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
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‘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 

