An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Voters in Wyoming's capital city on Tuesday are faced with deciding whether to elect a mayoral candidate who has proposed to let an artificial intelligence bot run the local government. Earlier this year, the candidate in question -- Victor Miller -- filed for him and his customized ChatGPT bot, named Vic (Virtual Integrated Citizen), to run for mayor of Cheyenne, Wyoming. He has vowed to helm the city's business with the AI bot if he wins. Miller has said that the bot is capable of processing vast amounts of data and making unbiased decisions. In what AI experts say is a first for US political campaigns, Miller and Vic have told local news outlets in interviews that their form of proposed governance is a "hybrid approach." The AI bot told Your Wyoming Link that its role would be to provide data-driven insights and innovative solutions for Cheyenne. Meanwhile, Vic said, the human elected office contender, Miller, would serve as the official mayor if chosen by voters and would ensure that "all actions are legally and practically executed."

"It's about blending AI's capabilities with human judgment to effectively lead Cheyenne," the bot said. The bot said it did not have political affiliations -- and its goal is to "focus on data-driven practical solutions that benefit the community." During a meet-and-greet this summer, the Washington Post reported that the AI bot was asked how it would go about making decisions "according to human factor, involving humans, and having to make a decision that affects so many people." "Making decisions that affect many people requires a careful balance of data-driven insights and human empathy," the AI bot responded, according to an audio recording obtained and published by the Washington Post. Vic then ran through a multi-part plan that suggested using AI technology to gather data on public opinion and feedback from the community, holding town hall meetings to listen to residents' concerns, consulting experts in relevant fields, evaluating the human impact of the decision and providing transparency about the decision-making. According to Wyoming Public Media, Miller has also pledged that he would donate half the mayoral salary to a non-profit if he is elected. The other half could be used to continually improve the AI bot, he said. Miller has faced some pushback since announcing his mayoral campaign. Wyoming's Secretary of State, Chuck Gray, launched an investigation to determine if the AI bot could legally appear on the ballot, citing state law that says only real people that are registered to vote can run for office. City officials clarified that Miller is the actual candidate, so he was allowed to continue. However, Laramie County ruled that only Miller's name would appear on the ballot, not the bot's.

OpenAI later shut down Miller's account, but he quickly created a new one and continued his campaign.

The Department of Justice has amended its antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation, alleging that Ticketmaster's introduction of nontransferable tickets and the SafeTix system was primarily intended to stifle competition from rival platforms like StubHub and SeatGeek, rather than merely to reduce ticket fraud. "The complaint, which was amended on Monday after 10 states joined the DOJ's lawsuit, cites internal Ticketmaster documents obtained during the legal process," notes The Verge. From the report: In 2019, Ticketmaster rolled out SafeTix, which replaced static barcodes on electronic tickets with encrypted barcodes that refresh every 15 seconds. Ticketmaster marketed SafeTix as a way of reducing ticket fraud, but the complaint claims reducing competition was "a primary motivation" for the new ticketing system. [...] The amended complaint includes new information about Ticketmaster's dominance of the events market. One internal Live Nation document cited in the complaint notes that Ticketmaster is the primary ticketer for approximately 80 percent of arenas across the country that host NBA or NHL teams. As of 2022, Live Nation-promoted events accounted for 70 percent of all amphitheater shows across the country, according to internal Live Nation events mentioned in the complaint.

The DOJ alleges that because of Ticketmaster's conduct, consumers have "paid more and continue to pay more for fees relating to tickets to live events than they would have paid in a free and open competitive market." The exact amount of monetary harm is still unknown, the complaint claims, and will require discovery from Ticketmaster and Live Nation's books, as well as from its third-party competitors.

Dozens of VPN apps have vanished from Brazil's Apple App Store, including popular services NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark. Simone Magliano, Head of Research at Top10VPN, reports that at least 30 VPN apps have become unavailable, though their store listings remained visible. Proton VPN, a major free VPN provider, confirmed the App Store issues, speculating it could be "a bug, or Apple implementing a secret censorship order." The move follows X, formerly Twitter, announcing over the weekend that it was shutting its Brazil operations, citing a "secret order" to arrest its legal representative if X didn't "comply with his [Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Morae] censorship orders."

