uBar Says City Sanitation Workers Demanded Booze To Pick Up Trashr

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• Any good bar goes through a lot of cans, bottles, cardboard pretty quickly — not to mention all the trash that can accumulate — so it’s important for bar owners that this detritus be hauled away in a timely manner before it becomes a nuisance. But the owner of one bar in New Jersey says city-contracted sanitation workers tried to shake him down — not for money, but for free booze.

  And we’re apparently not talking about “Hey man, how about a beer?” This is more like “Give us lots of liquor every week or else.”

  CBS 2 in NYC has the story of the Jersey City bar that was first approached in mid-August by a sanitation worker for the Jersey City Incinerator Authority, an independent company contracted by the city.

  The worker allegedly wanted to propose a rather unfair deal with the bar’s operators.

  “He informed my employee his supervisor told him he could no longer pick up our recycling, but he would do so if we bribed him with liquor,” the owner tells CBS 2.

  When the bartender turned down the offer, the man promised to return — a promise he made good on last week in another meeting caught on security camera footage.

  “They asked for liquor, and made it clear they would have to supply them liquor on a weekly basis for this gentleman and his entire truck in order for them to continue picking up our trash,” recalls the owner, who claims that the Incinerator Authority tried to intimidate him into not pursuing the issue.

  “They said that if I pursued the complaint that I would have city inspectors come through my business, so it was a threat not to pursue the complaint,” he explains.

  The city, which does not manage the Incinerator Authority, says it is looking into this incident and that it is working to end its deal with the Authority “after a long history of corruption,” including the July 4 arrest of sanitation workers who are accused of taking money to commingle construction debris with city trash.

  
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by Chris Morran via Consumerist

uHollywood Studio Suing 16 Users Of Popcorn Time Over Alleged Online Piracyr

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• 

  The movie Millenium says 16 Popcorn Time users illegally downloaded.

  Often when we hear about Hollywood seeking to snuff out online piracy, it’s the sites or services that distribute that content that are the targets of any legal action. But this time, the studio behind a direct-to-DVD flick starring Pierce Brosnan is going after 16 users of Popcorn Time, a service that uses an integrated media player to stream movies and TV from torrent sites.

  A production company affiliated with Millennium Films said Tuesday that it’s filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Oregon against 16 people who allegedly used Popcorn Time to download the movie Survivor, reports the Wall Street Journal. The company says those people not only stole Survivor, but are also “habitual copyright infringers who have downloaded and distributed numerous additional titles through Popcorn Time and the Bit Torrent network.”

  Millennium says Survivor has been downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

  The defendants are only identified by Internet addresses at this point, while the studio tries to subpoena their service providers to get them to cough up their names.

  “It’s really saddening to witness studios go after the ‘little people, ’” Popcorn Time said in an email to the WSJ.

  Popcorn Time has also come under fire from the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group for major Hollywood studios that has been cracking the whip on piracy in the industry (though CEO Chris Dodd has said his organization is giving up legislative efforts to penalize pirates).

  Though Millennium isn’t part of the MPAA, its chairman does have a major bone to pick with pirates after The Expendables 3 was leaked online three weeks before it hit theaters in 2014. Millennium says the Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger flick was downloaded more than 60 million times, costing “its collective businesses” some $161 million.

  It’s unclear what kind of financial hit the studio is claiming from people allegedly downloading Survivor, but said in a press release that it’s “seeking to educate people about the harm of piracy” as well as injunctive relief to keep defendants from infringing on their copyright in the future. The suit also seeks damages, agreeing to resolve any case for the minimum under the law, $750 per defendant, “for those infringers that promptly agree to stop their illegal activities and comply.”

  Hollywood Studio Sues Over Alleged Online Piracy [Wall Street Journal]

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist

uAmazon Adds 11 Brands To Dash Button Orderingr

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  Amazon announced an expansion of its Dash ordering gadget.

