformer — complete with double-jumps and deadly spike hazards, plus some story cutscenes — and while the gameplay won't blow any minds, the striking monochrome pixel graphics will catch plenty of eyes. The brief level loosely tells the story of the second chapter of The Great Gatsby, and from the warm brown color palette to the parallax cityscape backdrop to the expressive character portraits, everything on screen just looks great. Why turn The Great Gatsby into a retro-style platformer? Well, why not? If nothing else, it's a great way to win this year's prize for Best Visuals!

The winning designers will be contacted via their Itch pages to arrange their prizes, so if you see your game listed here, keep an eye on your incoming comments!

In the coming weeks, we'll be taking a closer look at each of these winners in a series of posts, but for now you can head on over to the game jam page to try out all these games as well as several other great entries that didn't quite make the cut. Congratulations to all our winners, and a huge thanks to everyone who submitted a game — and finally, another thanks to our amazing panel of judges:

• Sharang Biswas
• Anil Dash
• Clio Yun-su Davis
• Jim Greer
• James Mendez Hodes
• Carolyn Homer
• Kathryn Hymes
• Albert Kong
• Randy Lubin
• Mike Masnick
• Jason Morningstar
• Jamila R. Nedjadi
• Hakan Seyalioglu
• Lizzie Stark

We'll be back next year with another public domain game jam as works from 1926 run out of copy protection, so whether you participated in this year's jam or not, it's never too early to start planning for the next one! Plus, these games just scratch the surface of the many, many works that entered the public domain this year, and we hope this jam continues to demonstrate why exploring those works can be so valuable and so fun — so get out there and keep on mining that public domain!

Filed Under: game jam, games, gaming like its 1925, public domain

Daily Deal: The Complete 2021 American Sign Language Bundle

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

The need for American Sign Language speakers is continuing to rise. This Complete 2021 American Sign Language Bundle includes Level 1, 2, and 3 and a bonus course for free: baby sign language. Learn the basics from the sign language alphabet to more advanced signs, such as for medical emergencies. This bundle is exactly what you need to become confident in sign language for many situations. It's on sale for $20.

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

Mental Health Team Handling 911 Calls In Denver Wraps Up Six Months With Dozens Of People Helped, Zero People Arrested

from the more-people-alive,-unbeaten,-and-unjailed dept

In June of last year -- as protests over police brutality occurred all over the nation -- Denver, Colorado rolled out a program that combined common sense with a slight "defunding" of its police department. It decided calls that might be better handled by social workers and mental health professionals should be handled by… social workers and mental health professionals.

The city's STAR (Support Team Assistance Response) team was given the power to handle 911 calls that didn't appear to deal with criminal issues. Calls related to mental health or social issues were routed to STAR, allowing cops to handle actual crime and allowing people in crisis to avoid having to deal with people who tend to treat every problem like a crime problem.

In its first three months, STAR handled 350 calls -- only a very small percentage of 911 calls. But the immediate developments appeared positive. A supposed indecent exposure call handled by STAR turned out to be a homeless woman changing clothes in an alley. A trespassing call turned out to be another homeless person setting up a tent near some homes. Suicidal persons were helped and taken to care centers. Homeless residents were taken to shelters. No one was arrested. No one was beaten, tased, or shot.

The zero arrests streak continues. STAR has released its six-month report [PDF] and the calls it has handled have yet to result in an arrest, strongly suggesting police officers aren't the best personnel to handle crises like these -- unless the desired result is more people in holding cells.

Granted, this is a very limited data set. At this point, STAR only has enough funding to support one van to handle calls during normal business hours: Monday-Friday from 10 am to 6 pm. Despite these limitations, the team handled 748 calls (about six calls per shift). Roughly a third of the calls handled came from police officers themselves, who requested STAR respond to an incident/call.

Not only did none of the 748 calls result in an arrest, but STAR got things under control faster than law enforcement officers.

The median STAR response required 24.65 minutes of on-scene personnel time to resolve the call compared to 34.08 minutes for a traditional response.