Indian influencers It's the largest country on earth — home to 1.4 billion people. But "The Indian government has plans to classify social media creators as 'digital news broadcasters,'" according to the nonprofit site RestofWorld.org.

While there's "no clarity" on the government's next move, the proposed legislation would require social media creators "to register with the government, set up a content evaluation committee that checks all content before it is published, and appoint complaint handlers — all at their own expense. Any failures in compliance could lead to criminal charges, including jail term." On July 26, the Hindustan Times reported that the government plans to tweak the proposed Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, which aims to combine all regulations for broadcasters under one law. As per a new version of the bill, which has been reviewed by Rest of World, the government defines "digital news broadcaster" as "any person who broadcasts news and current affairs programs through an online paper, news portal, website, social media intermediary, or other similar medium as part of a systematic business, professional or commercial activity."

Creators and digital rights activists believe the potential legislation will tighten the government's grip over online content and threaten the last bastion of press freedom for independent journalists in the country. Over 785 Indian creators have sent a letter to the government seeking more transparency in the process of drafting the bill. Creators have also stormed social media with hashtags like #KillTheBill, and made videos to educate their followers about the proposal.
One YouTube creator told the site that if the government requires them to appoint a "grievance redressal officer," they might simply film themselves, responding to grievances — to "make content out of it".

X.com "says it's ending business operations in Brazil effective immediately," reports Engadget, "but the service will remain available to users in the country." The company says Alexandre de Moraes, the president of the Superior Electoral Court and a justice of the Supreme Federal Court, threatened one of X's legal representatives with arrest if it did not "comply with his censorship orders." According to Reuters, de Moreas demanded that X remove certain content from its platform.

Rather than comply, X has opted to end its local operations "to protect the safety of our staff."

According to X, de Moraes made the threat in a "secret order," which it shared publicly. X owner Elon Musk claimed that the demand "would require us to break (in secret) Brazilian, Argentinian, American and international law."

"Some corporate landlords collude with each other to set artificially high rental prices, often using algorithms and price-fixing software to do it."

That's a U.S. presidential candidate, speaking yesterday in North Carolina to warn that the practice "is anticompetitive, and it drives up costs. I will fight for a law that cracks down on these practices."

Ironically, it's a problem caused by technology that's impacting some of America's major tech-industry cities. Investopedia reports: Harris proposed a slate of policies aimed at curbing the high cost of housing, which many economists have traced to a long-standing shortage. The affordability situation for both renters and first-time buyers took a turn for the worse starting in 2020 when home prices and rents rose sharply. Harris's plan called for the construction of 3 million new houses to close the gap between how many homes exist in the country, and how many are needed, with the aim of evening out supply and demand and putting downward pressure on prices. This would be accomplished by offering tax incentives to builders for constructing starter homes, by funding local construction, and by cutting bureaucratic red tape that slows down construction projects. Harris would also help buyers out directly, through the first-time buyer credit.

For renters, Harris said she would crack down on companies that own many apartments, who she said have "colluded" to raise rents using pricing algorithms. She also called for a law blocking large investors from buying houses to rent out, a practice she said was driving up prices by competing with individual private buyers. Harris's focus on corporate crackdowns extended to the food business, where she called for a "federal ban on price gouging on food and groceries," without going into specifics about what exact behavior the ban would target.
Investopedia reminds readers that the executive branch is just one of three branches of the U.S. government: Should Harris win the 2024 election and become president, her ideas are still not guaranteed to be implemented, since many would require the support of Congress. Lawmakers are currently divided with Republicans controlling the House of Representatives and Democrats in control of the Senate.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Safety advocates have been touting the potential of technology that allows vehicles to communicate wirelessly for years. So far, the rollout has been slow and uneven. Now the U.S. Department of Transportation is releasing a roadmap it hopes will speed up deployment of that technology -- and save thousands of lives in the process. "This is proven technology that works," Shailen Bhatt, head of the Federal Highway Administration, said at an event Friday to mark the release of the deployment plan (PDF) for vehicle-to-everything, or V2X, technology across U.S. roads and highways. V2X allows cars and trucks to exchange location information with each other, and potentially cyclists and pedestrians, as well as with the roadway infrastructure itself. Users could send and receive frequent messages to and from each other, continuously sharing information about speed, position, and road conditions -- even in situations with poor visibility, including around corners or in dense fog or heavy rain. [...]