  Users of Amazon’s ordering gadget, the Dash button, have been able to quickly restock their supply of Kraft Mac & Cheese, Tide, Cottonelle, Bounty and 14 other products for about five months (or one month if they didn’t receive an invitation early on). Now, they can buy even more, as the e-commerce company has expanded its quick-ordering platform by 11 additional brands, including Ice Breakers, Ziploc, Orbit gum and Greenies dog chews. As was previously the case, the gadget can be purchased for $4.99, but for a limited time Amazon will provide customers a $4.99 credit for each Dash button they buy. [The Washington Post]

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uInternet-Connected Video Baby Monitors Are Basically The Most Hackable, Least Secure Thing Everr

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  (Mr. Seb)

  
  The implacable march of technology has, in many ways, made parents’ lives easier. But in other areas, it’s added a whole new layer of complication. Like the fact that video-enabled baby monitors, designed to let parents have peace of mind while their kids are sleeping in another room, almost universally have completely crap security that any random stranger on the internet can tap into.

  Fusion spoke with a security researcher who tested out nine of the most popular, widely-available brands of video baby monitor, and what he found isn’t pretty.

  The monitor brands researcher Mark Stanislav tested included popular models from Philips, Summer Infant, TRENDnet, iBaby, Lens Laboratory, and Gynoii. He gave eight of the nine an “F” for security. Just one passed, barely, with a D-.

  In this sense, baby monitors are just like every other poorly-secured, wifi-enabled camera. If your device ships with a default password that you don’t change, basically anyone anywhere can have access to it.

  But what makes the baby monitor situation even worse, the research found, is that in many cases, the scary settings are ones that parents don’t have access to. Stanislav told Fusion that of the nine brands his company tested, “Every camera had one hidden account that a consumer can’t change because it’s hard coded or not easily accessible. Whether intended for admin or support, it gives an outsider backdoor access to the camera.”

  In other words, even a tech-savvy, security-minded consumer can’t fix this problem on their own.

  Unlike some other recent hacking research, the baby monitor situation isn’t just academic or theoretical. It’s a known problem out in the wild, with proven harms. There have been many incidents in the past several years of parents reporting hearing intruders on their baby monitor lines, including one disturbing incident just this week when a hacker tapped into one family’s baby monitor and played “Every Breath You Take” while making, as the family told local media, “sexual noises.”

  Watch out, new parents — internet-connected baby monitors are trivial to hack [Fusion]

  
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by Kate Cox via Consumerist

uHome Depot Website Glitch Provides Two Ratings For Some Productsr

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  (ralph)

  While researching products on a retailer’s website, other customers’ reviews and ratings of those items can be helpful. But a glitch in Home Depot’s rating presentation system has caused a bit of confusion: the product page shows two different ratings for some products.

  Consumerist reader Victor tells us that while perusing garbage disposals on the Home Depot website, he noticed that the drop-down bar that reminds you what you’re looking at and includes the product’s rating doesn’t match the product’s “star” designation on the “your current product” frame near the bottom of the page.

  While the listing for the Insinkerator Select Plus garbage disposal that Victor was viewing has 429 reviews in both views, it has just shy of five stars on the main webpage, but the drop-down bar gives the product just 4 stars.

  

  So we did a little digging to see what the discrepancy was all about and it turns out that Victor was on to something.

  A look at several products that include a portion of a star found that the rating loses that fraction of a star in the drop-down bar. Products with full stars are not affected.

  

  

  We reached out to Home Depot about the issue and a spokesperson says the company is aware of the problem.

  “So this is something that we had seen over the last few weeks,” Stephen Holmes, spokesperson for the company says. “We’re not sure why it’s happening yet, but the system is rounding down in spots. We’re working on it and should have it fixed soon.”

