A selection of the best photos from across the continent and beyond this week.
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Thursday, February 13, 2020
Black History Month Facts of the Day: Feb 13th
On every single day of Black History Month this February, we will provide you with a daily fact that occurred on the same day in a past year in history.
Today’s Black History Month facts focus on the SCLC and the first black professional basketball team.
– On this day in 1818, Absalom Jones, the first African American Episcopal priest ordained in the U.S. , dies.
– On this day in 1982, the first African American performers, the World’s Fair Colored Opera Company, appear at Carnegie Hall.
– On this day in 1923, the first black professional team, “The Renaissance,” organized.
– On this day in 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in New Orleans.
– On this day in 1970, the New York Stock Exchange admitted its first member, Joseph Searles.
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Aetna Coventry Medicare Plans 2020
Coventry Medicare Plans Are Now Sold By Aetna
Beginning in 2020, Aetna will be selling Coventry Medicare plans. While Aetna began integrating Coventry since acquiring it in 2013, this is the first major change announced for 2020.
2020 Aetna Coventry Medicare Plans – The Basics:
With over 39 million people insured, Aetna is one of the top healthcare insurance companies in the country. In addition to receiving an A+ rating from Better Business Bureau (BBB), the company ranked fourth for overall satisfaction in the J.D. Power Medicare Advantage Study (2019).
So, what can you expect if you decide to choose an Aetna Coventry Medicare plan in 2020?
Aetna offers three types of Medicare plans:
- Medicare Advantage plans
- Medicare prescription drug plans (Part D)
- Medicare Supplement insurance plans (Medigap)
Medicare Advantage Plans
Also known as Medicare Part C, Medicare Advantage plans offer the same coverage found with Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) and Part B (medical insurance), along with extra benefits.
Aetna offers a range of standard Medicare Advantage plans which are classified as:
- HMO plans – Aetna’s Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) is quite standard as it provides you with a network of doctors and hospitals you can visit. You will, however, need a referral from a primary care physician for specialist visits as well as hospital care. Moreover, the company offers limited out-of-network benefits with this plan.
- HMO-POS plans – Point-of-service (POS) plans go beyond traditional HMO offerings to allow you to select healthcare providers outside of network. Keep in mind that you’ll need to pay more by not opting for an in-network physician.
- PPO plans – If you wish for the flexibility to choose any healthcare service provider who accepts Medicare, you should consider preferred provider organization (PPO) plans. With this plan, you won’t need a referral from your primary care physician before visiting a specialist or hospital. You can, however, save by choosing a provider in your plan’s network.
Here’s a quick comparison of all three plans based on their offerings:
| HMO Plans | HMO – POS Plans | PPO Plans | |
| Using a network provider is required |
Yes (unless it’s an emergency) |
No
|
No
|
| Having a primary care physician is required | Yes, in most plans | Yes, in some plans | No |
| Getting a referral before seeing a specialist is required | Yes, in most plans | Yes, in some plans | No |
| Monthly premiums | $0 – $178 | $0 – $33 | $0 – $214 |
| Medical deductible | $0 – $1,180 | $0 – $500 | $0 – $1,800 |
| Prescription drug coverage is included | Yes, in most plans | Yes | Yes, in most plans |
| Dental, vision, and hearing coverage | Yes, in most plans | Yes, in most plans | Yes, in most plans |
| ER and urgent care worldwide | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Over-the-counter benefit (to get OTC at no charge) | Yes, in most plans | Yes | Yes, in most plans |
| Transportation benefit (e.g. trips to doctor) | Yes, in some plans | Yes, in some plans | Yes, in some plans |
| Meals at home (to deliver meals home after a hospital stay) | Yes, in some plans | Yes, in some plans | Yes, in some plans |
In addition to the benefits and services listed above, you can opt for the following with a Medicare Advantage plan:
- Resources for Living concierge services
- SilverSneakers fitness membership
- 24/7 access to a registered nurse
- Prescription drug home delivery
Aside from standard plans, Aetna Coventry Medicare offers the dual special needs plan (DSNP) with personalized care to individuals with both Medicare and Medicaid plans. This plan can be customized according to your health needs to include dental, vision and hearing coverage, wellness programs like acupuncture therapy, and meals after a hospital stay.
You may qualify for assistance for paying for your prescription drugs if your total income is less than $18,735 (or $25,365 for married couples), and your assets amount to less than $14,390 ($28,720 for couples).
DSNP, however, is limited to 14 states, including Florida, Texas, Kansas, and Virginia. Call your local Aetna Coventry Medicare to check if it’s offered in your state.
Ready to find a Medicare Advantage plan? We recommend speaking with a licensed insurance agent to understand all of the coverage and benefits options available to you.