Despite enthusiasm from safety advocates and federal regulators, the technology has faced a bumpy rollout. During the Obama administration, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration proposed making the technology mandatory on cars and light trucks. But the agency later dropped that idea during the Trump administration. The deployment of V2X has been "hampered by regulatory uncertainty," said John Bozzella, president and CEO of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, a trade group that represents automakers. But he's optimistic that the new plan will help. "This is the reset button," Bozzella said at Friday's announcement. "This deployment plan is a big deal. It is a crucial piece of this V2X puzzle." The plan lays out some goals and targets for the new technology. In the short-term, the plan aims to have V2X infrastructure in place on 20% of the National Highway System by 2028, and for 25% of the nation's largest metro areas to have V2X enabled at signalized intersections. V2X technology still faces some daunting questions, including how to pay for the rollout of critical infrastructure and how to protect connected vehicles from cyberattack. But safety advocates say it's past time to find the answers.

BleepingComputer's Ionut Ilascu reports: Background check service National Public Data confirms that hackers breached its systems after threat actors leaked a stolen database with millions of social security numbers and other sensitive personal information. The company states that the breached data may include names, email addresses, phone numbers, social security numbers (SSNs), and postal addresses.

In the statement disclosing the security incident, National Public Data says that "the information that was suspected of being breached contained name, email address, phone number, social security number, and mailing address(es)." The company acknowledges the "leaks of certain data in April 2024 and summer 2024" and believes the breach is associated with a threat actor "that was trying to hack into data in late December 2023." NPD says they investigated the incident, cooperated with law enforcement, and reviewed the potentially affected records. If significant developments occur, the company "will try to notify" the impacted individuals.

The Dubai Court of First Instance has declared that cryptocurrency can be used as a legal form of salary under employment contracts. CoinTelegraph reports: Irina Heaver, a partner at UAE law firm NeosLegal, explained that the ruling in case number 1739 of 2024 shows a shift from the court's earlier stance in 2023, where a similar claim was denied because the crypto involved lacked precise valuation. Heaver believes this shows a "progressive approach" to integrating digital currencies into the country's legal and economic framework. Heaver said that the case involved an employee who filed a lawsuit claiming that the employer had not paid their wages, wrongful termination compensation and other benefits. The worker's employment contract stipulated a monthly salary in fiat and 5,250 in EcoWatt tokens. The dispute stems from the employer's inability to pay the tokens portion of the employee's salary in six months.

In 2023, the court acknowledged the inclusion of the EcoWatts tokens in the contract. Still, it did not enforce the payment in crypto, as the employee failed to provide a clear method for valuing the currency in fiat terms. "This decision reflected a traditional viewpoint, emphasizing the need for concrete evidence when dealing with unconventional payment forms," Heaver said. However, the lawyer said that in 2024, the court "took a step forward," ruling in favor of the employee and ordering the payment of the crypto salary as per the employment contract without converting it into fiat. Heaver added that the court's reliance on the UAE Civil Transactions Law and Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 in both judgments shows the consistent application of legal principles in wage determination.

A federal judge blocked the launch of Venu, a sports streaming joint venture by Disney, Fox, and Warner Bros. Discovery, due to concerns it would substantially lessen competition and harm FuboTV. Variety reports: Fubo launched in 2015 as a start-up focused on streaming sports programming. [...] Venu, expected to launch in late August ahead of the start of the NFL's coming fall season and priced at an initial price tag of $42.99 per month, was to carry all of the sports offerings of ESPN, Fox Sports 1 and 2, and TNT for a price that is seen as more than a regional sports network but less than a full programming package available via YouTube TV or Hulu + Live TV. The three parent companies are targeting a new generation of consumers who disdain the high costs of traditional cable packages are more at home with signing up for streaming venues that are relatively easy to get in and out of based on the availability of favorite entertainment programs or sporting events.

