County commission repeals plastic ban ordinance
https://www.alligator.org/news/county-commission-repeals-plastic-ban-ordinance/article_55470876-d448-11e9-8ff0-9fec549a3192.html
In short, local officials were trying to pass a ban on plastic in the community in an attempt to reduce the city's footprint. However, The Alachua County Commision unanimously voted to repeal the piece of legislature which would've enacted the ban. The story shows that a citizen agreed with the original ban, and shamed the state for trying to control the city. The Gainesville City Commissioner said the city doesn't necessarily have to repeal the legislature, but the chances of the ban being passed are very slim. The rest of the article slams retailers and big businesses for "trying to keep communities from being able to protect their environment."
The problem is whether or not Gainesville will be able to reduce its footprint or not. One method of reducing the footprint is with a plastic ban. However, there are other ways to do so.
Everyone in Gainesville has this problem, but right now, it is in the hands of the local government.
Alachua County Jail hacker outsmarted system “just to prove” he could
This story is quite an interesting one. It tells of a man named Justin Lee Williams, who hacked into the Alachua County Jail's computers and freed his friends just to prove that he was capable of doing so. It highlights his experiences with computers as a child, telling that his first computer hardly worked. However, he learned the ins and outs of it, eventually picking up a useful skill: hacking. He started off hacking online stores and selling the items from those stores for extra money. His escapades quickly became more serious. Eventually, he was arrested and slipped up. But, continued with his lies and even was able to trick Sumner County into lifting his warrant for arrest. From there, Williams began making deals with people to get their friends out of jail for a nice paycheck. Williams was a genius con artist and was able to escape the grips of the law on numerous occasions. 5 years after his grandmother passed, Williams plead guilty and is now held in Alachua County Jail.
The security of the systems Williams was able to exploit are clearly flawed. He was able to trick workers and bypass securities with ease.
The law enforcement and judicial branch of Alachua County have this problem. It doesn't seriously effect many citizens, because he doesn't rob individuals, nor does he cause anyone harm.
UF Preview prices broke state law. How are they fixing it?
This issue definitely impacted me and many other students at UF. To summarize the story, for at least the past decade, UF has been illegally overcharging new students to attend Preview, UF's orientation. It tells of individual families' experiences with this overcharging and explains what the state of UF's Preview prices are now. All UF has done to fix this problem is separate Preview into 2 pricing options: a limited, $35 one and an all-inclusive, $200 experience. However, people still say the mention of different options is very obscure and difficult to reach.
This is definitely a problem, because the state legal price for orientation is $35. UF has been overcharging for years and now hardly fixes the problem after it receives backlash.
All UF students are affected by this problem, but the problem is in the hands of both the UF executives, students, and Florida residents alike.
Biker caught stealing plants from Satchel’s Pizza
I believe the editors missed a fantastic opportunity in titling this article. It should've been "Pizza Parlor Plant Pirate". Anyway, it's a silly story about a man who got caught stealing hanging plants on Satchel's Pizza's securities cameras. The story is unfolding to show that this man has potentially been stealing plants for months or even years! The owner of Satchel's decided to take to social media in order to find his pizza-plundering pirate. No luck so far, but he just wants his pizzeria plants to be peacefully preserved on his property.
Even though they're just plants, this is still robbery. The plant pirate is taking the property of a local pizza shop owner.
The owner is mostly affected by this, because it costs him money to replace the plants. But, customers at Satchel's won't have the same, beautiful plants to look at every day.
‘We’ve had enough.’: Students organize protest on Fraternity Drive
This is actually a very important issue. Blue lights are essentially emergency speed-dial stations for anyone on campus to use. They are spread across campus, but there are none on Fraternity Dr, or "Frat Row". Frat Row is where many fraternity houses are located and where many of the big game day tailgates are held. At the end of Spring 2019, UF Student Government failed to pass a resolution that would propose adding blue lights across Frat Row. A massive gathering of students will be across the street from the SAE fraternity on Sep. 17th at 5PM to protest the inaction by UF SG. The goal of the protest is to "allow students to have a voice when it comes to their safety". The movement isn't to raise awareness for previous victims or to point fingers. It is to protect the students of the present and future.
The protest itself isn't a problem, but the inactivity of the Student Government on this issue is absurd. We should've had blue lights along Fraternity Dr. just like the rest of campus. It makes no sense to only not have lights where many of these emergencies may happen.
This inactivity effects all students and even all people who spend time around Frat Row. Anything can happen and if one is in an emergency situation, alone with no phone, there isn't much hope.
I have to say the article about the hacker is by far the most interesting one you found. The fact that he was able to do all that he did and still make money and evade the law is very impressive. Because of our heavy reliance on software systems in our current world, things like these can and will happen as long as there is someone is trying. More and more companies are hiring white-hat hackers to test their systems and find weak points. He could have dedicated himself to helping tech companies and maybe avoided jail-time. Great post!
ReplyDeleteJake,
ReplyDeleteYou found some interesting articles! The one article that really spoke to me was the biker who was stealing the plants from Satchel's Pizza. Who in the right mind steals plants from a pizza place? However, plants seem to be very expensive these days so that might have been the reason. Or, the man may have been trying to steal them and then flip them for some extra cash. But I do agree that is stealing and he should be punished no matter how ridiculous the crime he is committing. Overall, great selections of articles!