SilverScript Part D Coverage
As a result of CVS Health acquiring Aetna, SilverScript became part of Aenta’s Medicare portfolio. SilverScript is one of the largest Medicare Part D insurers according to a CMS Monthly Enrollment by Plan report. It serves over 6 million Medicare policy holders, offering them convenience, round-the-clock customer service, and access to pharmacies nationwide.
In 2020, Aetna Coventry Medicare will offer two standalone prescription drug plans (PDPs) from SilverScript:
- SilverScript Choice – This affordable prescription drug plan offers coverage for a wide range of generic and brand-name drugs. It offers $0 copays on Tier 1 drugs at 28,000 preferred pharmacies out of 65,000 pharmacies in total. You can also avail mail delivery and $0 copays on 90-day supplies of Tier 1 drugs.
- SilverScript Plus – This plan is more suitable for individuals who take more medications and/or are concerned with Medicare’s coverage gap. In addition to offering a $0 deductible on all tiers, it offers more drug coverage, immediate access to copay and coinsurance benefits, and up to $435 in savings on deductible costs.
If you’re worried about costs, check to see if you qualify for the Medicare Part D Extra Help to lower your premiums and costs. Also known as low-income subsidy (LIS), this program offered by the Social Security Administration helps individuals with limited incomes. It covers 25%, 50%, 75% or 100% of your monthly Part D plan premium.
If you’re already enrolled in a prescription drug plan or a Medicare Advantage prescription drug plan (MA-PD), call 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) to check if you qualify for the Extra Help program.
Medicare Supplement Insurance Plans (Medigap)
Medigap, or Medicare Supplement insurance plans, are also offered through Aetna. Medigap plans complement Original Medicare coverage while helping you pay for costs of healthcare products and services such as:
- 20% of Medicare-approved costs or copayments for outpatient services
- Hospitalization per day coinsurance along with coverage for 365 days after benefits end
- First three pints of blood annually
- Part A coinsurance for hospice services
- Skilled nursing facility care
- Foreign travel emergency
To apply, you need to be 65 or older (in some states, under 65 due to disability or end-stage renal disease), enrolled in Medicare Parts A and B, and live in a state which offers this policy.
Already Have a Coventry Medicare Plan?
If you’ve already enrolled in a Medicare plan from Coventry, you may have several questions on how the new changes affect you. You can talk to an Aetna Coventry licensed agent on 1-855-423-5971 (TTY: 711) between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., seven days a week. Alternatively, you can request a call or schedule an in-person visit.
To help you get all the answers you need, here are some of the important questions you should ask:
- Does the latest plan meet your needs better than your current one?
- Will the changes affect your current plan and the services you use?
- Will your drugs be covered?
- Will there be changes to the tier and cost-sharing of the drugs you need?
- How much can you save on out-of-pocket costs for the services and drugs you use?
- If you plan to switch plans, is there a deadline for doing so?
The Bottom Line
With so much to offer, Aetna Coventry Medicare plans may be just the thing to help you get the healthcare coverage you need without worrying about rising costs. Make sure to do your homework and get a quote from a licensed Medicare insurance agent before selecting a plan.
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California school district names elementary school after Michelle Obama
Michelle Obama’s name will grace the building of a second California school.
What began as a proposal from the PTA to the school board and grew to widespread support from parents, students and community officials, the West Contra Costa Unified School District Board in Richmond, California voted unanimously to change the name of Wilson Elementary School to Michelle Obama Elementary School, according to CNN.
READ MORE: Michelle Obama’s high school puts her name on new multimillion-dollar athletic complex
The West Contra Costa school becomes the second school in California to be named after our forever FLOTUS. The first school to be named Michelle Obama Elementary is in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“We wanted to choose someone on a global level,” Wilson PTA President Maisha Cole told CNN. “With a new school and new learning environment, we want our children to think beyond Richmond, to think beyond California, and remind them that they can make a difference locally and globally.”
The school will also be rebuilt for the 2020-2021 school year.
“We have the opportunity to have a beautiful new school named after a person who really represents our diversity and values,” Principal Claudia Velez added to CNN. “Our school is diverse, modern and innovative, and the things that the kids will be doing will prepare them for a very strong and successful future in whatever career they choose.”
This has so far been a banner year for Michelle Obama.
In January, she won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for her audio recording of her bestselling memoir, Becoming. Since it was released in 2018, Becoming has sold more than 12 million units worldwide and has been published in 46 languages. The audiobook has also been on the New York Times Audio Nonfiction Best Seller List for 14 straight months since its publication, including 7 months in the #1 slot.
And she along with her husband, our forever President Barack Obama, can also add Oscar winner to their long list of accomplishments.
READ MORE: Barack and Michelle Obama’s first Netflix film wins Oscar for Best Documentary
Last Sunday, American Factory took home the Academy Award in the category of “Best Documentary Feature” on Sunday night, besting The Edge of Democracy and For Sama. In American Factory, filmmakers Steven Bognar, Julia Eichert and Jeff Eichert followed the story of an Ohio factory that was reopened by a Chinese billionaire inside of an abandoned General Motors plant.