And things should continue to improve once STAR is given a bit more funding to work with.

The City and County of Denver has identified approximately $1.4 million in the general fund to support the STAR program in 2021. If we use the current budget estimates for the cost of purchasing and outfitting additional vans and hiring additional medics and mental health clinicians to staff the expanded units, we believe the City could move forward with the purchase of four vans and six teams (one medic and one clinician) to staff alternating schedules seven days a week. This will allow for coverage during the times of day when there would be the call load to support the units based on our pilot data and the hours with which most providers would be available for a warm hand-off of individuals.

This is a positive move forward for Denver and it's something that can scale and be replicated by other cities. One of STAR's goals was to "divert individuals away from the criminal justice system" and it has definitely accomplished that. Not every 911 call requires a law enforcement response. It makes the most sense to send people with the best set of skills to handle these calls, rather than the people who just have the most weapons.

Filed Under: 911, defund the police, denver, mental health, police brutality, police reform

Ajit Pai Tried To Strangle A Broadband Aid Program For Low Income Americans. Then A Pandemic Hit.

from the you're-really-not-helping dept

While recently departed FCC boss Ajit Pai was perhaps best known for ignoring the public and making shit up to dismantle FCC authority over telecom monopolies, many of his other policies have proven to be less sexy to talk about--but just as terrible.

One of the biggest targets throughout Pai's four year tenure as boss was the FCC's Lifeline program, an effort started by Reagan and expanded by Bush Jr. that long enjoyed bipartisan support until Trumpism rolled into town. Lifeline doles out a measly $9.25 per month subsidy that low-income homes can use to help pay a tiny fraction of their wireless, phone, or broadband bills (enrolled participants have to chose one). The FCC, under former FCC boss Tom Wheeler, had voted to expand the service to cover broadband connections, something Pai (ever a champion to the poor) voted down.

Despite constant pledges that one of his top priorities was fixing the "digital divide," Pai's tenure as boss included a notable number of efforts to scuttle the Lifeline program that weren't paid much attention to -- until a pandemic came to town. COVID-19 has shone a bright spotlight on the fact that 42 million Americans still can't access broadband (double official FCC estimates), and millions more can't afford service thanks to monopolization and limited competition.

Under Chairman Ajit Pai's "leadership," the FCC voted 3-2 in late 2017 to eliminate a $25 additional Lifeline subsidy for low-income native populations on tribal land. As part of Pai's effort, he also banned smaller mobile carriers from participating in the Lifeline program. Pai's attempt to neuter Lifeline in tribal areas certainly hurt overall enrollment, but didn't always fare well in the courts. One ruling (pdf), for example, noting that Pai and his staff not only pulled their justifications completely out of their asses, but failed to do any meaningful research whatsoever into how the cuts would impact poor and tribal communities:

"The Commission's adoption of these two limitations was arbitrary and capricious by not providing a reasoned explanation for its change of policy that is supported by record evidence. In adopting the Tribal Facilities Requirement, the Commission's decision evinces no consideration of the exodus of facilities-based providers from the Tribal Lifeline program. Neither does it point to evidence that banning resellers from the Tribal Lifeline program would promote network buildout."

That's a polite way of the court saying that Pai based his decisions on ideology, not evidence (kind of a theme throughout his tenure as reflected by other court rulings). On the other end of these decisions are real, struggling human beings. Human beings the Washington Post recently did an excellent piece on as it surveyed the real-world damage from Pai's decisions to neuter a program that already did the bare minimum to help struggling Americans:

"The restrictions have been especially problematic during the pandemic, as Americans find themselves more dependent than ever on their mobile devices to stay connected. Many Lifeline subscribers say they have had to make unfair trade-offs — talking either to family or to doctors, for example, or participating in their communities or saving precious minutes for emergencies — that most Americans would find unfathomable."

