BUSINESS
John Chamblissl Managing Editor
770-718-3407 I news@gainesvilletimes.com
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia
Weekend Edition-January 26-27,2024
Ring to restrict police requests for camera footage
Jessica Hill Associated Press
A Ring doorbell camera is seen installed outside a
home in Wolcott, Conn., July 16, 2019.
BY HALELUYA HADERO
Associated Press
NEW YORK — Ama
zon-owned Ring will stop
allowing police depart
ments to request doorbell
camera footage from users,
marking an end to a feature
that has drawn criticism
from privacy advocates.
In a blog post on Wednes
day, Ring said it will
sunset the “Request for
Assistance” tool, which
allows police departments
and other public safety
agencies to request and
receive video captured
by the doorbell cameras
through Ring's Neighbors
app.
The company did not
provide a reason for the
change, which will be effec
tive starting this week.
Eric Kuhn, the head
of Neighbors, said in the
announcement that law
enforcement agencies will
still be able to make public
posts in the Neighbors app.
Police and other agencies
can also still use the app to
“share helpful safety tips,
updates, and community
events,” Kuhn said.
The update is the latest
restriction Ring has made
to police activity on the
Neighbors app following
concerns raised by privacy
watchdogs about the com
pany's relationship with
police departments across
the country.
Critics have stressed the
proliferation of these rela
tionships — and users' abil
ity to report what they see as
suspicious behavior — can
change neighborhoods into
a place of constant sur
veillance and lead to more
instances of racial profiling.
In a bid to increase trans
parency, Ring changed its
policy in 2021 to make
police requests publicly
visible through its Neigh
bors app. Previously, law
enforcement agencies were
able to send Ring owners
who lived near an area of an
active investigation private
emails requesting video
footage.
“Now, Ring hopefully
will altogether be out of
the business of platform
ing casual and warrantless
police requests for foot
age to its users,” Matthew
Guariglia, a senior policy
analyst at the digital rights
group Electronic Frontier
Foundation, said in a state
ment on Wednesday.
Law enforcement agen
cies can still access videos
using a search warrant.
Ring also maintains the
right to share footage with
out user consent in limited
circumstances.
In mid-2022, Ring dis
closed it handed over 11
videos to police without
notifying users that year
due to “exigent or emer
gency” circumstances, one
of the categories that allow
it to share videos without
permission from owners.
However, Guariglia, of the
Electronic Frontier Founda
tion, said the group remains
skeptical about the ability of
police and the company to
determine what is or is not
an emergency.
Last summer, Ring agreed
to pay $5.8 million to settle
with the Federal Trade Com
mission over allegations that
the company let employees
and contractors access user
videos. Furthermore, the
agency said Ring had inad
equate security practices,
which allowed hackers to
control consumer accounts
and cameras. The company
disagrees with those claims.
Oakland In-N-Out to close
— IN-N-OUT
Photos by Jane Tyska Associated Press
Customers line up at the In-N-Out drive-thru off Hegenberger Road in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 22.
In-N-Out will close its only restaurant in Oakland because of a wave of car break-ins, property damage, theft
and armed robberies targeting customers and employees alike, the company announced. The burger joint in a
busy corridor near the Oakland International Airport will close on March 24.
Restaurant says it s shutting down due to theft, robberies
A sign warns patrons of car break-ins at the In-N-Out restaurant off
Hegenberger Road in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, Jan. 22.
Associated Press
OAKLAND — In-N-Out Burger
says it will close its first location in
its 75-year history due to a wave of
car break-ins, property damage, theft
and robberies affecting customers and
employees alike at its only restaurant
in Oakland, California.
The fast-food burger joint in a
busy corridor near Oakland Interna
tional Airport will close on March 24
because even though the company has
taken “repeated steps to create safer
conditions our Customers and Associ
ates are regularly victimized,” Denny
Warnick, In-N-Out's chief operating
officer, said in a statement Wednesday.
“We feel the frequency and sever
ity of the crimes being encountered by
our customers and associates leave us
no alternative,” Warnick said.
Oakland has seen a spike in prop
erty crime and robberies throughout
the city located across the bay from
San Francisco, the San Francisco
Chronicle reported.
The In-N-Out slated for closure is in
a busy business corridor that attracts
travelers headed to the airport and
baseball fans who attend A's games at
the Coliseum. Since 2019, police have
logged 1,335 incidents in the vicinity
of the restaurant on Oakport Street —
more than any other location in Oak
land, the newspaper reported.
That number includes nine robber
ies, two commercial burglaries, four
domestic violence incidents and 1,174
car break-ins, according to Oakland
police data shared with the Chronicle.
The Oakland Police Department did
not immediately respond to a request
for the data and comment from The
Associated Press.
Sean Crawford, who works in a
building around the corner from the
restaurant, told the newspaper that last
year, he saw two people get out of a
car and go from vehicle to vehicle in
the In-N-Out drive-thru lane, robbing
people at gunpoint.
In-N-Out Burger is based in Irvine,
California.
Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao told
KTVU-TV that more police officers
have been assigned to the area but that
more needs to be done.