The Obamas’ production company, Higher Ground, produced the documentary.
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Black Portland man awarded settlement in racial discrimination lawsuit
A Black man from Portland recently won a racial discrimination settlement against the city of West Linn after he was unlawfully surveilled at work by police and arrested as a favor to his former boss.
Michael Fesser, 48, was recently awarded $600,000 by the City of West Linn— one of the largest racial discrimination lawsuits ever paid out by the state of Oregon.
READ MORE: Detroit man who won a racial discrimination settlement, now suing bank for not cashing the check
In 2018, Fesser also settled a lawsuit against his former employer, A&B Towing of Southeast Portland, for $415,000. Fesser had filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Portland against the city and West Linn Police Department for false arrest, malicious prosecution, defamation, and invasion of privacy, saying a 2017 incident caused him emotional distress and economic hardship, according to The Oregonian.
Three years ago, Fesser was working for A&B Towing when he raised concerns about racial harassment to his boss, Eric Benson, who owned the company at the time. Fesser reported that his co-workers called him racist slurs and asked his opinion on a Confederate flag draped from a pickup truck in the company lot.
Instead of investigating those claims, Benson instead contacted former West Linn Police Chief Terry Timeus, his fishing buddy, to see what could be done. West Linn is a suburb of Portland.
Then, Benson made an unsubstantiated claim to Timeus that Fesser was stealing money from car auctions. Fesser managed the company’s car auctions at the time, and received and handled payments from bidders. Benson told Timeus that his company was short money from the auctions but Portland police had not responded to his request for an investigation, The Oregonian reports.
Timeus instructed officers to secretly videotape Fesser at work, which they pulled off without a court order or warrant, with the help of one of Benson’s associates who used an audio app called “Swann View.” Benson watched the surveillance feed and relayed information back to West Linn Detective Tony Reeves, according to The Oregonian.
Ultimately, Reeves had Fesser arrested without cause, although Reeves later admitted the video recording showed no crime was committed.
“My game my rules,” Reeves wrote to Benson, according to The Oregonian.
READ MORE: Portland woman kicked out of restaurant for making whites uncomfortable files lawsuit
Paul Buchanan, Fesser’s lawyer, said the case proves that good ole’ boy racism is still around.
“This case vividly illustrates a ready willingness on the part of the West Linn police to abuse the enormous power they have been given, and a casual, jocular, old-boy-style racism of the kind that we Oregonians tend to want to associate with the Deep South rather than our own institutions,” Buchanan told The Oregonian.
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Maryland legislators unveil bronze statues of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass
In the same room where slavery was abolished in Maryland in 1864, life-sized bronze statues of Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were unveiled by state legislators.
During a ceremony on Monday night in the Old House Chamber, a special joint session of the Maryland General Assembly dedicated the statues.
READ MORE: Harriet Tubman Museum set to open in 2020 in New Jersey
“A mark of true greatness is shining light on a system of oppression and having the courage to change it,” House Speaker Adrienne Jones, Maryland’s first Black female House speaker, said in prepared remarks, according to ABC News. “The statues are a reminder that our laws aren’t always right or just. But there’s always room for improvement.”
Tubman and Douglass were both born on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The statues show Tubman and Douglass in the same dress and age that they would have been in 1864, ABC News reported.
Just as statues of the abolitionists were celebrated in the statement, in recent years Maryland has removed the statue of Roger B. Taney, the U.S. Supreme Court justice from Maryland who wrote the 1857 Dred Scott decision upholding slavery and denying the right of Black Americans to be citizens. That ruling established the “separate but equal” doctrine that stood for decades before the Brown v. Board of Education decision upended it in 1954.
Maryland officials voted to remove Taney’s statue a few days after Heather Heyer, 32, was killed in Charlottesville, Virginia following a protest by white nationalists upset that a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was being removed. Heyer was supporting the removal of Lee’s statue when a man rammed his car through a crowd of people, plowing her down.
READ MORE: OPINION: It’s time for Mayor Pete Buttigieg to resign and shut down his 2020 presidential campaign
And last month, the Maryland Senate removed a portrait of a white governor who had been on the wall for 115 years and replaced it with a painting of Verda Freeman Welcome, who was elected to the Maryland State Senate in 1962 becoming America’s first Black female state senator. Welcome’s portrait is the first of a Black person to be put up on the walls of the Maryland Senate.
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Sommelier Titus Green is Breaking Barriers in the Wine Industry
Sommeliers possess unique knowledge and experience that allows them to pair food and wine with unmatched skill. While all must undergo rigorous preparation, few become credentialed by the renowned Court of Master Sommeliers, which sets the gold standard of excellence for beverage service within the hospitality industry with integrity, exemplary knowledge, and humility. Even fewer are black. Titus Green is one such extraordinary sommelier.