Judge Garnett found that once Venu launches, FuboTV would face "a swift exodus" of large numbers of subscribers, and indicated she felt "that Fubo's bankruptcy and delisting of the company's stock will likely soon follow. These are quintessential harms that money cannot adequately repair." Fubo alleged that Venu's launch "will cause it to lose approximately 300,000 to 400,000 (or nearly 30%) of its subscribers, suffer a significant decline in its ability to attract new subscribers, lose between $75 and $95 million in revenue, and be transformed into a penny stock awaiting delisting from the New York Stock Exchange, all before year-end 2024," the judge said in her decision. "We respectfully disagree with the court's ruling and are appealing it," Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery said in a statement. "We believe that Fubo's arguments are wrong on the facts and the law, and that Fubo has failed to prove it is legally entitled to a preliminary injunction. Venu Sports is a pro-competitive option that aims to enhance consumer choice by reaching a segment of viewers who currently are not served by existing subscription options."

The San Francisco City Attorney's office is suing 16 of the most frequently visited AI-powered "undressing" websites, often used to create nude deepfakes of women and girls without their consent. From a report: The landmark lawsuit, announced at a press conference by City Attorney David Chiu, says that the targeted websites were collectively visited over 200 million times in the first six months of 2024 alone.

The offending websites allow users to upload images of real, fully clothed people, which are then digitally "undressed" with AI tools that simulate nudity. One of these websites, which wasn't identified within the complaint, reportedly advertises: "Imagine wasting time taking her out on dates, when you can just use [the redacted website] to get her nudes."

A 43-year-old Jordanian national, Hashem Younis Hashem Hnaihen, was arrested in Orlando, Florida, and charged with threatening to use explosives and destroying a solar power facility. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the charges could result in up to 60 years in prison. Gizmodo reports: Hashem Younis Hashem Hnaihen allegedly smashed windows at local businesses in Florida, leaving behind threatening letters about their perceived support of Israel, and broke into a solar power generation facility in Wedgefield, Florida back in June. Hnaihen allegedly spent hours smashing solar panels, cutting various wires, and destroying critical electronic equipment, according to a press release from the DOJ issued Thursday.

Hnaihen was wearing a mask when he allegedly smashed the glass front doors of businesses that he thought supported Israel in June, the DOJ says, leaving behind "warning letters" that included lines like a desire to, "destroy or explode everything here in whole America. Especially the companies and factories that support the racist state of Israel." [...] Hnaihen was arrested on July 11, though news of his arrest was only made public today. Hnaihen entered a plea of not guilty and faces a maximum of 10 years in prison for each threat made against the Florida businesses and a maximum of 20 years for the destruction of an energy facility, according to the DOJ.

According to Kaspersky, hackers linked to Chinese threat actors have targeted Russian state agencies and tech companies in a campaign named EastWind. The Record reports: [T]he attackers used the GrewApacha remote access trojan (RAT), an unknown PlugY backdoor and an updated version of CloudSorcerer malware, which was previously used to spy on Russian organizations. The GrewApacha RAT has been used by the Beijing-linked hacking group APT31 since at least 2021, the researchers said, while PlugY shares many similarities with tools used by the suspected Chinese threat actor known as APT27.

According to Kaspersky, the hackers sent phishing emails containing malicious archives. In the first stage of the attack, they exploited a dynamic link library (DLL), commonly found in Windows computers, to collect information about the infected devices and load the additional malicious tools. While Kaspersky didn't explicitly attribute the recent attacks to APT31 or APT27, they highlighted links between the tools that were used. Although PlugY malware is still being analyzed, it is highly likely that it was developed using the DRBControl backdoor code, the researchers said. This backdoor was previously linked to APT27 and bears similarities to PlugX malware, another tool typically used by hackers based in China.

Google's master software for some Android phones includes a hidden feature that is insecure and could be activated to allow remote control or spying on users, according to a security company that found it inside phones at a U.S. intelligence contractor. From a report: The feature appears intended to give employees at stores selling Pixel phones and other models deep access to the devices so they can demonstrate how they work, according to researchers at iVerify who shared their findings with The Washington Post. The discovery and Google's lack of explanation alarmed the intelligence contractor, data analysis platform vendor Palantir Technologies, to the extent that it has stopped issuing Android phones to employees, Palantir told The Post.