“As mayor, I have prioritized this
critical gateway to Oakland,” Thao
told the Oakland-based television sta
tion, adding that Oakland police have
three cameras placed to monitor the
area.
Thao's office also provided statistics
to show that property crime on Hegen
berger Road, a major street near the
burger joint that connects the airport
to the Coliseum, trended downward
at the end of 2023, with car break-ins
down 43% from 308 incidents to 176
incidents, and thefts down by 49%.
HP Enterprise
discloses hack
with suspected
ties to Russia
BY FRANKBAJAK
AP Technology Writer
BOSTON — Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed
Wednesday that suspected state-backed Russian hackers
broke into its cloud-based email system and stole data
from cybersecurity and other employees.
The provider of information technology products and
services said in a Securities and Exchange Commission
regulatory filing that it was informed of the intrusion on
Jan. 12. It said it believed the hackers were from Cozy
Bear, a unit of Russia's SVR foreign intelligence service.
Microsoft reported last week that it also discovered an
intrusion of its corporate network on Jan. 12. The Red
mond, Washington, tech giant said the breach began in
late November and also blamed Cozy Bear. It said the
Russian hackers accessed accounts of senior Microsoft
executives as well as cybersecurity and legal employees.
Cozy Bear was behind the SolarWinds breach and
focuses stealth intelligence-gathering on Western govern
ments, IT service providers and think tanks in the U.S.
and Europe.
“Based on our investigation, we now believe that the
threat actor accessed and exfiltrated data beginning in
May 2023 from a small percentage of HPE mailboxes
belonging to individuals in our cybersecurity, go-to-mar-
ket, business segments, and other functions,” HPE, which
is based in Spring, Texas, said in the filing.
Company spokesman Adam R. Bauer, reached by
email, would not say who informed HPE of the breach.
“We're not sharing that information at this time.” Bauer
said the compromised email boxes were running Micro
soft software.
In the filing, HPE said the intrusion was “likely related
to earlier activity by this threat actor, of which we were
notified in June 2023, involving unauthorized access to
and exfiltration of a limited number of SharePoint files.”
SharePoint is part of Microsoft's 365 suite, formerly
known as Office, which includes email, word-processing
and spreadsheet apps.
Bauer said HPE is unable to say whether the breach
of its network was related to the hack that Microsoft dis
closed last week as “we do not have the details of the inci
dent Microsoft disclosed.”
Hewlett Packard
Enterprise
165 Dascomb Road
Elise Amendola Associated Press
Hewlett Packard Enterprise disclosed Wednesday,
Jan. 24, that suspected state-backed Russian
hackers broke into its cloud-based email system
and stole data from cybersecurity and other
employees.
US economy grew at surprisingly strong 3.3% pace for Q1
BY PAUL WISEMAN
AP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON — The
nation's economy grew at an
unexpectedly brisk 3.3% annual
pace from October through
December as Americans showed
a continued willingness to spend
freely despite high interest rates
and price levels that have frustrated
many households.
Thursday's report from the
Commerce Department said the
gross domestic product — the
economy's total output of goods
and services — decelerated from
its sizzling 4.9% growth rate the
previous quarter. But the latest
figures still reflected the surprising
durability of the world's largest
economy, marking the sixth straight
quarter in which GDP has grown at
an annual pace of 2% or more.
Consumers, who account for
about 70% of the total economy,
drove the fourth-quarter growth.
Their spending expanded at a 2.8%
annual rate, for items ranging from
clothing, furniture, recreational
vehicles and other goods to services
like hotels and restaurant meals.
The GDP report also showed that
despite the robust pace of growth
in the October-December quarter,
inflationary measures continued
to ease. Consumer prices rose at a
1.7% annual rate, down from 2.6%
in the third quarter. And excluding
volatile food and energy prices,
so-called core inflation came in at a
2% annual rate.
Those inflation numbers could
reassure the Federal Reserve's
policymakers, who have already
signaled that they expect to cut their
benchmark interest rate three times
in 2024, reversing their 2022-2023
policy of aggressively raising rates
to fight inflation.
‘Although GDP growth came
in hotter than expected in the
fourth quarter, underlying inflation
continued to slow," said Paul
Ashworth, chief North America
economist at Capital Economics.
“The upshot is that an early spring
rate cut by the Fed is still the most
likely outcome.”
The state of the economy is sure
to weigh on people's minds ahead
of the November elections. After
an extended period of gloom,
Americans are starting to feel
somewhat better about inflation
and the economy — a trend that
could sustain consumer spending,
fuel economic growth and
potentially affect voters' decisions.
A measure of consumer sentiment
by the University of Michigan, for
example, has jumped in the past two
months by the most since 1991.
There is growing optimism
that the Fed is on track to deliver
a rare “soft landing” — keeping
borrowing rates high enough to
cool growth, hiring and inflation
yet not so much as to send the
economy into a tailspin. Inflation
touched a four-decade high in 2022
but has since edged steadily lower
without the painful layoffs that most
economists had thought would be
necessary to slow the acceleration
of prices.
The economy has repeatedly
defied predictions that the Fed's
aggressive rate hikes would trigger
a recession. Far from collapsing last
year, the economy accelerated —
expanding 2.5%, up from 1.9% in
2022.
