While telecommunication and virtual meetings offer an avenue of increased accessibility across a variety of industries, the technology is not without its faults.
This truth was evident during a recent Zoom meeting of the Alabama Medical Cannabis Commission (AMCC) from earlier this month, which was interrupted when someone entered the meeting and briefly displayed pornography on their user screen, as reported by Alabama Daily News.
While Zoom offers a number of meeting formats, the commission utilized a layout with one larger main screen along with several smaller screens for others who are a part of the meeting but may or may not be speaking or actively presenting. According to AMCC Communications Director Brittany Peters, the unexpected visuals were only displayed on one of the smaller screens.
Peters was running the meeting on her laptop in the AMCC conference room and noticed the pornography, which included audio. This incident happened toward the end of the meeting and lasted less than 10 seconds, Peters said. AMCC Executive Director John McMillan was also in the conference room and said that others present didn’t see the porn but noticed the audio first, notably a loud gasp.
The sound initially concerned commission members, McMillan said, thinking it may have been a participant health issue such as a heart attack. The AMCC then heard from lawyers and other meeting attendees about the porn on screen, with McMillan reflecting, “Apparently it was pretty explicit.”
Commission Chairman Rex Vaughn said there were actually two porn-related interruptions during the meeting, with the first interruption lasting longer at about 20 seconds. Vaughn said the interruptions were “triple-X” and “pretty bad,” noting that the first was on the larger display rather than one of the smaller user boxes.
The meeting was primarily held to communicate updates surrounding lawsuits by companies challenging how the commission is issuing business licenses.
The commission was scheduled to issue licenses to integrated companies on Jan. 9, though it was delayed over a temporary restraining order issued at the start of the month. It came at the request of six unsuccessful applicants for integrated licenses. The commission planned to orchestrate three rounds of licensing, discarding scores compiled by third-party evaluators during the last round that had been used during the first two rounds.
As a result, some of the companies that received licenses during the first two rounds were ultimately passed over in the third and objected to the change.
McMillan theorized that the hacking incident was meant to harass the commission, similar to other publicized incidents like swatting incidents calling in fake bomb threats or other fraudulent emergencies.
Vaughn referenced that the aim of the culprit was to disrupt the meeting. While members had stopped talking once the clip began playing, none of the other meeting participants commented on the incident throughout the duration and continued with the meeting after the clip stopped.
Since AMCC’s meetings are open to the public, with links posted to the Zoom on its website, Vaughn admitted that the commission remains vulnerable to these types of incidents. While the incident was reported, Peters said that she is not aware of a way to identify the person behind the disruption.
“While regrettable, interruptions such as those that occurred at yesterday’s meeting are not entirely preventable in any public meeting,” Peters said. “The interruption yesterday was not from a member of the commission and AMCC swiftly removed the unknown individual. We are reviewing options offered by Zoom and other video conferencing programs that may help mitigate the risk of such interruptions in future virtual meetings.”
As virtual meetings have been more broadly utilized since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, these types of incidents have become more common. Dubbed “Zoom bombing,” they typically involve interrupting virtual meetings with inappropriate material, like pornography. Interfering with a public meeting in this way is a crime under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