"Mobile security is a very real concern for us, given where we're operating and who we're serving," Palantir Chief Information Security Officer Dane Stuckey said. "This was very deleterious of trust, to have third-party, unvetted insecure software on it. We have no idea how it got there, so we made the decision to effectively ban Androids internally." The security company said it contacted Google about its findings more than 90 days ago and that the tech giant has not indicated whether it would remove or fix the application. On Wednesday night, Google told The Post that it would issue an update to remove the application. "Out of an abundance of precaution, we will be removing this from all supported in-market Pixel devices with an upcoming Pixel software update," said company spokesperson Ed Fernandez. He said distributors of other Android phones would also be notified.

Ars Technica's Ashley Belanger reports: Artists defending a class-action lawsuit are claiming a major win this week in their fight to stop the most sophisticated AI image generators from copying billions of artworks to train AI models and replicate their styles without compensating artists. In an order on Monday, US district judge William Orrick denied key parts of motions to dismiss from Stability AI, Midjourney, Runway AI, and DeviantArt. The court will now allow artists to proceed with discovery on claims that AI image generators relying on Stable Diffusion violate both the Copyright Act and the Lanham Act, which protects artists from commercial misuse of their names and unique styles.

"We won BIG," an artist plaintiff, Karla Ortiz, wrote on X (formerly Twitter), celebrating the order. "Not only do we proceed on our copyright claims," but "this order also means companies who utilize" Stable Diffusion models and LAION-like datasets that scrape artists' works for AI training without permission "could now be liable for copyright infringement violations, amongst other violations." Lawyers for the artists, Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, told Ars that artists suing "consider the Court's order a significant step forward for the case," as "the Court allowed Plaintiffs' core copyright-infringement claims against all four defendants to proceed."

TechCrunch's Lauren Forristal reports: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced on Wednesday a final rule that will tackle several types of fake reviews and prohibit marketers from using deceptive practices, such as AI-generated reviews, censoring honest negative reviews and compensating third parties for positive reviews. The decision was the result of a 5-to-0 vote. The new rule will start being enforced 60 days after it's published in the official government publication called Federal Register. [...]

According to the final rule, the maximum civil penalty for fake reviews is $51,744 per violation. However, the courts could impose lower penalties depending on the specific case. "Ultimately, courts will also decide how to calculate the number of violations in a given case," the Commission wrote. [...] The FTC initially proposed the rule on June 30, 2023, following an advanced notice of proposed rulemaking issued in November 2022. You can read the finalized rule here (PDF), but we also included a summary of it below:

- No fake or disingenuous reviews. This includes AI-generated reviews and reviews from anyone who doesn't have experience with the actual product.
- Businesses can't sell or buy reviews, whether negative or positive.
- Company insiders writing reviews need to clearly disclose their connection to the business. Officers or managers are prohibited from giving testimonials and can't ask employees to solicit reviews from relatives.
- Company-controlled review websites that claim to be independent aren't allowed.
- No using legal threats, physical threats or intimidation to forcefully delete or prevent negative reviews. Businesses also can't misrepresent that the review portion of their website comprises all or most of the reviews when it's suppressing the negative ones.
- No selling or buying fake engagement like social media followers, likes or views obtained through bots or hacked accounts.

New submitter beamdriver writes: As is being reported in Newsday, Disney has asked a Florida court to dismiss a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by the husband of a Carle Place physician who suffered a fatal allergic reaction after eating at a Disney Springs restaurant.

The company cited legal language agreed to years earlier when Jeffrey Piccolo, widower of Kanokporn Tangsuan, 42, of Plainview, signed up for a one-month trial of the Disney+ streaming service that requires users to arbitrate all disputes with the company, records show.

Kanokporn Tangsuan, died in October after dining with her husband, Jeffrey Piccolo, at a restaurant in a section of the Walt Disney World Resort. Despite informing the waitstaff several times of her severe peanut and dairy allergies and receiving assurances that her meal would be allergen-free, she began having severe difficulty breathing shortly after dinner. She self-administered an epi-pen and was transported to a hospital, where she later died.

A medical examiner attributed her death to anaphylaxis due to elevated levels of dairy and nuts in her system, according to the suit.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: Florida's ban on cultivated meat is being challenged in federal court in a lawsuit that was filed yesterday. The case is being brought by the cultivated meat firm Upside Foods and the Institute of Justice (IJ), a nonprofit public interest law firm. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the legislation making the sale of cultivated meat illegal in Florida on May 1, and the bill came into effect on July 1. Alabama passed a similar bill banning cultivated meat that will come into effect from October 1. The case brought by Upside Foods and the IJ argues that Florida's ban is unconstitutional in three different ways. First, they argue, the ban violates theSupremacy Clause that gives federal law priority over state law in certain instances. The court case argues that the Florida ban violates two different provisions in the Federal Meat Inspection Act and Poultry Products Inspection Act.

The legal complaint (PDF) also alleges that the ban violates theCommerce Clause, which gives the US Congress exclusive power to regulate interstate commerce. The IJ argues that the Commerce Clause restricts states from enacting laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce, and that Florida's ban in its current form has the effect of discriminating against it. "Florida's law has nothing to do with protecting health and safety," said IJ senior attorney Paul Sherman in a press conference today. "It is a transparent example of economic protectionism." Sherman said that Upside Foods and the IJ would also apply for a preliminary injunction that would allow the company to sell cultivated meat in Florida while the legal challenge is still ongoing. The complaint says that Upside had planned to distribute its cultivated chicken at Art Basel in Miami in early December 2024. The company protested the Florida ban by holding a tasting of its chicken on June 27 in Miami, shortly before the ban came into effect. Sherman said that the Alabama ban was also "in our sights" but that the IJ had targeted the Florida law as it came into effect before the Alabama ban. "We're hoping we'll be able to get a quick ruling [in Florida] on a preliminary injunction there," and use that as a precedent to challenge the Alabama ban, he said. "Consumers should decide what kind of meat they want to buy and feed their families -- not politicians," said the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit focused on advancing alternative proteins and which is serving as a consulting consul in this case. "This lawsuit seeks to protect these consumer rights, along with the rights of companies to compete in a fair and open marketplace."

In a press release today, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said he has filed a lawsuit against General Motors, alleging the carmaker illegally collected and sold drivers' data to insurance companies without their consent or knowledge. CNN reports: In car models from 2015 and later, the Detroit-based car manufacturer allegedly used technology to "collect, record, analyze, and transmit highly detailed driving data about each time a driver used their vehicle," according to the AG's statement. General Motors sold this information to several other companies, including to at least two companies for the purpose of generating "Driving Scores" about GM's customers, the AG alleged. The suit said those two companies then sold these scores to insurance companies.

Insurance companies can use data to see how many times people exceeded a speed limit or obeyed other traffic laws. Some insurance firms ask customers if they want to voluntarily opt-in to such programs, promising lower rates for safer drivers. But the attorney general's office claimed GM "deceived" its Texan customers by encouraging them to enroll in programs such as OnStar Smart Driver. But by agreeing to join these programs, customers also unknowingly agreed to the collection and sale of their data, the attorney general's office said. "Despite lengthy and convoluted disclosures, General Motors never informed its customers of its actual conduct -- the systematic collection and sale of their highly detailed driving data," the AG's office said in a statement. The filing can be read here (PDF).

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ExtremeTech: The family of a French mariner who died on the imploded Titan submersible last year has sued Titan's maker, OceanGate Expeditions, for more than $50 million. The lawsuit claims OceanGate is responsible for explorers' suffering immediately preceding their deaths, as well as for failing to disclose the extent of the submersible's risks. Among those risks are Titan's cheap materials, including the $30 Logitech gaming controller used aboard the vehicle. [...]

The lawsuit points at Titan's "hip, contemporary, wireless electronics system" and then alleges that none of the controllers or gauges inside Titan would operate without a constant source of power and a wireless signal. One of those controllers was a modified Logitech F710 Gamepad, a $30 to $40 device designed for, well, gaming. The gamepad quickly became the subject of internet mockery following the loss of Titan; some speculators said the submersible must have been doomed to fail if it used such cheap components. The lawsuit even claims the controller's Bluetooth (rather than wired) connectivity set it up for failure. Still, other speculators believe the controller wouldn't have had much impact on the submersible's operational durability. Instead, the issue would have been with the vehicle's carbon fiber pressure cylinder, which Rush allegedly bought off Boeing at a discount after the material passed its "airplane shelf life." Regardless of the exact material, it seems the consensus among members of the public is that for OceanGate, quality was an afterthought.