BLACK ENTERPRISE caught up with Green to explore what it means to be a sommelier and highlight his unique experiences in the food and wine industry.
Titus Green, Sommelier at Washington DC’s Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse
Black Enterprise: Can you explain what a sommelier is and how you became one?
Green: An academic definition of a sommelier is someone who is a trained and knowledgeable wine professional (normally working in fine restaurants) and who specializes in all aspects of wine service, as well as wine and food pairing. In fine dining, the role is far more specialized—it’s not the same as a “wine waiter.”
I became a sommelier because I’ve long had a passion for exploring this ancient beverage and truly enjoy helping others to do the same. I fell in love the hard way—a trial by fire. Four years ago, I took a professional opportunity with Del Frisco’s Double Eagle steakhouse in Washington D.C. When I examined the wine list, I noticed it was two inches thick, 40 pages long, and approximately 2,000 bottles in variety! Intimidation set in almost immediately. So, instead of capitulating to fear, I decided to strengthen my knowledge and understanding of wine.
I began by researching the countless authors, articles, websites, and social media sites where I could absorb engaging content. I took my self-study seriously and applied myself. Eventually, I sat for The Court of Master of Sommeliers exam and passed it. But my enthusiasm for studying did not end with my pinning ceremony. I am a true believer in lifelong learning. Reading daily and applying the skillset makes learning fun and captivating for me. Along with that, just talking to friends and mentors about wine supports the learning process. I’ve also found that one of the most vital components of learning is finding opportunities to taste wine and develop my own playbook. This helps me to expand my understanding of terroir, tasting structure, and pairings as a matter of course.
Titus Green with Master Sommelier Fred Dame and Del Frisco’s Double Eagle DC wine staff
What were some of your biggest professional challenges and how did you overcome them?
Some of my biggest professional challenges included finding ways to digest, dissect, and store wine-related information, along with allocating time to do all of the above. One of the ways I overcame these challenges was learning to ‘study’ the information in multiple ways: writing, drawing, singing, listening, reading, referencing pictures, maps, etc. Additionally, I found the best way to work with time constraints was to just keep absorbing knowledge on a daily basis and then set daily and weekly goals. I also found that working like I had a final exam each week was a solid technique that helped me make excellent use of my time.
We’re assuming you have access to a great deal of wine. About how much time do you spend tasting during the week?
It takes me about 2 minutes to fully feel like I have tasted or grasped a wine. That said, I usually end up ‘tasting’ and enjoying a few 6-ounce glasses during a focused wine study session. I love wine, so I will taste anytime I get the chance, which amounts, on average, to approximately 2-3 hours per week. Sometimes it’s in a classroom format, other times it’s more or less “on the fly” in more casual settings for only a few minutes. I specifically take time out each week to taste and blind taste wines with colleagues, which gives me access to 40+ wines per week.
Titus Green executing private cognac tasting for VIP clients
Have you ever felt different or been treated differently as a black man in this industry?
There have been plenty of times where I did not feel differently, where I’ve felt completely comfortable in my own skin as an accomplished expert in the room. There have also been other times where I have certainly felt awkward and uncomfortable—like I was an anomaly. What I have learned over time is to approach cynics (and the internal critic) this way: Once I get suited-up, nothing else matters. I leave my pride (and doubt!) at the door and let the knowledge, skill, and experience do all the talking.
What’s your best advice to someone interested in becoming a sommelier or entering the food and wine industry in a professional capacity?
I’m in love with what I do. If you have a passion for something you love, don’t waste time thinking about it. Do your research and pursue it. If wine and food are what drive you, find places and people who can inspire you and push you to new heights. Opportunities in wine are virtually endless and with so many facets and ways to explore it, there is a place for almost every conceivable hospitality professional. D.C. is growing as a foodie city and making leaps and bounds toward becoming a wine capital, so if you’re in the area, you’re going to be inundated with opportunities. Also, remember that there are vast resources available, inclusive of literature, courses, and websites that you can leverage to get a head start on your wine lover’s journey—today. Take advantage of them. Most people don’t. Cheers!
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Lynn Whitfield endorses Joe Biden for president because public service is his ‘North star’
I grew up in Baton Rouge at a time that feels very different from the world we know today. In my family, public service was woven into everything we did. We’d sit around the kitchen table and talk about politics at just about every meal. I grew up around people who were aware that you’re supposed to serve. It was a part of my training.
And even as I was developing a love of entertainment, watching legends like Harry Belafonte, Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier light up the stage and screen, I was inspired by their activism as much as their acting.
READ MORE: Symone Sanders viewed as Millennial force for candidates
It helped that my mother was a volunteer driver for the Baton Rouge bus boycott that preceded Montgomery and was an active member of the NAACP, like my aunt, whose name appeared on the longest-running school desegregation suit in the country. And my grandfather was a country doctor whose commitment to serving the community was so great that when patients couldn’t afford his services, he would take produce for payment and do all that he could for free. Because we are all in it together.
In the era of Donald Trump, that kind of thinking can sometimes feel like ancient history. But there’s one candidate in this race who understands the fabric that used to hold American communities like mine together — and can unite our country once again.
For me, that candidate is Vice President Joe Biden, because public service has been the constant in his life too.
READ MORE: (WATCH) Congress Members Respond to President Donald Trump’s Tweets
Since he first entered the Senate at 29 years-old, through tragedy after tragedy, Joe has never lost sight of his North Star: serving the country he loves.
There’s no moment that better captures his spirit of service than the day he stood at Barack Obama’s side as the Affordable Care Act was signed into law—a victory for Americans that was more than a century in the making.
Because of the ACA, more than 100 million Americans no longer have to worry that their insurance company will deny coverage or charge higher premiums just because they have a pre-existing condition—like cancer, diabetes, heart disease or depression. There are no more annual or lifetime limits on coverage, and young people can now stay on their parents’ plans until they’re 26 years old.
However, ever since that historic day, the Republican Party has done everything in its power to undermine these protections. President Trump is running on eliminating them altogether.
READ MORE: Trump courts Black voters, but opposition remains deep
That’s why Democrats need to nominate someone who can not only defeat President Trump but build on the Affordable Care Act when he does. Joe has the best plan to do just that. Rather than starting from scratch and getting rid of private insurance, as some Democrats are proposing, Joe would build on the ACA by providing Americans with more choices, reducing health care costs, and making our health care system much more simple to use.
At a time when African-American women are still three times more likely to die in childbirth in the wealthiest country on the planet, we cannot afford to wait to make sure our health care system is not only more effective but more just.
I know this issue is personal to Joe. He has experienced devastating losses in his life, and since he left the White House, he has continued his work to end cancer as we know it. Like his son Beau, my father and aunt succumbed to this dreadful disease, while my mother and another aunt are, thankfully, cancer survivors. More than his spearheading research, he understands that too many Americans lie awake at night, wondering how they will continue to make ends meet if one of their loved ones becomes ill. And just like my grandfather, Joe is committed to making sure no one goes bankrupt because they get sick.
All of our progress on health care, and all the other issues we care about, depend on one thing above all else: our ability to cast our vote. And the long struggle for civil rights and voting rights is what first inspired Joe Biden to run for office. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was an important first step in our nation finally living up to the promise of its founding, but that was only the beginning of the fight. As Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Joe successfully led the fight to extend its protections for 25 years in 1982.
This fight is what inspired my family to get involved in game-changing civil rights efforts in our community when I was younger because we could all see Jim Crow was still alive and well in Louisiana. Unfortunately, as we know all too well across the country—and especially in the South—not enough has changed since then. Our hard-won rights have been under constant assault from the Supreme Court on down to state and local election officials.
As president, Joe Biden will stand up to these attacks, and restore the Voting Rights Act, because he understands that every American, no matter what they look like or what zip code they live in, deserves a voice in our democracy. He will make it easier to exercise our sacred right to vote, count every vote equally, and make sure those votes cannot be undermined by anyone aiming to meddle in our political process—whether foreign or domestic.
The right to vote is the right upon which all others depend, but it can only be preserved for as long as we are willing to fight to keep it. So in the face of Donald Trump, and a political system that all too often feels like it’s spiraling out of control, we must hold fast to hope. To that end, there’s a poem that was greatly loved and embodied by my hero, Ruby Dee. In the coming election, I’ll be keeping it in mind:
The world is wrong, let’s right it. The battle is hard, let’s fight it. The road is rough, let’s clear it. The future vast, don’t fear it. Is faith asleep? Let’s wake it. Because today is ours, let’s take it.
I believe that the moment Joe Biden enters the White House, today can be ours once more.
It’s just on us to take it.
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MIT researchers identify security vulnerabilities in voting app
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using internet and mobile technology to increase access to the voting process. At the same time, computer security experts caution that paper ballots are the only secure means of voting.
Now, MIT researchers are raising another concern: They say they have uncovered security vulnerabilities in a mobile voting application that was used during the 2018 midterm elections in West Virginia. Their security analysis of the application, called Voatz, pinpoints a number of weaknesses, including the opportunity for hackers to alter, stop, or expose how an individual user has voted. Additionally, the researchers found that Voatz’s use of a third-party vendor for voter identification and verification poses potential privacy issues for users.
The findings are described in a new technical paper by Michael Specter, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) and a member of MIT’s Internet Policy Research Initiative, and James Koppel, also a graduate student in EECS. The research was conducted under the guidance of Daniel Weitzner, a principal research scientist at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and founding director of the Internet Policy Research Initiative.
After uncovering these security vulnerabilities, the researchers disclosed their findings to the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA). The researchers, along with the Boston University/MIT Technology Law Clinic, worked in close coordination with election security officials within CISA to ensure that impacted elections officials and the vendor were aware of the findings before the research was made public. This included preparing written summaries of the findings with proof-of-concept code, and direct discussions with affected elections officials on calls arranged by CISA.
In addition to its use in the 2018 West Virginia elections, the app was deployed in elections in Denver, Oregon, and Utah, as well as at the 2016 Massachusetts Democratic Convention and the 2016 Utah Republican Convention. Voatz was not used during the 2020 Iowa caucuses.
The findings underscore the need for transparency in the design of voting systems, according to the researchers.
“We all have an interest in increasing access to the ballot, but in order to maintain trust in our elections system, we must assure that voting systems meet the high technical and operation security standards before they are put in the field,” says Weitzner. “We cannot experiment on our democracy.”
“The consensus of security experts is that running a secure election over the internet is not possible today,” adds Koppel. “The reasoning is that weaknesses anywhere in a large chain can give an adversary undue influence over an election, and today’s software is shaky enough that the existence of unknown exploitable flaws is too great a risk to take.”
Breaking down the results
The researchers were initially inspired to perform a security analysis of Voatz based on Specter’s research with Ronald Rivest, Institute Professor at MIT; Neha Narula, director of the MIT Digital Currency Initiative; and Sunoo Park SM ’15, PhD ’18 , exploring the feasibility of using blockchain systems in elections. According to the researchers, Voatz claims to use a permissioned blockchain to ensure security, but has not released any source code or public documentation for how their system operates.
Specter, who co-teaches an MIT Independent Activities Period course founded by Koppel that is focused on reverse engineering software, broached the idea of reverse engineering Voatz’s application, in an effort to better understand how its system worked. To ensure that they did not interfere with any ongoing elections or expose user records, Specter and Koppel reverse-engineered the application and then created a model of Voatz’s server.
They found that an adversary with remote access to the device can alter or discover a user’s vote, and that the server, if hacked, could easily change those votes. “It does not appear that the app’s protocol attempts to verify [genuine votes] with the back-end blockchain,” Specter explains.
“Perhaps most alarmingly, we found that a passive network adversary, like your internet service provider, or someone nearby you if you’re on unencrypted Wi-Fi, could detect which way you voted in some configurations of the election. Worse, more aggressive attackers could potentially detect which way you’re going to vote and then stop the connection based on that alone.”
In addition to detecting vulnerabilities with Voatz’s voting process, Specter and Koppel found that the app poses privacy issues for users. As the app uses an external vendor for voter ID verification, a third party could potentially access a voter’s photo, driver’s license data, or other forms of identification, if that vendor’s platform isn’t also secure.
“Though Voatz’s privacy policy does talk about sending some information to third parties, as far as we can tell the fact that any third party is getting the voter’s driver’s license and selfie isn’t explicitly mentioned,” Specter notes.
Calls for increased openness
Specter and Koppel say that their findings point to the need for openness when it comes to election administration, in order to ensure the integrity of the election process. Currently, they note, the election process in states that use paper ballots is designed to be transparent, and citizens and political party representatives are given opportunities to observe the voting process.
In contrast, Koppel notes, “Voatz’s app and infrastructure were completely closed-source; we were only able to get access to the app itself.
“I think this type of analysis is extremely important. Right now, there’s a drive to make voting more accessible, by using internet and mobile-based voting systems. The problem here is that sometimes those systems aren’t made by people who have expertise in keeping voting systems secure, and they’re deployed before they can get proper review,” says Matthew Green, an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute. In the case of Voatz, he adds, “It looks like there were many good intentions here, but the result lacks key features that would protect a voter and protect the integrity of elections.”
Going forward, the researchers caution that software developers should prove their systems are as secure as paper ballots.
“The biggest issue is transparency,” says Specter. “When you have part of the election that is opaque, that is not viewable, that is not public, that has some sort of proprietary component, that part of the system is inherently suspect and needs to be put under a lot of scrutiny.”
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Wednesday, February 12, 2020
Understanding law in everyday life
Toward the end of her Killian Lecture at MIT on Tuesday afternoon, Susan Silbey showed the audience a photo of a lawn chair on a city street, being used to save a parking spot during a snowstorm.
That’s a familiar image to Boston-area residents. But in this case, the picture had a particular symbolism. Silbey’s scholarship has helped establish a groundbreaking framework for thinking about the interaction of legal codes and civic attitudes. So when people use chairs to hold parking spots, which is illegal, it reflects one specific attitude toward the law, which Silbey helped codify: that the law is there to be negotiated, challenged, and defeated.
That is not the only view people have of the law. Some people regard the law as impartial and just, and others believe the entire legal system is oppressive. But to endure, Silbey emphasized in her remarks, a legal system cannot simply be regarded as being “outside of everyday life. … It must be located as securely within, to be powerful, to be effective, to be a rule of law.”