  Holmes says that while the issue might be confusing, the good news is that it isn’t inflating rates, which would be misleading for customers.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uTakata Airbag Recall Lowered, Still Largest Auto Recall In Historyr

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  (Listener42)

  Months after Japanese auto parts maker Takata gave into pressure by federal regulators and recalled more than 30 million vehicles equipped with potentially deadly airbags, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration revised the number of vehicles, reducing it to 19.2 million.

  NHTSA announced the revision on Tuesday, saying it made the decision based on the most recent and accurate information provided by the 11 affected automakers.

  The agency had previously estimated that  about 30 million U.S. vehicles were equipped with 34 million defective airbags linked to at least eight deaths and hundreds of injuries.

  Officials with the agency say the amended number – which totals 23.4 million inflators – came about in part because of double-counting, but could fluctuate in the future.

  Of the new 23.4 million defective Takata inflators approximately four million vehicles that have already been repaired. Another four million vehicles have been determined to have defective inflators in both driver- and passenger-side airbags.

  In addition to revising the number of affected vehicles, NHTSA announced on Tuesday that it continues to study the possible establishment of a Coordinated Remedy Program to address defective Takata air bag inflators and ensure that all affected vehicles have safe air bags as quickly as possible.

  The agency has consulted with all 11 affected vehicle manufacturers, as well as numerous air bag suppliers, to gather information on inflator supplies, risk factors, and the biggest obstacles to replacing defective inflators.

  This fall, the agency says, it plans to hold an event to allow public discussion of these efforts, and may issue a Coordinated Remedy Program plan that would ensure that the greatest safety risks are addressed first and that every defective inflator is replaced with a safe one as soon as possible.

  Additionally, NHTSA said it has completed its own testing of Takata inflators.

  “Preliminary results are broadly consistent with data from Takata, including Takata’s findings on the risk associated with vehicles from high-humidity geographic areas,” the agency says.

  As for the June rupture of a Takata airbag in a vehicle from the previously unaffected Volkswagen brand, NHTSA says it continues to investigate the issue.

  “NHTSA is assessing information on this issue and will take whatever actions are necessary to protect public safety,” the agency says.

  
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by Ashlee Kieler via Consumerist

uGoogle Won’t Consider Sites Mobile-Friendly If They Use Those Annoying, Full-Screen App Install Adsr

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  On the left, annoying. On the right, you’re mobile-friendly.

  There you are, searching for the perfect cheese dip recipe on your phone, and you think you’ve finally found the cheesiest of the cheesy. You click on the Google search result, excited, anticipating, ready to gain knowledge — and you’re faced with a plea to install that site’s app that covers your entire screen and forces you to find the tiny “X” to close out of the thing and move on with your life. Hate that? You might see it less often, as Google says sites that use those full-page app install ads will soon not be considered “mobile-friendly” sites.

  In April, some website owners had to figure out how to adjust quickly when Google’s algorithm started favoring sites that opened easily and smoothly on mobile devices — sites with pages that automatically resize to fit the screen, with large text and easily clickable links — and then bestowed higher rankings on those mobile-friendly sites.

  Google has added another requirement for sites that want to rise higher in search results, announcing Tuesday that as of Nov. 1, sites that use those annoying app install overlays or pages will no longer be considered mobile-friendly.

  “…sometimes a user may tap on a search result on a mobile device and see an app install interstitial that hides a significant amount of content and prompts the user to install an app,” a post on Google’s Webmaster Central Blog reads. “Our analysis shows that it is not a good search experience and can be frustrating for users because they are expecting to see the content of the web page.”

  This doesn’t affect other kinds of interstitials, the post explains. Instead of app install interstitials, there are other ways to promote apps that don’t get in the way of what people are searching for, Google notes: Both Safari and Chrome support app install banners, which simply pop up at the top of a page and still allow users to see the page they’re viewing without having to take any action.

  In July, Google made another push for sites to become more mobile-friendly, by adding alerts to mobile search results when sites use Flash, which is not now and never has been supported on iOS devices.

  
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by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist