Policy – Page 18

DOGE’s .gov site lampooned as coders quickly realize it can be edited by anyone

department of government efficiency, doge, Donald Trump, elon musk, Policy / Kelly Newman / February 16, 2025

“An official website of the United States government,” reads small text atop the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) website that Elon Musk’s team started populating this week with information on agency cuts.

But you apparently don’t have to work in government to push updates to the site. A couple of prankster web developers told 404 Media that they separately discovered how “insecure” the DOGE site was, seemingly pulling from a “database that can be edited by anyone.”

One coder couldn’t resist and pushed two updates that, as of this writing, remained on the DOGE site. “This is a joke of a .gov site,” one read. “THESE ‘EXPERTS’ LEFT THEIR DATABASE OPEN,” read another.

404 Media spoke to two other developers who suggested that the DOGE site is not running on government servers. Instead, it seems to be running on a Cloudflare Pages site and is relying on a database that “can be and has been written to by third parties and will show up on the live website,” the developers told 404 Media.

Archived versions of the DOGE site show that it was basically blank before Tuesday. That’s when Musk held a DOGE press conference in the Oval Office, promising that DOGE is “actually trying to be as transparent as possible.” At that time, Musk claimed that DOGE was being “maximally transparent” by posting about “all” actions to X (Musk’s social media platform) and to the DOGE website. (Wired deemed the DOGE site “one big X ad” because it primarily seems to exist to point to Musk’s social media platform.)

According to 404 Media, after Musk made that statement, his team rushed to build out the DOGE website, mirroring X posts from the DOGE account and compiling stats on the federal workforce.

But in rushing, DOGE appears to have skipped security steps that are expected of government websites. That pattern is troubling some federal workers, as DOGE has already been dinged by workers concerned by Musk’s team seizing access to sensitive government information and sharing it in ways deemed less secure. For example, last week, Department of Education officials raised alarms about DOGE employees using personal emails viewed as less secure than government email addresses, seemingly in violation of security protocols. These personal emails also seemed to shroud the true identities of DOGE staffers, whereas other government employees must use their full names in official communications.

DOGE’s .gov site lampooned as coders quickly realize it can be edited by anyone Read More »

No penalties even when deputies share a woman’s nudes after an illegal phone search

cell phones, Policy, searches / Beth Washington / February 15, 2025

Government agents have “qualified immunity” for 2019 actions.

Once your phone is imaged, the data is out of your control. Credit: Getty Images

In 2019, Haley Olson’s life in Grant County, Oregon, was upended when people in town appeared to know about private nude photos that Olson kept on her phone. Worse, some of the people appeared to have seen and shared the photos. The incidents all had some relationship to the local sheriff’s department, where Olson was dating one of the deputies.

In July, for instance, a stranger in a sheriff’s office uniform approached her to say that he had “heard there’s some pretty smokin’ pictures of you going around the sheriff’s office.” Someone else saw a married couple, both of whom worked for the sheriff’s office, looking at Olson’s photos on the husband’s phone. Other people also approached Olson with knowledge of her recent out-of-state arrest. One person called her “the drug dealer that likes to f— cops.”

What was going on?

An Idaho traffic stop

Olson had recently taken a trip out of state. In Oregon, she ran a marijuana dispensary, which was legal there, but on her trip in January, she was stopped by Idaho state police and arrested for marijuana possession. As part of that arrest, the Idaho state police wanted to search her cell phone, and they asked if she would sign an “Idaho State Police Voluntary Consent to Search.” She agreed, and the Idaho police made a complete image of her cell phone.

The Idaho charges against Olson were later dropped. Even though she was not prosecuted in Idaho and had committed no illegal activity in Oregon, she came to suspect that her cell phone image had somehow been shared across state lines and given to her local sheriff’s office. Olson filed a public records request with Grant County, trying to figure out who had her data and who had been talking about it.

She received a reply that same day from Jim Carpenter, who was then the Grant County Attorney and County Prosecutor. Carpenter explained that Glenn Palmer, the Grant County Sheriff, had asked Carpenter to obtain, if possible, a copy of the cell phone image from the Idaho state police. Palmer claimed to be concerned that the deputy whom Olson was dating might somehow be implicated in illegal activity depicted on her phone. (Palmer had first tried to obtain this directly from the Idaho trooper in charge of the case and was told no, which is when he reached out to Carpenter. How Palmer even learned about the arrest is unclear, but Olson had told the Idaho police she was dating a sheriff’s deputy in Oregon; somehow, word spread back to the department in Grant County.)

So Carpenter requested the cell phone image from the Idaho prosecutor in charge of Olson’s case. In his request letter, Carpenter said that the image “will be used only for internal purposes and will not be disseminated to any other agencies or third parties.” But when Carpenter received the image in the mail on a flash drive, he reached out to two outside agencies to look through Olson’s data. Given that no actual crime in Oregon was being investigated, both agencies said no. (A court later noted that these actions contradicted Carpenter’s “letter to the Idaho prosecutor.”)

Carpenter decided to look through the image himself, using tools from the digital forensics company Cellebrite. The image contained nude photos of both Olson and the deputy she was dating, but no activity that was criminal in Oregon. Carpenter wrote Palmer a letter making this clear—though nothing about the situation really was clear. Palmer would later say that Carpenter had “twice offered [him] the chance to review the extraction” and that Carpenter had said that “there were things on the cell phone that ‘once you see them, you can’t unsee them.'”

Carpenter, for his part, insisted that he was never willing to give the flash drive to Palmer or to show him its contents. He told Olson in his letter that he merely “took a quick look at the flash drive,” and after finding “content on the flash drive [that] was clearly personal in nature,” he made a “complete re-format of the flash drive.”

And yet somehow, people around town knew about the whole situation and even appeared to possess the pictures. Olson sued both Carpenter and Palmer for unlawful search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

The courts rule

The case has been bouncing through the court system for several years and recently landed at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, one stop below the Supreme Court. The 9th Circuit finally ruled on the case this week (PDF), and judges lambasted the behavior of the Oregon authorities, who had looked at her data without a warrant. The mere fact that Olson had signed a voluntary search form in Idaho was beside the point. “Olson’s consent in Idaho did not extend to a search by a different law enforcement agency, in another state,” wrote the court in its opinion, “and the search did not fall into any exception to the warrant requirement.”

The court noted that the case “presents a troubling example of the intrusion on Fourth Amendment rights that can occur with respect to highly sensitive cell phone data. More specifically, this circumstance involved a law enforcement agency accessing highly sensitive cell phone data from another jurisdiction in the absence of a warrant, consent, or even any investigation or suspicion of criminal activity on the part of a suspect.”

Whatever had actually happened with Olson’s data, the Oregon authorities had no right to look through it simply because the police chief was “curious” about it or because he wanted to go on a warrantless fishing expedition to see if one of his deputies was involved in anything nefarious. And Carpenter’s search was “highly irregular,” the court noted, even by his own standards. The 9th Circuit concluded that the situation was, in fact, a troubling violation of the Fourth Amendment.

Sweet vindication for Olson? Not quite. Despite its ruling, the court found that Sheriff Palmer was exempt from penalties because he had allegedly not seen the images, nor had he conducted the search—that was Carpenter, the local prosecutor.

However, Carpenter was found to have “qualified immunity” from prosecution as a government employee because, although he violated Olson’s Fourth Amendment rights, the law remained unclear in 2019. This case was slightly more complicated than a garden-variety warrantless search because Olson had voluntarily renounced some rights over in Idaho, and it was at least arguable at the time that this might have extended to other searches of the cell phone image for other reasons.

The 9th Circuit issued clarifying guidance in this area, saying that further searches of cell phones for unrelated reasons do, in fact, require a warrant, but all three judges declined to issue any penalties against Carpenter for his 2019 actions.

As for how Olson’s photos were shared around town, the 9th Circuit admits that it simply doesn’t know what happened and can do little about it.

Local news reports suggest that the Grant County Sheriff’s Department has had repeated experience in dealing with these kinds of lurid situations. The Oregonian notes that the sheriff’s deputy who Olson was dating was fired in 2019 “after his arrest on alleged assault and sex abuse complaints,” but the deputy was acquitted in court of all charges. He then “argued in a federal whistleblower complaint that [Sheriff] Palmer retaliated against him for reporting misconduct involving another sheriff’s deputy, who was the wife of Palmer’s undersheriff.” He eventually won a $1.3 million payout from Grant County and the state of Oregon.

No penalties even when deputies share a woman’s nudes after an illegal phone search Read More »

Man offers to buy city dump in last-ditch effort to recover $800M in bitcoins

bitcoins, climate change, crypto mining, Cryptocurrency, Policy, solar farm / Kelly Newman / February 15, 2025

Howells told The Times that he envisions cleaning up the site and turning it into a park, but the council’s analysis seems to suggest that wouldn’t be a suitable use. Additionally, the council noted that there aren’t viable alternative sites for the solar farm, which, therefore, must be built on the landfill site or else potentially set back the city’s climate goals.

If Howells can’t turn the landfill into a park, he suggested that he could simply clear it out so that it can be used as a landfill again.

But the Newport council does not appear to be entertaining his offer, the same way the council seemingly easily rejected his prior offer to share his bitcoin profits if granted access to dig up the landfill. When asked about Howells’ most recent offer, a council spokesperson directed The Times to a 2023 statement holding strong to the city’s claims that Howells gave up ownership of the bitcoins the moment the hard drive hit the landfill and his plans for excavation would come at “a prohibitively high cost.”

“We have been very clear and consistent in our responses that we cannot assist Mr. Howells in this matter,” the spokesperson said. “Our position has not changed.”

Howells insists his plan is “logical”

But Howells told The Guardian that it was “quite a surprise” to learn the city planned to close the landfill, reportedly in the 2025–26 financial year. This wasn’t disclosed in the court battle, he said, where the council claimed that “closing the landfill” to allow his search “would have a huge detrimental impact on the people of Newport.”

“I expected it would be closed in the coming years because it’s 80–90 percent full—but didn’t expect its closure so soon,” Howells told The Guardian. “If Newport city council would be willing, I would potentially be interested in purchasing the landfill site ‘as is’ and have discussed this option with investment partners and it is something that is very much on the table.”

Man offers to buy city dump in last-ditch effort to recover $800M in bitcoins Read More »

conde-nast,-other-news-orgs-say-ai-firm-stole-articles,-spit-out-“hallucinations”

Condé Nast, other news orgs say AI firm stole articles, spit out “hallucinations”

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Conde Nast, Policy / Beth Washington / February 14, 2025

Condé Nast and several other media companies sued the AI startup Cohere today, alleging that it engaged in “systematic copyright and trademark infringement” by using news articles to train its large language model.

“Without permission or compensation, Cohere uses scraped copies of our articles, through training, real-time use, and in outputs, to power its artificial intelligence (‘AI’) service, which in turn competes with Publisher offerings and the emerging market for AI licensing,” said the lawsuit filed in US District Court for the Southern District of New York. “Not content with just stealing our works, Cohere also blatantly manufactures fake pieces and attributes them to us, misleading the public and tarnishing our brands.”

Condé Nast, which owns Ars Technica and other publications such as Wired and The New Yorker, was joined in the lawsuit by The Atlantic, Forbes, The Guardian, Insider, the Los Angeles Times, McClatchy, Newsday, The Plain Dealer, Politico, The Republican, the Toronto Star, and Vox Media.

The complaint seeks statutory damages of up to $150,000 under the Copyright Act for each infringed work, or an amount based on actual damages and Cohere’s profits. It also seeks “actual damages, Cohere’s profits, and statutory damages up to the maximum provided by law” for infringement of trademarks and “false designations of origin.”

In Exhibit A, the plaintiffs identified over 4,000 articles in what they called an “illustrative and non-exhaustive list of works that Cohere has infringed.” Additional exhibits provide responses to queries and “hallucinations” that the publishers say infringe upon their copyrights and trademarks. The lawsuit said Cohere “passes off its own hallucinated articles as articles from Publishers.”

Cohere defends copyright controls

In a statement provided to Ars, Cohere called the lawsuit frivolous. “Cohere strongly stands by its practices for responsibly training its enterprise AI,” the company said today. “We have long prioritized controls that mitigate the risk of IP infringement and respect the rights of holders. We would have welcomed a conversation about their specific concerns—and the opportunity to explain our enterprise-focused approach—rather than learning about them in a filing. We believe this lawsuit is misguided and frivolous, and expect this matter to be resolved in our favor.”

Condé Nast, other news orgs say AI firm stole articles, spit out “hallucinations” Read More »

“Largest data breach in US history”: Three more lawsuits try to stop DOGE

elon musk, Policy, us doge service / Beth Washington / February 13, 2025

DOGE and Musk face three more lawsuits over “brazen ransacking” of private data.

People hold signs at a “Save the Civil Service” rally hosted by the American Federation of Government Employees outside the US Capitol on February 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty Images | Kent Nishimura

The US DOGE Service’s access to the private data of ordinary Americans and federal employees is being challenged in several lawsuits filed this week.

Three new complaints seek court orders that would stop the data access and require the deletion of unlawfully accessed data. Two of the complaints also seek financial damages for individuals whose data was accessed.

The US DOGE Service, Elon Musk, the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM), and OPM Acting Director Charles Ezell were named as defendants in one suit filed yesterday in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“The Privacy Act [of 1974] makes it unlawful for OPM Defendants to hand over access to OPM’s millions of personnel records to DOGE Defendants, who lack a lawful and legitimate need for such access,” the lawsuit said. “No exception to the Privacy Act covers DOGE Defendants’ access to records held by OPM. OPM Defendants’ action granting DOGE Defendants full, continuing, and ongoing access to OPM’s systems and files for an unspecified period means that tens of millions of federal-government employees, retirees, contractors, job applicants, and impacted family members and other third parties have no assurance that their information will receive the protection that federal law affords.”

The lawsuit names Musk as a defendant “in his capacity as director of the US Doge Temporary Service,” which was created by President Trump and has a mandate lasting until July 4, 2026. The temporary organization is separate from the US DOGE Service, which used to be called the US Digital Service. DOGE, of course, is a reference to the popular meme involving a Shiba Inu and in the government context stands for the Department of Government Efficiency.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO; the Association of Administrative Law Judges; and individuals who are current or former government workers. The legal team representing the plaintiffs includes lawyers from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the State Democracy Defenders Fund, and two law firms.

Data access for “Musk and a cadre of loyalists”

Another lawsuit filed Monday in US District Court for the District of Maryland said that DOGE gained access to records of both government employees and people outside of government:

For example, Defendants Treasury Department and Secretary of the Treasury [Scott] Bessent have improperly disclosed to DOGE representatives the contents of the Federal Disbursement System, which is the government’s mechanism for sending payments it owes to individual Americans (as well as other payees). That system contains records relating to every American who receives (among other things) a tax refund, social security benefit, veterans pay, or a federal salary. To facilitate these payments, the system maintains highly sensitive information about millions of Americans, including Social Security numbers, date of birth, bank account information, and home addresses.

The lawsuit in Maryland was filed by the American Federation of Teachers, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association, the National Federation of Federal Employees, and six individuals. In addition to the Treasury Department and Bessent, defendants include OPM, Ezell, the Department of Education, and Acting Secretary of Education Denise Carter.

“Defendants are permitting Elon Musk and a cadre of loyalists imported from his private companies to help themselves to the personal information of millions of Americans, in violation of [the Privacy Act’s] legal requirements,” the lawsuit said.

Yet another lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in the Eastern District of Virginia by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) and one unnamed resident of the district (“Doe 1”) who is a federal government employee. The EPIC lawsuit’s defendants include OPM, Ezell, the US Treasury Department, Bessent, the US DOGE Service, and the US Doge Service Temporary Organization.

“This action arises from the largest and most consequential data breach in US history, currently ongoing at the US Department of the Treasury and US Office of Personnel Management. This unprecedented breach of privacy and security implicates the personal information of tens of millions of people, including nearly all federal employees and millions of members of the American public,” the lawsuit said, alleging that defendants “have allowed the unlawful misuse of critical data systems housed in OPM and the Treasury Department, endangering plaintiffs and millions of other Americans.”

This includes tax return information, the lawsuit said. In late January, a longtime Treasury Department official announced his retirement shortly after a clash with DOGE over access to the Fiscal Service payment system that collects and disburses trillions of dollars.

The EPIC lawsuit described this incident and alleged that “basic security failures have resulted in the unlawful disclosure of personal data—including Social Security numbers and tax information—belonging to tens of millions of individuals stored in Bureau of Fiscal Service systems and the unlawful disclosure of personal data belonging to millions of federal employees stored in Enterprise Human Resources Integration.”

Musk may or may not be acting US DOGE administrator

The EFF and EPIC lawsuits both list the “Acting US DOGE Administrator” as a defendant, indicating that it is not clear who holds this position. But the EPIC lawsuit says that Musk “is either the Acting USDS Administrator or otherwise exercising substantial authority within USDS.”

We sent inquiries about the lawsuits to DOGE, the White House, OPM, Treasury Department, Education Department, and Department of Justice. OPM and the Education Department declined to comment. We will update this article if we get any comments about the lawsuits.

This week’s lawsuits add to the mounting litigation over DOGE and Musk’s access to government records. Last week, a federal judge approved an order that temporarily blocks DOGE access to Treasury payment systems and records until there’s a ruling on a motion for a preliminary injunction. The Department of Education was also sued Friday by a California student association over DOGE’s access to student financial aid and loan data.

EFF: “Brazen ransacking” of Americans’ data

The EFF said on its website that the “brazen ransacking of Americans’ sensitive data is unheard of in scale. With our co-counsel Lex Lumina, State Democracy Defenders Fund, and the Chandra Law Firm, we represent current and former federal employees whose privacy has been violated. We are asking the court for a temporary restraining order to immediately cease this dangerous and illegal intrusion. This massive trove of information includes private demographic data and work histories of essentially all current and former federal employees and contractors as well as federal job applicants.”

The EFF said the OPM database is one of the largest collections of employee data in the US, given that the federal government is the nation’s largest employer.

“In addition to personally identifiable information such as names, Social Security numbers, and demographics, it includes work experience, union activities, salaries, performance, and demotions; health information like life insurance and health benefits; financial information like death benefit designations and savings programs; and classified information [in] nondisclosure agreements. It holds records for millions of federal workers and millions more Americans who have applied for federal jobs,” the EFF said.

The EFF said “DOGE’s unchecked access puts the safety of all federal employees at risk of everything from privacy violations to political pressure to blackmail to targeted attacks,” adding that Musk last year “publicly disclosed the names of specific government employees whose jobs he claimed he would cut before he had access to the system.”

A Washington Post report last week said that some federal “officials have raised concerns that DOGE associates appeared to violate security protocols by using private email addresses or not disclosing their identities on government calls.”

The individual plaintiffs in the EFF’s lawsuit include federal employee Vanessa Barrow, a New York resident who works at the Brooklyn Veterans Affairs Medical Center. “As a federal employee since September 2008, Ms. Barrow’s sensitive personal and employment information was included in the OPM records that Defendants disclosed and continue to disclose,” the lawsuit said.

Seeking financial damages

The lawsuit has two other named plaintiffs who are former federal employees, and 100 Doe plaintiffs who are current and former employees or contractors of the US government. Plaintiffs, including members of the unions that are part of the lawsuit, are entitled to financial payments because they “have sustained and will continue to sustain actual damages and pecuniary losses directly traceable to Defendants’ violations,” the lawsuit said.

The separate lawsuit filed by EPIC in Virginia said that case’s single Doe plaintiff is entitled to statutory damages of $1,000 per each act of unauthorized inspection and disclosure, and punitive damages “because the Treasury Department and DOGE’s unlawful disclosure of their confidential return information was either willful or a result of gross negligence.”

“Taxpayers have a private right of action to seek damages under 26 U.S.C. § 7431 for the knowing or negligent unauthorized inspection or disclosure of returns or return information in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 6103,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit filed in the District of Maryland by unions and several individuals said the “plaintiffs include veterans who receive benefit payments as provided by law, current and former federal employees whose confidential employment files reside in the Office of Personnel Management’s system, and teachers, first responders, and health care workers whose pathway to careers in public service included relying on student loans to fund their own educations.”

All of these plaintiffs had personal data “improperly disclosed to DOGE representatives in a manner completely divorced from the legitimate purposes for which it was maintained and in violation of their privacy rights,” the lawsuit said. The plaintiffs are said to be “concerned that the breach may well result in serious personal, social, and economic harm, from being targeted for harassment and threats to doxxing, swatting, and identity theft.”

Military veterans worried about data access

Plaintiff Donald Martinez of Colorado served in Iraq for the Army and now receives Social Security disability insurance and other government benefits. “Especially because of his previous military service in a geographically sensitive area and involvement in high-level negotiations because of which he received death threats from terrorists, Plaintiff Martinez is worried that unauthorized access and disclosure of his personal information held within the federal government will compromise his personal safety and security,” the lawsuit said.

Plaintiff Christopher Purdy of Georgia served in the Army National Guard and was deployed to Iraq and currently leads a nonprofit advocacy group. Purdy is “very worried that Musk and DOGE may use their unauthorized access to his personal information to stop his VA disability payments, a major source of income in his household,” the lawsuit said.

The Trump executive order establishing DOGE said its goal was “modernizing federal technology and software to maximize efficiency and productivity.” It said that US agencies must give DOGE “full and prompt access to all unclassified agency records, software systems, and IT systems.”

An incident this week may add to concerns about Musk’s understanding of government systems. On Monday, he criticized a user on X for stating that the US government uses SQL.

“This retard thinks the government uses SQL,” Musk wrote. The federal government is in fact a heavy user of SQL in multiple forms, including Microsoft SQL server and MySQL Enterprise Edition for Governments.

Musk’s comment came in a discussion of another post in which Musk claimed without evidence that a lack of de-duplication in the Social Security database “enables MASSIVE FRAUD!!” because “you can have the same SSN many times over.” The comment that earned Musk’s rebuke was, “TIL Elon has never used SQL.”

Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.

“Largest data breach in US history”: Three more lawsuits try to stop DOGE Read More »

Queer-friendly data on car crash deaths removed from NHTSA website

auto safety, car crashes, Donald Trump, elon musk, highway safety, lgbtq, nhtsa, Policy, Tesla / 9u50fv / February 13, 2025

Potential road hazard ahead

Trump targeting car crash data sparks concerns over datasets collected since 1975.

Credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

In early February, a dataset tracking car crash deaths in the US curiously went missing from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) website.

Unlike other Donald Trump-ordered changes to government websites in which entire studies were removed and later court-ordered to be restored, only the most recent data on car crash deaths from 2022 was deleted from download files on NHTSA’s website.

The odd removal sparked concerns that the Trump administration may be changing or possibly even ending the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS)—a collection of police-reported data from every state that has tracked car crash fatalities since 1975. The Health department has said the data is used to help reduce deaths from not wearing a seatbelt or deaths involving a drunk driver.

NHTSA did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But the agency eventually provided a vague response to Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, an organization that advises lawmakers and bills itself as a “unique partnership of insurers, law enforcement, public health, and consumer experts working together to make America’s roads safer.”

“The file was taken down for some minor corrections and should be back up by the end of this week,” NHTSA told Advocates without any further explanation of what fixes were needed.

Ars spoke to several safety organizations and auto industry analysts who depend on FARS data to analyze trends, including efforts to flag the most dangerous cars in America.

A rumor began circulating that the 2022 data was yanked because NHTSA began allowing “other” sexes to be monitored in FARS data starting with that report. It was expected that NHTSA pulled the data down to comply with a Trump executive order “defending women” by banning government “efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex.”

To get to the bottom of the rumors, Ars consulted an archived version of the FARS downloads page, which showed that the 2022 dataset was available as recently as January 30. The uncensored data showed that unlike prior years, 22 car crash victims were documented using a category in 2022 for sex that had never been tracked previously, “Other (e.g., “X”, Non-Binary, Not Specified, etc.).”

NHTSA has not directly confirmed if the dataset is being changed to remove this data or if other “minor corrections” were needed. More will be revealed once the dataset comes back online, supposedly within the next few days.

Karl Brauer, an executive analyst for iSeeCars.com, which offers a car search engine and uses FARS data to help buyers steer clear of the “most dangerous” vehicles on US roads, told Ars that NHTSA’s public silence on the missing data means industry stakeholders don’t really know right now how FARS data might be changing.

“We can only speculate regarding NHTSA curtailing access to FARS data, but it’s disappointing given FARS’ value as a reference point for vehicle safety,” Brauer said. “Hopefully, this is a temporary situation that will be resolved shortly and not an indication that NHTSA no longer plans to compile this data. Consumers should be able to review all aspects of a vehicle’s safety, including how many fatalities it has been involved in.”

Trump targeting car crash data

Among the most dangerous cars on the road last year, iSeeCars flagged the Hyundai Venue, Chevrolet Corvette, Mitsubishi Mirage, Porsche 911, and Honda CR-V Hybrid as the “top five most dangerous cars.” Those cars had “fatal accident rates nearly five times higher than the average vehicle” from 2018 to 2022, their report said.

And “despite Tesla’s advanced driver-assist technology,” the Model Y and Model S both made the list, too, with Tesla maintaining “the highest fatal accident rate by brand.”

Back in December, when Trump was preparing to take office, a document seen by Reuters reportedly showed that his transition team was angling to “drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla.”

This car crash data, which is compiled due to a mandatory reporting requirement from carmakers, is different from FARS data, which comes from police reports. But a source told Reuters that Musk maintains that the mandatory reporting rule is “unfair” to Tesla because Musk “believes” Tesla reports “better data” than other car brands. That “makes it look like Tesla is responsible for an outsized number of crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems,” the source told Reuters.

Trump reportedly tasked his transition team with coming up with a 100-day strategy to kill off the reporting requirement. That move seemingly would make FARS data even more important to safety organizations and government officials that would otherwise lose data that helps track vehicle safety concerns, particularly with innovative automated-driving systems.

The University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute houses the Center for the Management of Information for Safe and Sustainable Transportation (CMISST), which also regularly analyzes car crash data. A CMISST spokesperson told Ars that NHTSA has also removed Crash Report Sampling System (CRSS) data from 2022. Even temporary removals make it harder for outside researchers to get a clear picture of road safety, the spokesperson told Ars.

“These datasets are world-leading in their scale and completeness, with FARS a complete census of fatal crashes involving someone who died within 30 days as a result of a crash on public roads,” CMISST’s spokesperson said. “CRSS is in some ways even more world-leading because it is a well-designed complex probability survey of police-reported crashes across the US, which allows us to have nationally representative estimates of the incidence of such crashes, including many key characteristics of the circumstances, the vehicles, and the people involved.”

Joseph Young, director of media relations for the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), told Ars that, like many others, his organization had “previously downloaded the dataset and continues to use it for analysis, so this removal doesn’t cause any immediate issues for our team.” But Young agreed that “it does complicate others’ ability to access the full dataset.”

Currently, the official FARS query tool still shows 2022 data, Young noted, but an Ars review confirmed that the tracking of “other” sexes is not available through that interface. So the only way to see changes once NHTSA uploads the new file will be to consult the archived dataset.

FARS saves lives, experts say

FARS data is released as soon as it’s available to try to prevent as many vehicle fatalities as possible. The version of the 2022 data that is missing from NHTSA’s site today is not the final draft, which is expected to be published in the spring. Around the same time, the first draft of the 2023 data should be available, CMISST’s spokesperson told Ars, as long as the Trump administration doesn’t de-prioritize sharing the data. Young told Ars that IIHS’ “bigger concern” than the missing 2022 data is whether there will be delays in posting new data.

“The latest FARS data is used extensively for research purposes and also for informing the public and decision makers about important trends in traffic safety, so it’s important that it be available as soon as possible,” Young told Ars.

Peter Kurdock, general counsel for Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety, told Ars that the key government datasets that his organization relies on to monitor highway safety do not currently appear to be at risk. But those reports are frequently updated, and any potential delays could make it harder to answer granular data-driven questions like “What type of pedestrians are being hit?” or “What time of day are they being hit?”

“All that stuff’s very important to the policy we develop, and we have to answer questions from policymakers as well,” Kurdock told Ars.

Advocates’ senior research director, Shaun Kildare, added that carmakers shouldn’t want this dataset to be messed with any more than outside safety researchers, because otherwise they would have to rely on spotty customer reports to monitor issues with their vehicles.

“In the past 50 years, [there were] 860,000 lives saved [and] nearly 50 million people that avoided injury,” Kildare said, citing NHTSA data. “I think the overall benefits [of collecting FARS and other crash data to set Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards] were somewhere in the $17 trillion range in terms of benefits and cost savings to the US,” he added.

A CMISST spokesperson told Ars that there remains a critical need to closely track car crash fatalities, which, despite safety stakeholders’ best efforts, reportedly continue to rise in the US.

“Given that fatalities have been going in the wrong direction over the last approximately 15 years, these data are critical to knowing where we are at with fatal (and non-fatal) crashes and which groups of crashes (e.g., pedestrians at night) are particularly on the rise,” CMISST’s spokesperson said.

Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience.

Queer-friendly data on car crash deaths removed from NHTSA website Read More »

Judge orders Trump admin. to restore CDC and FDA webpages by midnight

CDC, contraceptives, datasets, Doctors for America, executive order, fda, gender, health, HIV, Policy, Teens, Trump, websites, Youth / Kelly Newman / February 12, 2025

“Irrational removal”

In his opinion, Bates cited the declarations from Stephanie Liou, a physician who works with low-income immigrant families and an underserved high school in Chicago, and Reshma Ramachandran, a primary care provider who relies on CDC guidance on contraceptives and sexually transmitted diseases in her practice. Both are board members of Doctors for America.

Liou testified that the removal of resources from the CDC’s website hindered her response to a chlamydia outbreak at the high school where she worked. Ramachandran, meanwhile, testified that she was left scrambling to find alternative resources for patients during time-limited appointments. Doctors for America also provided declarations from other doctors (who were not members of Doctors for America) who spoke of being “severely impacted” by the sudden loss of CDC and FDA public resources.

With those examples, Bates agreed that the removal of the information caused the doctors “irreparable harm,” in legal terms.

“As these groups attest, the lost materials are more than ‘academic references’—they are vital for real-time clinical decision-making in hospitals, clinics and emergency departments across the country,” Bates wrote. “Without them, health care providers and researchers are left ‘without up-to-date recommendations on managing infectious diseases, public health threats, essential preventive care and chronic conditions.’ … Finally, it bears emphasizing who ultimately bears the harm of defendants’ actions: everyday Americans, and most acutely, underprivileged Americans, seeking healthcare.”

Bates further noted that it would be of “minimal burden” for the Trump administration to restore the data and information, much of which has been publicly available for many years.

In a press statement after the ruling, Doctors for America and Public Citizen celebrated the restoration.

“The judge’s order today is an important victory for doctors, patients, and the public health of the whole country,” Zach Shelley, a Public Citizen Litigation Group attorney and lead counsel on the case, said in the release. “This order puts a stop, at least temporarily, to the irrational removal of vital health information from public access.”

Judge orders Trump admin. to restore CDC and FDA webpages by midnight Read More »

Verizon beats lawsuit from utility worker who said lead cables made him sick

lead cables, Policy, verizon / 9u50fv / February 12, 2025

However, Ranjan found that Tiger lacked standing to bring the lawsuit. It is not clear that Tiger’s symptoms were caused by working with lead-covered cables, and everyone is exposed to lead to some degree, the ruling said.

“Given the naturally occurring lead levels in the environment and in our bodies, and the fact that individuals exposed to lead may not develop any lead-related conditions or symptoms at all, mere exposure to lead—and the mere presence of lead in one’s body—isn’t a concrete injury,” Ranjan wrote.

Verizon said in September 2023 that at sites described in the Wall Street Journal article, soil lead levels near Verizon cables were similar to lead levels in the surrounding area and did not pose a public health risk.

Verizon is also seeking dismissal of a similar lawsuit filed in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. Verizon yesterday submitted a filing to the New Jersey federal court that cited the Pennsylvania ruling. Verizon said the plaintiffs in the two cases are represented by the same legal team and that the allegations are “virtually identical.”

Health claims not specific enough

Ranjan’s ruling said that “Tiger hasn’t alleged the presence of elevated levels of lead in his body,” and “has not taken any blood or bone testing to measure the amount of lead that is presently in his body. This is problematic because, as indicated by the articles cited to in the amended complaint, everyone is exposed to lead, due to its prevalence in the environment.” Ranjan continued:

Mr. Tiger might have a better argument if he had asserted conditions or non-common symptoms that are unique to or at least more consistent with elevated levels of lead in his body. But, despite his allegations that lead exposure can cause certain “catastrophic” health issues, such as reduced kidney function, neurological problems, cardiovascular problems, and cancer, he has not alleged that he suffers from these ailments or that they are even imminent.

And, from the complaint, the Court cannot tell the amount or extent of Mr. Tiger’s exposure to lead, e.g., whether, and the extent to which, the alleged exposure to Verizon’s lead cables increased his risk of contracting an illness or condition, such that it posed an unacceptable risk to his health, and whether there is a dangerous amount of lead in his body. Simply put, the Court requires more concrete confirmation that Mr. Tiger has suffered an injury—or is at imminent and substantial risk of suffering an illness—likely caused by exposure to lead.

In summary, the judge decided that the “complaint fails to plead any cognizable injury-in-fact” and that the “theories of injury in the context of this specific case are too conjectural and speculative.” Ranjan dismissed the complaint without prejudice and said in a footnote that “nothing in this opinion should be construed as a finding that Mr. Tiger lacks standing to bring any of his claims in state court.”

Verizon beats lawsuit from utility worker who said lead cables made him sick Read More »

22 states sue to block new NIH funding policy—court puts it on hold

Grant funding, grants, HHS, indirect costs, lawsuit, NIH, Policy, Science / 9u50fv / February 11, 2025

Regardless of what else they might be doing, the indirect costs pay for various critical campus services, including at research hospitals. Suddenly having that amount slashed would create a major budgetary shortfall that will be hard to cover without shutting programs down.

The resulting damage to research campuses in their states was one of the harms cited by the states that joined the suit as part of their effort to establish standing. The other was the harm caused by the general slowdown in biomedical research that the policy will trigger, which the states argue will delay the availability of treatments for their citizens.

The states taking part include most of those that were won by Kamala Harris in 2024, as well as states that voted for Trump but currently have Democratic governors and attorneys general: Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. Notably, the suit only seeks relief from the altered NIH policy for institutions located in those states; they’re essentially leaving states controlled by Republicans to suffer the damages caused by the new policy.

Allegations and backup allegations

The states allege that the new NIH policy, by applying to all grants in progress, is equivalent to rewriting a contract. It cites an earlier legal decision that determined that “Once the [Notice of Award] is signed or money is drawn, the [Notice of Award] and the grant terms are binding on the grantee and the government.” Beyond that, the states argue the policy violates two separate pieces of legislation.

The first is the Administrative Procedures Act, which describes the processes that agencies need to follow when they formulate formal rules to translate legislation into implementations. Among other things, this prevents agencies from formulating rules that are “arbitrary and capricious.” It argues that, by including audits and negotiations in the process of setting them, the current individualized indirect rates are anything but.

By contrast, the states argue, there’s no significant foundation for the 15 percent indirect rate. “The Rate Change Notice is arbitrary and capricious in, among other ways, its failure to articulate the bases for the categorical rate cap of 15 percent,” the suit alleges, “its failure to consider the grant recipients’ reliance on their negotiated rates, and its disregard for the factual findings that formed the bases for the currently operative negotiated indirect cost rates.”

22 states sue to block new NIH funding policy—court puts it on hold Read More »

After Trump killed a report on nature, researchers push ahead with release

biodiversity, climate change, Donald Trump, environmental justice, nature loss, Policy, Science / Shannon Garcia / February 11, 2025

But one word in the federal register notice describing key principles of the nature report—”inclusive”—may have triggered Trump’s decision to end it. Christopher Schell, a lead author of a chapter called “Nature and Equity in the US,” told The Times that his chapter’s focus on environmental justice may have made the project an easy target for Trump.

On day one of his administration, Trump issued executive orders rescinding Biden-era priorities and ending several environmental justice and equity initiatives in government. According to an analysis from two experts at Harvard’s energy and environmental law program, Carrie Jenks and Sara Dewey, Trump claimed, “without explanation,” that the Biden initiatives violate “longstanding Federal civil-rights laws” and “threaten the safety of American men, women, and children.”

Now “federal agencies no longer have a mandate, unless required under separate rules, to consider how their actions will disproportionately harm low-income communities, communities of color, and other vulnerable populations,” the Harvard researchers warned.

Trump contradictions in environmental orders

Grist reported on the scramble to salvage a wide range of Trump-purged climate data like the National Nature Assessment that could help protect vulnerable communities by remaining in the public sphere. That report noted that climate data access was similarly lost during Trump’s prior administration, when “as much as 20 percent of the EPA’s website became inaccessible to the public” and the government’s “use of the term ‘climate change’ decreased by more than a third.”

But even if some members of the public remain jaded from Trump’s prior administration, researchers working on the nature report told The Times that their biggest concern in moving forward with the report is that the general public views government studies as more authoritative than independent studies. The fear is that even if the report is eventually published, its impact could be watered down without the government’s involvement or endorsement.

After Trump killed a report on nature, researchers push ahead with release Read More »

What you need to know about the T-Mobile Starlink mobile service

Policy, t-mobile starlink, Tech / 9u50fv / February 11, 2025

Starlink for your smartphone

Details on beta registration, prices, compatible phones, and technical limits.

T-Mobile marketing image for its Starlink texting service. Credit: T-Mobile

T-Mobile yesterday announced more details of its new service powered by Starlink and said Verizon and AT&T customers can use the satellite offering, too. The standard price will be $15 a month as an add-on for T-Mobile customers, and $20 a month for people who don’t have T-Mobile as their primary carrier.

While we’ve written numerous articles about the Starlink/T-Mobile collaboration over the past two and a half years, the service’s beta test and a Super Bowl commercial are raising awareness that it exists. In this article we’ll answer some questions you might have about T-Mobile Starlink (yes, T-Mobile Starlink is the official name of the service).

What is this thing anyway?

Over the past 13 months, SpaceX’s Starlink division has launched about 450 Direct to Cell satellites that can provide service to mobile phones in areas where there are no cell towers. Starlink is partnering with cellular carriers in multiple countries, and T-Mobile is its primary commercial partner in the US.

T-Mobile says the goal is to provide telecom service in dead zones, the 500,000 square miles of the US that aren’t reached by any terrestrial cell tower. When a user crosses into a dead zone, their phone is supposed to automatically connect to Starlink satellites. T-Mobile Starlink only supports texting for now, but T-Mobile says voice calls and data service will be available eventually.

Who can use it

T-Mobile Starlink is obviously available to T-Mobile customers, but the carrier said that Verizon and AT&T customers can also use it on their existing phones without switching entirely to T-Mobile. Verizon and AT&T customers will need an unlocked phone with eSIM technology, which lets users activate a cellular plan without a physical SIM card.

A Verizon or AT&T customer can use T-Mobile Starlink by activating a second eSIM on their device. “They will technically be assigned a T-Mobile number, but that’s just to provision the device to access the constellation. And then the second eSIM can connect whenever the user loses coverage,” a T-Mobile spokesperson told Mobile World Live.

T-Mobile suggested that international roaming will be available with other carriers that also partner with Starlink. T-Mobile said a “growing alliance” of telcos “aims to provide reciprocal roaming for all participating carriers.” Participating carriers so far include ones in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Canada, and Ukraine.

How to sign up

To use T-Mobile Starlink now, you need to register for a beta trial and hope you get in quickly. “The beta test is free and open to anyone—on any carrier—until July,” T-Mobile said.

There is a short registration form in which you’ll provide your name, email address, and mobile phone number, and agree that T-Mobile can contact you with marketing offers by email or phone. “We’ll admit people on a rolling first-come, first-served basis, so we encourage everyone to sign up as soon as possible,” T-Mobile said.

T-Mobile said it is enrolling users “on an ongoing basis to help test the system and provide feedback before launching in July.” Beta registration began in December. Early reports from beta testers suggest the service usually does what T-Mobile claims—enabling texting in areas with no cellular access—but that users still can’t get connections in some areas.

What it costs

When the free beta trial ends, T-Mobile customers will be able to add Starlink service to their plan for an extra charge of $15 per month for each line. If you sign up for the beta during February or if you signed up before then, T-Mobile says you’ll get a $5 discount for early adopters once the service transitions from a free beta to a paid add-on. T-Mobile users with the early adopter discount will pay $10 a month starting in July 2025, the company said.

Go5G Next, T-Mobile’s priciest plan at $100 a month for a single line, will include Starlink access at no extra cost. “The beta is free until July at which point T-Mobile Starlink will be included at no extra cost on Go5G Next (including variations like Go5G Next 55+), T-Mobile’s best plan,” the company said. “Business customers will also get T-Mobile Starlink at no extra cost on Go5G Business Next, first responder agencies on T-Priority plans and other select premium rate plans. T-Mobile customers on any other plan can add the service for $15/month per line.”

After the beta trial ends, Verizon and AT&T customers can purchase T-Mobile Starlink for $20 per month for each line. There was no mention of an early adopter discount for customers who don’t use T-Mobile as their primary carrier.

Users who aren’t subscribers of any of the big three carriers can also take advantage of the $20 offer. We asked T-Mobile if it would be available to people on other carriers, such as regional wireless providers or resellers. “Yes, any wireless user with an unlocked eSIM phone can sign up for service, regardless of provider,” T-Mobile told us.

Which phones it works on

T-Mobile Starlink works on recent iPhones and certain phones made by Google, Motorola, Samsung, and a T-Mobile brand called REVVL. T-Mobile said more phones will be added over time, and the current list of supported devices is as follows:

- Apple iPhone 14 and later (including Plus, Pro & Pro Max)
- Google Pixel 9 (including Pro, Pro Fold, & Pro XL)
- Motorola 2024 and later (including razr, razr+, edge and g series)
- Samsung Galaxy A14, A15, A16, A35, A53, A54
- Samsung Galaxy S21 and later (including Plus, Ultra and Fan Edition)
- Samsung Galaxy X Cover6 Pro
- Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 and later
- Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3 and later
- REVVL 7 (including Pro)

Going beyond text

Moving from text messages to voice and data requires more bandwidth, and SpaceX needs another government approval to use the full capabilities of its satellites. To that end, SpaceX is seeking a waiver of Federal Communications Commission rules regarding out-of-band emission limits.

Verizon and AT&T urged the FCC to deny the waiver request, alleging that Starlink’s plan would interfere with services provided over networks using adjacent spectrum bands. SpaceX has described the waiver as being crucial to its future plans, telling the FCC that the “out-of-band emission restriction will be most detrimental for real-time communications such as voice and video, rendering such communications unreliable both in critical and in common circumstances, increasing risk in emergency situations.”

The FCC approved Starlink’s plan for cellular phone service in November but deferred making a decision on the waiver request.

Verizon and AT&T plan similar service

AT&T and Verizon both intend to offer similar service through deals with satellite operator AST SpaceMobile. But AST SpaceMobile isn’t as far along as SpaceX’s Starlink, which is why AT&T was rebuked by an advertising industry self-regulatory board in August for claiming that it already offered cellular coverage from space.

AST SpaceMobile launched its first five commercial satellites in September 2024. In late January, AST SpaceMobile said it obtained FCC approval to test the service “with unmodified smartphones in AT&T and Verizon premium low-band wireless spectrum supporting voice, full data, and video applications.” The company also announced plans to launch up to 60 more satellites in 2025 and 2026.

What you need to know about the T-Mobile Starlink mobile service Read More »

CenturyLink nightmares: Users keep asking Ars for help with multi-month outages

centurylink, Features, Policy / DJ Henderson / February 11, 2025

What were you waiting for?

After getting confirmation that the outages were fixed, we asked the CenturyLink spokesperson whether the company has “a plan to make sure that customer outages are always fixed when a customer contacts the company instead of waiting for a reporter to contact the company on the customer’s behalf weeks later.”

Here is the answer we got from CenturyLink: “Restoring customer service is a priority, and we apologized for the delay. We’re looking at why there was a repair delay.”

It appears that nothing has changed. Even as John’s problem was fixed, CenturyLink users in other states suffered even longer outages, and no one showed up for scheduled repair appointments. These outages weren’t fixed until late January—and only after the customers contacted us to ask for help.

Karen Kurt, a resident of Sheridan, Oregon, emailed us on January 23 to report that she had no CenturyLink DSL Internet service since November 4, 2024. One of her neighbors was also suffering through the months-long outage.

“We have set up repair tickets only to have them voided and/or canceled,” Kurt told us. “We have sat at home on the designated repair day from 8–5 pm, and no one shows up.” Kurt’s CenturyLink phone and Internet service costs $172.04 a month, according to a recent bill she provided us. Kurt said she also has frequent CenturyLink phone outages, including some stretches that occurred during the three-month Internet outage.

Separately, a CenturyLink customer named David Stromberg in Bellevue, Washington, told us that his phone service had been out since September 16. He repeatedly scheduled repair appointments, but the scheduled days went by with no repairs. “Every couple weeks, they do this and the tech doesn’t show up,” he said.

“Quick” fixes

As far as we can tell, there weren’t any complex technical problems preventing CenturyLink from ending these outages. Once the public relations department heard from Ars, CenturyLink sent technicians to each area, and the customers had their services restored.

On the afternoon of January 24, we contacted CenturyLink about the outage affecting Kurt and her neighbor. CenturyLink restored service for both houses less than three hours later, finally ending outages that lasted over 11 weeks.

On Sunday, January 26, we informed CenturyLink’s public relations team about the outage affecting Stromberg in Washington. Service was restored about 48 hours later, ending the phone outage that lasted well over four months.

As we’ve done in previous cases, we asked CenturyLink why the outages lasted so long and why the company repeatedly failed to show up for repair appointments. We did not receive any substantive answer. “Services have been restored, and appropriate credits will be provided,” the CenturyLink spokesperson replied.

Stromberg said getting the credit wasn’t so simple. “We contacted them after service was restored. They credited the full amount, but it took a few phone calls. They also gave us a verbal apology,” he told us. He said they pay $80.67 a month for CenturyLink phone service and that they get Internet access from Comcast.

Kurt said she had to call CenturyLink each month the outage dragged on to obtain a bill credit. Though the outage is over, she said her Internet access has been unreliable since the fix, with webpages often taking painfully long times to load.

Kurt has only a 1.5Mbps DSL connection, so it’s not a modern Internet connection even on a good day. CenturyLink told us it found no further problems on its end, so it appears that Kurt is stuck with what she has for now.

Desperation

“We are just desperate,” Kurt told us when she first reached out. Kurt, a retired teacher, said she and her husband were driving to a library to access the Internet and help grandchildren with schoolwork. She said there’s no reliable cell service in the area and that they are on a waiting list for Starlink satellite service.

Kurt said her husband once suggested they switch to a different Internet provider, and she pointed out that there aren’t any better options. On the Starlink website, entering their address shows they are in an area labeled as sold out.

Although repair appointments came and went without a fix, Kurt said she received emails from CenturyLink falsely claiming that service had been restored. Kurt said she spoke with technicians doing work nearby and asked if CenturyLink is trying to force people to drop the service because it doesn’t want to serve the area anymore.

Kurt said a technician replied that there are some areas CenturyLink doesn’t want to serve anymore but that her address isn’t on that list. A technician explained that they have too much work, she said.

CenturyLink has touted its investments in modern fiber networks but hasn’t upgraded the old copper lines in Kurt’s area and many others.

“This is DSL. No fiber here!” Kurt told us. “Sometimes when things are congested, you can make a sandwich while things download. I have been told that is because this area is like a glass of water. At first, there were only a few of us drinking out of the glass. Now, CenturyLink has many more customers drinking out of that same glass, and so things are slower/congested at various times of the day.”

Kurt said the service tends to work better in mid-morning, early afternoon, after 9 pm on weeknights, and on weekends. “Sometimes pages take a bit of time to load. That is especially frustrating while doing school work with my grandson and granddaughter,” she said.

CenturyLink Internet even slower than expected

After the nearly three-month outage ended, Kurt told us on January 27 that “many times, we will get Internet back for two or three days, only to lose it again.” This seemed to be what happened on Sunday, February 2, when Kurt told us her Internet stopped working again and that she couldn’t reach a human at CenturyLink. She restarted the router but could not open webpages.

We followed up with CenturyLink’s public relations department again, but this time, the company said its network was performing as expected. “We ran a check and called Karen regarding her service,” CenturyLink told us on February 3. “Everything looks good on our end, with no problems reported since the 24th. She mentioned that she could access some sites, but the speed seemed really slow. We reminded her that she has a 1.5Mbps service. Karen acknowledged this but felt it was slower than expected.”

Kurt told us that her Internet is currently slower than it was before the outage. “Before October, at least the webpages loaded,” she said. Now, “the pages either do not load, continue to attempt to load, or finally time out.”

While Kurt is suffering from a lack of broadband competition, municipalities sometimes build public broadband networks when private companies fail to adequately serve their residents. ISPs such as CenturyLink have lobbied against these efforts to expand broadband access.

In May 2024, we wrote about how public broadband advocates say they’ve seen a big increase in opposition from “dark money” groups that don’t have to reveal their donors. At the time, CenturyLink did not answer questions about specific donations but defended its opposition to government-operated networks.

“We know it will take everyone working together to close the digital divide,” CenturyLink told us then. “That’s why we partner with municipalities on their digital inclusion efforts by providing middle-mile infrastructure that supports last-mile networks. We have and will continue to raise legitimate concerns when government-owned networks create an anti-competitive environment. There needs to be a level playing field when it comes to permitting, right-of-way fees, and cross subsidization of costs.”

Stuck with CenturyLink

Kurt said that CenturyLink has set a “low bar” for its service, and it isn’t even meeting that low standard. “I do not use the Internet a lot. I do not use the Internet for gaming or streaming things. The Internet here would never be able to do that. But I do expect the pages to load properly and fully,” she said.

Kurt said she and her husband live in a house they built in 2007 and originally were led to believe that Verizon service would be available. “Prior to purchasing the property, we did our due diligence and sought out all utility providers… Verizon insisted it was their territory on at least two occasions,” she said.

But when it was time to install phone and Internet lines, it turned out Verizon didn’t serve the location, she said. This is another problem we’ve written about multiple times—ISPs incorrectly claiming to offer service in an area, only to admit they don’t after a resident moves in. (Verizon sold its Oregon wireline operations to Frontier in 2010.)

“We were stuck with CenturyLink,” and “CenturyLink did not offer Internet when we first built this home,” Kurt said. They subscribed to satellite Internet offered by WildBlue, which was acquired by ViaSat in 2009. They used satellite for several years until they could get CenturyLink’s DSL Internet.

Now they’re hoping to replace CenturyLink with Starlink, which uses low-Earth orbit satellites that offer faster service than older satellite services. They’re on the waiting list for Starlink and are interested in Amazon’s Kuiper satellite service, which isn’t available yet.

“We are hoping one of these two vendors will open up a spot for us and we can move our Internet over to satellite,” Kurt said. “We have also heard that Starlink and Amazon are going to be starting up phone service as well as Internet. That would truly be a gift to us. If we could move all of our services over to something reliable, our life would be made so much easier.”

Not enough technicians for copper network

John, the Colorado resident who had a three-week CenturyLink outage, said his default DSL speed is 10Mbps downstream and 2Mbps upstream. He doubled that by getting a second dedicated line to create a bonded connection, he said.

When John set up repair appointments during the outage, the “dates came and went without the typical ‘your tech’s on their way’ email, without anyone showing up,” he said. John said he repeatedly called CenturyLink and was told there was a bad cable that was being fixed.

“Every time I called, I’d get somebody who said that it was a bad cable and it was being fixed. Every single time, they’d say it would be fixed by 11 pm the following day,” he said. “It wasn’t, so I’d call again. I asked to talk with a supervisor, but that was always denied. Every time, they said they’d expedite the request. The people I talked with were all very nice and very apologetic about our outage, but they clearly stayed in their box.”

John still had the contact information for the CenturyLink technician who set up his bonded connection and messaged him around the same time he contacted Ars. When a CenturyLink employee finally showed up to fix the problem, he “found that our DSL was out because our modem was bad, and the phone was out because there was a bad dial-tone card in the closest pedestal. It took this guy less than an hour to get us back working—and it wasn’t a broken cable,” John said.

John praised CenturyLink’s local repair team but said his requests for repairs apparently weren’t routed to the right people. A CenturyLink manager told John that the local crew never got the repair ticket from the phone-based customer service team, he said.

The technician who fixed the service offered some insight into the local problems, John told us. “He said that in the mountains of western Boulder County, there are a total of five techs who know how to work with copper wire,” John told us. “All the other employees only work with fiber. CenturyLink is losing the people familiar with copper and not replacing them, even though copper is what the west half of the county depends on.”

Lumen says it has 1.08 million fiber broadband subscribers and 1.47 million “other broadband subscribers,” defined as “customers that primarily subscribe to lower speed copper-based broadband services marketed under the CenturyLink brand.”

John doesn’t know whether his copper line will ever be upgraded to fiber. His house is 1.25 miles from the nearest fiber box. “I wonder if they’ll eventually replace lines like the one to our house or if they’ll drop us as customers when the copper line eventually degrades to the point it’s not usable,” he said.

CenturyLink nightmares: Users keep asking Ars for help with multi-month outages Read More »