Category Archives: Standing Room Only
Anon: Follow Up
As I sat at work on Sunday I followed the news of Anonymous and the impending strike at BART their “decision to shut down wireless access was criticized by many as heavy handed, and some raised questions about whether the move violated free speech” (source). Twitter was alive with comments from #OpBART, #MuBARTek,
YourAnonNews and others as 12:00 Pacific Time came around.
I had read the statement and watched the video, but it really didn’t seem many knew of the group or their intentions. I found this rather interesting. My co-workers must think I am some sort of crackpot because of the information I was passing and on and the rational behind why this as happening. I guess some don’t see the real issue at hand with this “attack” on Sunday.
“The problems began Thursday night when BART officials blocked wireless access to disrupt organization of a demonstration protesting the July 3 shooting death by BART police who said the 45-year-old victim was wielding a knife” (source).
You can read more about the operation from the report at THN. “It also accused myBART of storing member information poorly with “virtually no security” so that “any 8 year old with a internet connection” can steal it.”
Today is the peaceful protest at Civic Center Station in downtown San Francisco, where participants are requested to wear “red shirt or clothes with fake blood stains, and to bring video cameras.” Don’t forget the Guy Fawkes mask either!
We Are Anonymous
We Are Everywhere
We Are Legion
We Never Forget
We Never Forgive
EXPECT US
Anonymous vs BART
From the Sunday online site, SFGate comes this story, Hacker group threatens cyberwar against BART. “Anonymous will attempt to show those engaging in the censorship what it feels like to be silenced,” a news release from the group said.” This in response to BART’s initiative to shut down cellular service in order to help prevent a protest last week. That protest was for (another) fatal BART Police shooting in July.
While many are not aware of the group known as Anonymous, if you run around in conspiracy circles, the group is world renown. “Anonymous is a group initiating active civil disobedience and spread through the Internet while staying hidden, originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain” (source).
It will be interesting to see what actually unfolds Monday as the actions call for a “nonviolent” protest in the evening at Civic Center Station. It’s not the protest that has me worried so much, as we have seen protests before disrupt service in the BART system, but it’s the possibility of the cyber attack that I would put more credence in.
You can take a look at some of their operations in 2011 they have undertook including Fine Gael, an attack on HBGaul Federal, Bank of America, Sony and the social networking juggernaut, Facebook. I guess we want and see just what Anonymous has in store for BART. In fact I was rather surprised to see a number of pinned threads at GLP regarding BART cutting cellular service. Can’t say I was too surprised to see the number of responses against TPTB and silencing individuals freedoms.
Trains. Trackways. Trees.
This sums up my day at work on Saturday. It looks worse than it actually was. Thankfully no one was injured and there was no damage to any trains. The location of this tree was in Concord off Bancroft Road. The intrusion caused about 2 hours worth of delays between Pleasant Hill and Concord Stations, as crews cut back the limbs and removed the tree from the trackway and the equipment on the right of way was inspected.
If this wasn’t enough I had a second train have an issue with a tree branch just south of Union City about 4 hours later. Thankfully it only caused about a 15 minute interruption and the “incident” train was moving after an inspection of their train.
This just happens to be one of a number of things that can happen with inclimate weather, such as high winds and heavy rains around our trackways that are shadowed by flora and fauna.
Dude, move the bags!
From the “dude, what are you thinking?” file comes this piece. I normally ride the train three days a week to help offset the every increasing price of gas. It takes a bit longer, but it’s worth the extra 10-15 minutes I spend driving home from the station. Today at Concord a patron boarded up the lead unit with two pieces of luggage. Now, for the regular ridership, this is usually a problem since the luggage will usually end up occupying a seat.
Today was something I had not seen previous, but not unexpected. He set his luggage in the ADA seats (the handicap seat, directly in front of me), which are for elderly and disabled patrons. I figured he was going to move the luggage around after he got situated. No, he walks across the aisle and sits across from me. I was somewhat surprised by his actions. Not only is this inconsiderate, but rude.
He got lucky this morning, as the lead car was not full and not all the seats were occupied. It would have been interesting to see if he would have actually moved his luggage if the car became standing room only, as I have seen it happen in the past. I am quite sure the operator could see luggage occupying the ADA seat. Maybe because of the load he did not say anything over the PA. It would have been more of an issue if he did not move his luggage if those were the last two seats in the car.
It was evident he was not a “regular” on BART. I do believe he did this intentionally and probably would not have moved his bags if a patron wanted to sit there. I guess many patrons really don’t care, that is the bottom line. They figure, they paid their money and can do whatever they want and store their bags wherever they want. Unfortunately that cannot be further from the truth.