Lifeline as a program is no stranger to fraud, with companies from Sprint to AT&T being routinely busted for taking money for people that don't technically exist. As the report notes, Pai hid his ideological assaults on the program under the guise that he was exclusively worried about said fraud, yet didn't take the steps necessary to prevent said fraud from happening:

"Under Pai’s watch, for example, the U.S. government for years did not fully implement a national verification system — a state-of-the art digital tool designed to determine eligibility and crack down on the fraud Republicans sought to prevent. The myriad missteps are laid bare in a report released by the Government Accountability Office in late January, which found that by summer 2020, most states still had not implemented the technology. Those that did found it even harder for Lifeline applicants to get approved, creating undue delays even in cases in which low-income Americans should have qualified easily for the program."

Again, Pai's tenure was largely pockmarked by doing huge favors for entrenched telecom monopolies, then using flimsy or nonexistent data to justify those policies. All while simply ignoring the fact that monopolization and a lack of competition creates most of the sector's problems (note how he'd never discuss US broadband prices). Concern about fraud was never symmetrical; while Pai went out of his way often to highlight Lifeline fraud, he never once even mentioned the problem with throwing billions in tax cuts and regulatory favors at monopolies like AT&T in exchange for doing absolutely nothing. That's before you even get to Pai's most recent subsidization scandals, which doled out billions to companies that gamed the FCC process.

This kind of facts-optional ideology has, for years, been brushed aside as normal policymaking (former FCC boss turned top cable lobbyist Mike Powell wasn't all that different). Unfortunately while this stuff gets dismissed as boring policy wonkery or "partisan politics," it's good to remember this kind of behavior has very real costs that the purveyors of said policies try very hard not to think much about.

Filed Under: ajit pai, arbitrary and capricious, covid, digital divide, fcc, lifeline, pandemic

Epic Games' Case Against Teenage Fortnite Cheater Finally Settles

from the cheat-sheet dept

As you may recall, back in 2017 Epic Games went on something of a crusade against cheating in its online hit game Fortnite. While much of Epic's attention was focused on websites that sold cheating software for the game, the company also set its sights on individuals who were actively promoting the use of cheating software in online videos. One of those Epic sued was a 14 year old who, if I'm being frank, sounds like a bit of a jackass. While the teen, identified in court documents only as "C.R.", was having his own mother defend him in letters to the judge in the case, he was also then going around uploading still more videos advocating the use of cheating software and taunting Epic Games. Epic's lawyers defeated the teen's mother, which, real feather in their cap for that I suppose. And so the trial continued.

Until recently, when, as Epic has done in other cases against underage targets for its litigation, the company and the defendant managed to come to a settlement.

Epic Games has settled a three-year-long lawsuit against a teenage Fortnite player who was accused of using cheats in the game (thanks Law360). C.R., who was 14-years-old at the time of the 2017 lawsuit, was alleged to have been using and advertising Fortnite hacks on his YouTube channel.

The Notice of Voluntary Dismissal doesn't reveal any details about the settlement, just that Epic, C.R. and his court-appointed guardian have agreed to dismiss all claims and action following the Court's approval of the settlement agreement.  

It is unlikely that any serious money changed hands as part of this. What Epic Games was after was a cessation of advocating of cheating software in order to curb its use. But, still, a three year long case against a large company for a teenager and his family had to come at a massive price tag in legal bills alone. And, frankly, the real question is what the point of this all was? If it was the stomping out of cheating in Fortnite that Epic was after, well, it sure as hell didn't accomplish that mission.

Hell, it was just over the past summer that cheating in Fortnite tournaments appeared to reach its crises apex.

For the last couple of years, Fortnite has been considered one of the few titles that catches and removes cheaters fairly effectively. However, with cases recently skyrocketing, it seems that a lot of foul play may simply go undetected.

Following Sunday’s fourth and final round of FNCS qualification, Twitter was flooded with posts relating to a player named Kona. They openly used cheats to get through opens and semis, and were only banned after going live on Twitch with the client still onscreen.

So the company went legal on a teenager and his mother to combat cheating, an effort that completely failed. That was really worth all the trouble, Epic?

Filed Under: cheater, cheats, fortnite, fortnite hacks
Companies: epic