About
50
students
protested
Wednesday
afternoon in the “Human
Chain for Survivors” event
on the Diag in front of
Hatcher Library. The protest
contested the University of
Michigan’s interim Title IX
policy requiring a peer-to-
peer cross-examination in
all Title IX cases, including
cases of sexual misconduct
and
assault.
The
policy
has been highly contested
since it was implemented in
December 2018. Roe v. Rape
as well as the University
chapter of the American
Civil
Liberties
Union,
hosted Wednesday’s event.
Last
year,
the
Sixth
Circuit Court of Appeals
ruled in the case of Doe v.
Baum the University must
allow cross-examination in
sexual assault cases. The
University
petitioned
for
the Sixth Circuit Court to
rehear the trial in October
2018, but was denied. The
University’s interim policy
implemented
the
cross-
examinations
and
added
a tenet that requires the
question to be peer-to-peer.
LSA
sophomore
Emma
Sandberg is one of many
students who has argued
peer-to-peer
questioning
forces
the
perpetrator
to question their victim,
inciting trauma and anxiety
in survivors.
“When someone has been
sexually assaulted, they feel
a sense of powerlessness
and that’s one of the big
reasons why people report:
to take back their power
and
stand
up
to
their
perpetrator,”
Sandberg
said. “When a university
allows
a
perpetrator
to
cross-examine their victim,
the university is in effect
allowing that perpetrator
to have power over the
victim again and I consider
that to be cruel.”
Sandberg
founded
the
non-profit Roe vs. Rape over
the summer and is currently
executive director of the
organization.
“The
group
helps
survivors through activism
and attempts to prevent
sexual
assault
through
education,” Sandberg said.
Protestors linked together
with a rope and the number
of participants grew from
ten to 50. Some protesters
held signs in addition to the
chants.
michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Thursday, November 21, 2019
ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY-NINE YEARS OF EDITORIAL FREEDOM
Chris
Calabrese,
vice
president for policy at the
Center for Democracy and
Technology, was hosted by
the
Science,
Technology
and Public Policy program,
Center for Ethics, Society
and Computing and InSPIRE
at the Ford School of Public
Policy on Tuesday. About
50 students and community
members attended the lecture
entitled, “Show Your Face?
The Pros and Cons of Facial
Recognition Technologies for
Our Civil Liberties,” where
Calabrese
explained
the
social and ethical context of
facial recognition technology.
“As we incorporate more
and more technology into our
lives, we need to think about
the impact of that technology
and what we want to do with
it,” Calabrese said. “Face
recognition is a really good
example. It is powerful, it is
useful and it is often dangerous.
Like many technologies, it is a
technology that can do so many
things. It can find a wanted
fugitive
from
surveillance
footage.
It
can
identify
everybody at a protest rally.”
Calabrese explained the basic
framework of the technology.
“It is a sort of measurement
of people’s faces,” Calabrese
said. “It is turning them into
a discrete number that can
be stored in databases and
used to compare against other
photos to see if I get that same
measurement and see if I’ve
identified that person.”
In the last five years, the
National Institute of Standards
and Technology has confirmed
massive gains in the accuracy of
facial recognition technology.
This has been due to a variety
of
factors,
including
more
powerful computers, greater
data storage and more advanced
artificial intelligence. Calabrese
also
commented
on
the
privacy repercussions of facial
recognition advancements.
About 50 students attended a
TEDxUofM Salon event entitled
“Eating Your Way to a More
Sustainable Future” Wednesday
evening in North Quad. The
event featured a panel of five
sustainable
food
industry
experts from the University of
Michigan and the Ann Arbor
community.
The
event
started
by
watching a TED Talk by Bruce
Friedrich,
co-founder
and
executive director of The Good
Food Institute. In the video,
Friedrich discussed how to
create alternatives to the meat
industry that cost the same or
cheaper and taste the same or
better than conventional meat.
Kathy Sample, owner and
founder of Argus Farm Stop, a
farmers market in Ann Arbor,
emphasized
her
relationship
with
food
and
dedication
to
sustainability
in
her
introduction.
“I feel like the community
around food is what makes
families strong and what makes
groups of people care about
each other and spend time
together doing something that’s
meaningful,” Sample said.
GOT A NEWS TIP?
