Technology - Stephan Segraves

AT&T’s huge data breach

July 15, 2024July 15, 2024 ssegraves

U.S. phone giant AT&T confirmed Friday it will begin notifying millions of consumers about a fresh data breach that allowed cybercriminals to steal the phone records of “nearly all” of its customers, a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Some of the stolen records include cell site identification numbers associated with phone calls and text messages, information that can be used to determine the approximate location of where a call was made or text message sent.

In all, the phone giant said it will notify around 110 million AT&T customers of the data breach, company spokesperson Andrea Huguely told TechCrunch.

It seems like Snowflake, a cloud based data analytics company, is the likely source of the breach. These types of breaches are becoming more and more common, with third parties who offer some sort of service, have poor or unchecked security practices. If you are an AT&T customer just keep an eye on your account and consider changing your password or passcode.

United’s Latest App Update is a Visual Flop

May 4, 2024May 9, 2024 ssegraves

The United iPhone (and Android) app, in my opinion, has been one of the better airline apps on the market. For one, it historically has been a native application, not a web view like Delta or Alaska’s apps, making it faster to respond and return information. The United app has also been a really good case study in information design and presentation; It is extremely easy to find what you’re looking for, from flight status information to searching for new flights to looking for your account details.

Over the last few years United has started straying from the design philosophies that really set their app apart. They have started using web views in certain areas of the application and have complicated what were once simple views. However, all of those were changes that didn’t reduce a user’s ability to use the app.

But today they released a new version and it is a bit of a mess. Most of the changes are cosmetic but the impact really hits some of what made the application usable.

Take for example these two screenshots:

The first screenshot is the new version of the app while the second screenshot is the previous version. They both show the same screen, the flight status information (granted, for different days for the same flight number). The amount of wasted space in the screenshot on the left is really frustrating. The user is forced to scroll the page to see further details, when that information could be displayed in the available space.

They have also made some font and color choices that I find questionable. The overall font on the app has changed and has become smaller and harder to read.

This is the flight status search results screen. Again, the new app is on the left, the old one on the right. I can see that they were trying to establish some form of application flow by moving the arrow to select the flight to the right but they have again used this new font at a smaller size and it is extremely hard to read. It almost feels like the kerning is off on the text.

Lastly is their choice of this blue. I know it’s part of their new branding but it is really, really hard on the eyes and it is everywhere. Mixed with the new font there are some places in the app where I have to look away to let my eyes focus. And can we talk about the pointless whitespace? Even in the old app there was too much, but they added more.

Part of me wonders if this is some new template with a new font family that someone in the United design department liked and just ran with it or if they actually did any user testing of the new user interface at all.

These flight results have the new bright blue everywhere. Paired with the new font, it just isn’t great to look at. When looking at a phone screen you have to strain your eyes because of the way the font is smaller and the bright blue clashes with the white background.

I really hope United reconsiders these changes. The font could probably stay if the kerning is adjusted and the overall size is increased. I think that’s actually my biggest complaint is that it was a larger font that has seen a size decrease with the new font. The native app font size should be adequate for most users to read easily without having to zoom in via the iPhone’s accessibility features.

United has long touted their app as the industry leader for helping travelers navigate their trip and book new trips but this latest update really hinders usability and ease of use.

Renting an EV for the first time

March 10, 2024March 11, 2024 ssegraves

During a recent work trip to Florida that required a rental car, the rental agency only had EVs available and because I didn’t want to sit around waiting for another vehicle, I took it. Overall it wasn’t a bad experience, but I can see why Hertz struggles with electric vehicles.

The EV I received was a Mercedes Benz EQB. I had zero issues with the quality of the car, it’s a Mercedes, it was nice, comfortable, and well appointed. These days I mostly care about CarPlay and this Mercedes checked that box for me.