And, she added, “it must be experienced in property relations, in market exchanges, in contracts … and in chairs, holding parking spots in newly shoveled, snowy streets.”
Thus even little legal evasions, as they play out over time, “are evidence of law’s endurance in everyday life,” noted Silbey, who is the Leon and Anne Goldberg Professor of Humanities, Sociology, and Anthropology, and a professor of behavioral and policy sciences at the Sloan School of Management.
Silbey outlined her influential ideas on Tuesday, discussing her scholarship while accepting MIT’s James R. Killian, Jr. Faculty Achievement Award, the highest such honor at the Institute. The award was established in 1971 to honor Killian, who served as MIT’s 10th president, from 1948 to 1959, and chair of the MIT Corporation, from 1959 to 1971.
“I find it very difficult to find the exact words to express how deeply and truly honored I am by this award,” Silbey said, to an audience of about 250 people in MIT’s Room 10-250. “I thank you.”
Studying her father’s job
The roots of Silbey’s work, she recounted for the audience, go back to her childhood, when her father, a enforcement supervisor in New York State’s labor department, would take her to his office in lower Manhattan. He seemed to know the legal status of every nearby business — whether they had underpaid workers, committed other infractions, or complied with the law.
“It only dawned on me a few years ago that I have spent my entire career studying my father’s work,” Silbey said, adding that the key question she sought to address has been, “How do we empirically observe the rule of law?”
Indeed, Silbey added, “If we think about law as statues, constitutions, or even courtrooms and juries, it cannot tell us what the law means to most people.”
For much of the lecture, Silbey discussed the influential three-part typology of attitudes toward the law that she developed with Patricia Ewick, a professor of sociology at Clark University. Silbey and Ewick introduced their concepts in the 1998 book, “The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life.”
As Silbey and Ewick see it, people generally adopt one of three main postures vis-Ã -vis the legal system: They can be “before” the law, “with” the law, or “against” the law.
Those who are “before” the law follow the rules closely and regard the legal system as a stable, impartial edifice.
“Legality is imagined as an objective realm of disinterested action, removed and distant from the lives of individuals,” Silbey said. “This is also the law’s story about itself, of its own awesome grandeur.”
By contrast, people who are “with” the law regard the legal system as a game, with victory possible through skill, experience, good lawyers, and other resources.
In this view, Silbey remarks, “There is no [objective] justice — you either win, or you lose.”
Finally, those who are “against” the law view the entire system as an expression of unequal power, and adopt a posture of resistance to it.
For these people, Silbey said, “legality is understood to be arbitrary and capricious,” although, she noted, people who are “against” the law are “rarely cynical” about it. They believe in the possibility of justice, but think the system denies it to them.
Significantly, Silbey added, “We need all three to explain law’s enduring force and organizing presence.” We cannot plausibly claim the law is always impartial, but it cannot sustain legitimacy if always regarded as a game.
Silbey was introduced by MIT chair of the faculty Rick Danheiser, who formally presented the Killian Award to her, telling Silbey it had been granted for “your insatiable curiosity, your extraordinary record of professional accomplishment, your generous mentorship, and last but not least … your important leadership contributions at MIT.”
Silbey earned her BA in political science from Brooklyn College and her MA and PhD in political science from the University of Chicago. She was a faculty member in Wellesley College’s Department of Sociology from 1974 through 2000, when she joined the MIT faculty.
At MIT, Silbey has also extended her research into studies of gender roles in science and engineering, while also extensively evaluating issues of compliance with the law in laboratory settings.
Silbey’s record of service at the Institute includes tenures as chair of the MIT faculty, from 2017 to 2019; secretary of the faculty; and head of the anthropology section, from 2006 to 2014. In 2017, she even received a “Rookie Advisor” award for excellence in advising first-year undergraduates.
In her closing remarks, Silbey made a point of thanking her faculty and staff colleagues, co-authors, family members, and particularly “my beloved late husband, Robert Silbey, who’s always been there for my entire life, more than 50 years.” Robert Silbey was an MIT faculty member from 1966 to 2011. A professor of chemistry, he served as dean of the School of Science from 2000 to 2007.
“He is the reason I have been at MIT,” Silbey added. “These years have been marvelous. I used to say to him daily … I have never been happier in my work than the years I have been at MIT, capped by this most auspicious award. And I thank you very much.”
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“Sensorized” skin helps soft robots find their bearings
For the first time, MIT researchers have enabled a soft robotic arm to understand its configuration in 3D space, by leveraging only motion and position data from its own “sensorized” skin.
Soft robots constructed from highly compliant materials, similar to those found in living organisms, are being championed as safer, and more adaptable, resilient, and bioinspired alternatives to traditional rigid robots. But giving autonomous control to these deformable robots is a monumental task because they can move in a virtually infinite number of directions at any given moment. That makes it difficult to train planning and control models that drive automation.
Traditional methods to achieve autonomous control use large systems of multiple motion-capture cameras that provide the robots feedback about 3D movement and positions. But those are impractical for soft robots in real-world applications.
In a paper being published in the journal IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, the researchers describe a system of soft sensors that cover a robot’s body to provide “proprioception” — meaning awareness of motion and position of its body. That feedback runs into a novel deep-learning model that sifts through the noise and captures clear signals to estimate the robot’s 3D configuration. The researchers validated their system on a soft robotic arm resembling an elephant trunk, that can predict its own position as it autonomously swings around and extends.
The sensors can be fabricated using off-the-shelf materials, meaning any lab can develop their own systems, says Ryan Truby, a postdoc in the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Laboratory (CSAIL) who is co-first author on the paper along with CSAIL postdoc Cosimo Della Santina.
“We’re sensorizing soft robots to get feedback for control from sensors, not vision systems, using a very easy, rapid method for fabrication,” he says. “We want to use these soft robotic trunks, for instance, to orient and control themselves automatically, to pick things up and interact with the world. This is a first step toward that type of more sophisticated automated control.”
One future aim is to help make artificial limbs that can more dexterously handle and manipulate objects in the environment. “Think of your own body: You can close your eyes and reconstruct the world based on feedback from your skin,” says co-author Daniela Rus, director of CSAIL and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. “We want to design those same capabilities for soft robots.”
Shaping soft sensors
A longtime goal in soft robotics has been fully integrated body sensors. Traditional rigid sensors detract from a soft robot body’s natural compliance, complicate its design and fabrication, and can cause various mechanical failures. Soft-material-based sensors are a more suitable alternative, but require specialized materials and methods for their design, making them difficult for many robotics labs to fabricate and integrate in soft robots.
While working in his CSAIL lab one day looking for inspiration for sensor materials, Truby made an interesting connection. “I found these sheets of conductive materials used for electromagnetic interference shielding, that you can buy anywhere in rolls,” he says. These materials have “piezoresistive” properties, meaning they change in electrical resistance when strained. Truby realized they could make effective soft sensors if they were placed on certain spots on the trunk. As the sensor deforms in response to the trunk’s stretching and compressing, its electrical resistance is converted to a specific output voltage. The voltage is then used as a signal correlating to that movement.
But the material didn’t stretch much, which would limit its use for soft robotics. Inspired by kirigami — a variation of origami that includes making cuts in a material — Truby designed and laser-cut rectangular strips of conductive silicone sheets into various patterns, such as rows of tiny holes or crisscrossing slices like a chain link fence. That made them far more flexible, stretchable, “and beautiful to look at,” Truby says.
Credit: Ryan L. Truby, MIT CSAIL
The researchers’ robotic trunk comprises three segments, each with four fluidic actuators (12 total) used to move the arm. They fused one sensor over each segment, with each sensor covering and gathering data from one embedded actuator in the soft robot. They used “plasma bonding,” a technique that energizes a surface of a material to make it bond to another material. It takes roughly a couple hours to shape dozens of sensors that can be bonded to the soft robots using a handheld plasma-bonding device.
Credit: Ryan L. Truby, MIT CSAIL
“Learning” configurations
As hypothesized, the sensors did capture the trunk’s general movement. But they were really noisy. “Essentially, they’re nonideal sensors in many ways,” Truby says. “But that’s just a common fact of making sensors from soft conductive materials. Higher-performing and more reliable sensors require specialized tools that most robotics labs do not have.”
To estimate the soft robot’s configuration using only the sensors, the researchers built a deep neural network to do most of the heavy lifting, by sifting through the noise to capture meaningful feedback signals. The researchers developed a new model to kinematically describe the soft robot’s shape that vastly reduces the number of variables needed for their model to process.
In experiments, the researchers had the trunk swing around and extend itself in random configurations over approximately an hour and a half. They used the traditional motion-capture system for ground truth data. In training, the model analyzed data from its sensors to predict a configuration, and compared its predictions to that ground truth data which was being collected simultaneously. In doing so, the model “learns” to map signal patterns from its sensors to real-world configurations. Results indicated, that for certain and steadier configurations, the robot’s estimated shape matched the ground truth.
Next, the researchers aim to explore new sensor designs for improved sensitivity and to develop new models and deep-learning methods to reduce the required training for every new soft robot. They also hope to refine the system to better capture the robot’s full dynamic motions.
Currently, the neural network and sensor skin are not sensitive to capture subtle motions or dynamic movements. But, for now, this is an important first step for learning-based approaches to soft robotic control, Truby says: “Like our soft robots, living systems don’t have to be totally precise. Humans are not precise machines, compared to our rigid robotic counterparts, and we do just fine.”
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