Call 734-418-4115 or e-mail
news@michigandaily.com and let us know.
INDEX
Vol. CXXIX, No. 32
©2019 The Michigan Daily
N E WS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
O PI N I O N . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CL A SSIFIEDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
S U D O K U . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
S P O R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
A R T S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 B
michigandaily.com
For more stories and coverage, visit
‘U’ researchers
can use lasers
to hack virtual
assistant devices
Vulnerabilities in technologies like Alexa
may result in beams imitating commands
Aaron
Valdez,
communications
coordinator
at Sweetland Writing Center,
has
a
daily
eight-mile
commute round trip between
Ypsilanti and the University of
Michigan campus. As a biker,
Valdez said Fuller Avenue is
a problem area for commuter
safety.
“It’s one of those places
where I always have a problem
every single day with almost
being
dead
or
watching
someone almost being dead,”
Valdez said. “I’m looking for
some sort of solution to prevent
these daily near-misses that
happen.”
On Wednesday night, Valdez
attended Ann Arbor’s Moving
Together
Towards
Vision
Zero open house at Larcom
City Hall. Joining a national
movement to reduce fatalities
resulting from mobility and
transportation in cities, Ann
Arbor is headed to become
a Vision Zero City. The city
hosted the open house, which
attracted about 50 community
members like Valdez, to obtain
feedback on bike lanes and
transportation problem areas.
Ann Arbor
highlights
Vision Zero
initiative
ANN ARBOR
AYSE ELDES
For The Daily
Facial recognition ethics event looks at
issues with technology in modern era
Science, Technology and Public Policy program co-hosts talk featuring Chris Calabrese
TEDxUofM
panel talks
sustainable
food needs
CAMPUS LIFE
Follow The Daily
on Instagram,
@michigandaily
Community members contest peer-to-peer cross examination practice
SOFIA URBAN
For The Daily
ALISON ROH/Daily
The Human Chain for Survivors of Assault and their allies gather at the steps of Hatcher Wednesday afternoon.
City commission seeks
to join movement to
reduce fatalities from
mobility, transportation
See CHAIN, Page 3
MADELINE HINKLEY/Daily
Christopher Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, discusses facial recognition technology and policy at Weill Hall Wednesday afternoon.
Industry professionals,
students reflect on
how decisions can
impact environement
BECCA HIRSH
For The Daily
See TRANSPORTATION, Page 3
BECCA HIRSH
For The Daily
Vulnerabilities
in
virtual
assistants such as Amazon
Alexa or Google Assistant may
allow laser beams to imitate
audio commands and hack
into these devices, researchers
at the University of Michigan
and the University of Electro-
Communications in Tokyo have
found.
Using a laser beam with just
five milliwatts of power for
the virtual assistants and 60
milliwatts
for
smartphones
and tablets, the researchers
discovered
the
lasers
can
activate and hack different
virtual assistants just by aiming
light at different intensities into
the microphones, calling the
tactic “light commands.” The
changing intensities of light act
as sound waves that cause the
microphone to react as if it is
hearing sound.
Engineering
graduate
student
Benjamin
Cyr,
a
member of the light commands
research
team,
said
light
commands can be dangerous
as they can grant individuals
access to important information
from far distances.
“With these devices, you
have them in a secure location
within
a
home
where
a
passerby can’t talk and have
it activate,” Cyr said. “But
light, if it’s focused, will travel
through windows and from
long distances.”
Cyr said some of the tests
the team completed were able
to activate the devices with
a laser beam from a distance
of more than 100 meters. The
team tested 17 different virtual
assistant devices using a tripod,
telescope and telephoto lens.
Videos
on
the
research
project’s website show the team
successfully injecting different
commands
from
varying
distances
into
the
Google
Home device to open a garage
door and to say what time it is,
once from the top of the North
Campus bell tower to an office
in the Bob and Betty Beyster
building.
The researchers successfully
hacked into virtual assistant
devices using equipment, some
bought from Amazon, for a
total under $500. Though they
had previously not heard of
light commands being used to
hack into virtual assistants,
Cyr said the technique would
be very easy for an individual
to use.
BARBARA COLLINS
Daily Staff Reporter
See HACKING, Page 3
Students form Human Chain for
Survivors to protest U-M policy
See TECHNOLOGY PAGE 2
See FOOD, Page 3