When receiving the details from the rental agent I asked bluntly, “how much do I need to charge the vehicle before returning it?” to which he replied, “it needs to be at 70% of whatever its current charge level is”. When I started the car it was 40% charged, giving me a little under 100 miles of range. That’s unacceptable in my opinion. If I had needed to drive somewhere out of that range I would’ve had to immediately make my way to a charging station (more about that later) to charge before continuing my trip.

In addition, this particular rental company, Avis, had no notation of the charge of the vehicle on the rental slip. The fuel level simply showed 8/8, which with a 40% charge, was not true.

I had never driven a EV, so I took lap around the parking lot to get a feel for it before hitting the road. The single pedal driving setup was definitely a shift in thinking and by the end of the trip it felt a little better but I certainly wasn’t an expert. Once on the road the car felt very good and the acceleration was fantastic, making getting on the freeway and performing passing maneuvers super easy.

When I made it to the hotel I asked if they had a charging station but was disappointed to learn there was nothing on-premise and actually nothing that close so I started texting friends asking how they know where to charge their EVs when they’re on the road. The answer seemed to be PlugShare or ChargeHub, both of which I downloaded and started searching. I don’t know if it’s a data problem or a Florida problem but both apps seemed to be lacking a lot of useful information when it came to any type of charger besides Tesla.

As an aside, I also tried the car’s built-in charger app and it was subpar, suggesting charging stations that were much further away (maybe they were fast chargers).

I finally found a charger near the venue I would be attending my work event and drove over the next day to get a charge. Thankfully there was no other EV there as it was the only charger. The actual charging station experience leaves a lot to be desired. This particular charger was a Blink charging station and when I first got it all setup it seemed like it required a Blink membership to even use but after circumventing some of the prompts I was able to get it to charge. The charging process was by no means fast, I dropped the car off at 8am and it did not charge to 100% from ~45% until 3:30pm. It also wasn’t particularly cheap at $19.35 for 39.49 kWh of power or $.49/kWh.

The rental companies could do a better job with explaining charging as well, especially since vehicles can be configured to only charge to a certain point, such as 80%.

The return process was also very interesting. The attendant who checks the mileage and the fuel level in standard combustion vehicles couldn’t figure out how to do either of those things in the EV. I explained where the charge level was but I never saw him find the mileage on the car and when I checked my statement the car was notated to have fewer miles than when I left the rental lot.

Overall I didn’t have too much trouble with renting an EV but rental companies need to get better at how they communicate the process and should probably update their systems to accommodate EV specific information. It would probably help if the rental companies stuck with a handful of brands of EVs rather than buying whatever they can when they can. The charging experience is also less than stellar. Again, maybe it’s a Florida thing but the data on the chargers just seems to be bad. This could be another area where the rental companies work with the EV companies to customize the built-in mapping software to help renters find the charger they need when they need it. All in all I thought it was fun to be able to try out an EV and see what they’re like to drive. Given my travel driving habits, I don’t think I’d hesitate to rent another one.

Bluetooth Audio on Planes is Real and it’s Spectacular

October 24, 2022 ssegraves

I recently flew on a couple of United’s newer planes in the domestic fleet, a 737 MAX 8 and a MAX 9. The MAX 8, tail number N27267, was delivered to United in August and it still had that new plane smell. It also had United’s new inflight entertainment system, including Bluetooth audio for passengers to use to listen to the movies or television that were watching on their screen. I decided to give it a shot and was pleasantly surprised at how well it worked.

You simply flip the switch for Bluetooth audio and put your device in pairing mode. A few seconds later it is connected and you’re listening wirelessly. For me, the biggest annoyance was that with my Apple Airpods Pro 2 had to be manually set to pair by holding the rear button, essentially wiping out the pairing information with my phone. I am not sure if this is my error or a flaw in how the Airpods pair but it was a small inconvenience.

The audio quality while enjoyable was not high quality. It actually didn’t sound any better than simply plugging wired headphones in. There was a slight static in the background and for scenes with music, it was definitely missing some bass. Part of me thinks this is a result of how the content on these systems is stored, likely highly compressed to save space. It could also be simply an interference issue. With Bluetooth being at every seat, that’s a lot of potential radio interference very close to you. Again, this wasn’t a huge downside for me. Being able to use hardware I already use everyday means I can carry less and it just worked. I’m really glad I got the chance to try it out!

One interesting quirk is that they can’t pipe PA announcements over Bluetooth and specifically ask you to remove the headphones when an announcement comes on.

Have you had a chance to try Bluetooth on United or another carrier? What was your experience like?

Two Classes of Travelers

June 30, 2022 ssegraves

Fascinating write-up about the TSA, PreCheck, and CLEAR by Nilay Patel for The Verge:

This year is the 20th anniversary of the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA, and I think it’s safe to say that nobody enjoys waiting in the airport security line. And in the post-9/11 world, things like PreCheck are the great innovation of the department.

At least according to Dan McCoy, who is the TSA’s chief innovation officer, who told me that PreCheck is “a hallmark government innovation program.”

And the thought that I think sits in the back of the mind for most travelers:

But what do programs like PreCheck and the larger surveillance apparatus that theoretically keep us safe mean for the choices we make? What do we give up to get into the shorter security line, and how comfortable should we be about that?

In response to a question about security versus privacy:

This is definitely a hard one to answer from my part. From the innovation perspective, there is intelligence and analysis in the backend that is doing a lot of this work. We have partnerships with the FBI for those background investigations that you are talking about. If you ask an end user to design the best app, they want it to look slick and be frictionless as far as mobility and application development. That is only until you probe them with, “Well, do you want your data to be secure? Do you want to know that you are not being tracked?” I think that is what I equate the TSA process to. Most of my life, TSA has been the way that we go through the airport.

The interview continues on to talk about face recognition and how CLEAR keeps a database of faces but the TSA has taken a different approach, which is Real ID and the verification of a face matching the ID. If you read the full transcript, which is embedded in the above linked article, McCoy mentions that the TSA understands machine recognition of facial data is getting better but it is not at a point where they feel comfortable rolling it out en masse.

Dan McCoy does dance around a few questions, in particular the one around there being only a single attempt to bring a plane down with a shoe bomb but non-PreCheck travelers still have to take their shoes off at security. He gives some pure marketing speak in response to the question and doesn’t give a solid reply as to why the shoe rule is still in place.

My feelings on PreCheck and the rest of the traveling public is that we really should be working to move travel to PreCheck for the majority of passengers and extra security when needed. This is especially true now that travel has picked back up while security remains relatively understaffed. Unfortunately I feel that we’ve crossed an invisible line in the sand and security will never go back to anything like it was pre-9/11. The TSA should really be looking at a future where they can vet passengers quickly and correctly while at the same time insuring that the entire experience isn’t a mess.

The Montreal Snow Removal Army

February 21, 2022 ssegraves

I spent a few months traveling to Montreal for work right before Covid hit, right in the middle of winter. I noticed that the sidewalks and streets stayed mostly clear of snow and now I know why. This fascinating article on the snow removal process in Montreal makes every other city’s efforts pale in comparison.

In Montreal, a blizzard is a call to action. With a budget of nearly $180 million and a staff of over 3,000 workers, the city is poised and prepared to manage and remove it all. Once snow begins accumulating, a multiphase operation begins to unfold across the city’s 19 boroughs. Between roads, bike lanes, and sidewalks, the city clears over 10,000 km – roughly the distance between Montreal and Beijing.

Montreal doesn’t just push snow to the curb with plows – instead, snow is picked up by a fleet of trucks and transported up to one of 28 snow dump sites across the city. Throughout a typical winter, roughly 300,000 truckloads of snow are transported – a volume of about 12 million cubic meters.

Part of the snow removal process is available to view:

The whole article is a fun read. Montreal has massive snow mountains where snow is trucked to melt later and they use the old Francon quarry as a storage area as well –

The final site we visited was the crown jewel of Montreal’s snow storage strategy: the Francon quarry. In decades past, it provided the limestone that built Montreal’s posh downtown districts. And since its retirement, it has become the city’s largest snow dump.

This doesn’t mean Montreal’s snow removal is perfect though. On two of my trips to the city there was a large storm the day before I arrived and sidewalks were an absolute mess.

Ford F-150 Lightning – An Ultimate Truck?

June 2, 2021 ssegraves

I have been on the fence on the Tesla electric vehicles for a while and for a few reasons. For one, it seems ironically wasteful to buy a new vehicle simply because “it’s electric” and has a bunch of bells and whistles. The price point tiers of the Tesla are also a downside. Yes, you can get a base Model 3 for $33k but to get any kind of upgrades it’s $42k and if you want more performance, it’s $50k. All for a sedan.

Enter the Ford F-150 Lightning. I am still hesitant to buy an electric vehicle right now but the F-150 is more my speed. Ford has taken their best selling vehicle and made it an electric powerhouse. This feature preview by Marques Brownlee points out some of the coolest things with picture and video better than I ever could.

An EPA estimated range with 1000lbs of cargo of 300 miles but in reality closer to 450 miles (based on Marques’ math). Also, dual direction power where if your house loses power, you can use the truck to provide power to it. That’s huge. It’s a 6000lb truck but can still do 0-60mph in 4.5 seconds. I mean, that’s not something you’re going to use everyday but it is impressive.

It seems like a vehicle to keep an eye on. I have a feeling Ford is going to sell a lot of these and it might play a huge role in more electric vehicle charging stations and other tech entering the market.

Hacking McDonald’s Ice Cream Machines

April 23, 2021 ssegraves

Andy Greenberg from Wired (archived, non-paywall version):

Of all the mysteries and injustices of the McDonald’s ice cream machine, the one that Jeremy O’Sullivan insists you understand first is its secret passcode.

But after years of studying this complex machine and its many ways of failing, O’Sullivan remains most outraged at this notion: That the food-equipment giant Taylor sells the McFlurry-squirting devices to McDonald’s restaurant owners for about $18,000 each, and yet it keeps the machines’ inner workings secret from them. What’s more, Taylor maintains a network of approved distributors that charge franchisees thousands of dollars a year for pricey maintenance contracts, with technicians on call to come and tap that secret passcode into the devices sitting on their counters.

This is a fantastic look inside the world of fast food, the kitchen tools that make the industry run, franchise and franchisee relationships, and the right to repair movement as a whole. I wonder what the outcome would have been had the protagonists had cozied up with the ice cream machine manufacturer.

Threats to Critical Infrastructure

January 4, 2021 ssegraves

From War on the Rocks:

Circumstantial evidence suggests that Warner was protesting 5G technology — reportedly an FBI line of inquiry. The campervan was parked in front of an AT&T transmission building and the explosion knocked down a network hub. The company website called the blast “devastating,” reporting secondary fires, loss of power, damaged equipment, and hazardous work in a disaster zone. Internet and cellphone service across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama was badly affected. AT&T scrambled to reroute service or deploy portable cell sites, with 65 percent of service restored two days later.

Experts saw this coming. In May 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security issued alerts about potential attacks on cellphone infrastructure due to conspiracy theories about 5G technology spreading COVID-19 — misinformation promoted by gullible individuals, celebrities, and nefarious actors like QAnon. U.S. alerts followed dozens of arson and vandalism attacks abroad, including on U.K., Belgian, Canadian, and Dutch cell towers. And in the wake of the Nashville bombing, federal, state, and local law enforcement feared copycat attacks on other U.S. communications infrastructure.

There have always been conspiracy theories but it seems that the prevalence of social media in people’s daily lives has helped perpetuate untruths even faster than in the past. When I talk to friends and family and their main source of news is Instagram, Facebook, or some obscure website, I usually expect to see or hear a conspiracy theory at some point.