It Looks Like FBI Will Not Share Information With Apple: They’re Opening Locked iPhones for Other Law Enforcement Agencies

I find it very interesting that the FBI has agreed to unlock other iPhones with their new iPhone hack within two days of hacking the San Bernadino shooter’s iPhone.

It’s still uncertain if the Arkansas phone that the FBI is going to unlock is the same iPhone model as the San Bernadino one (iPhone 5C) with the same operating system, or if it’s a different model.  If it’s an iPhone 6, Apple has a HUGE problem that renders their security features inoperable, rather than a problem with one model. 

If it’s just the 5C, I can see Apple offering free or reduced new iPhones of the iPhone 6 line that don’t have the vulnerability in return for turning in the exposed 5C.  I can see them doing this to retire the hacked model and reduce their liability exposure.

How long will it be before the FBI is hacked and their new unlock capability is stolen by criminals?   I have no doubt that there are individuals out there who are salivating at the prospect of stealing this secret and somehow making money off of it.

If that happened, I can see Apple retiring the 5C.  Wonder if they would sue the government for damages…that’d be a real turn of events.

Social Conservative in Name Only: A Real Conservative Wouldn’t Have Screwed Up on Abortion Question the Way Trump Did

“Three positions in three hours.”

Ted Cruz has long said that Donald Trump has no depth to his platform, and yesterday seemed to prove it.

Because Trump has supported both sides of this issue, it’s not surprising at all that he misstated his position on the abortion issue, then had to clarify things twice.  Now he’s got abortion rights supporters, anti-abortion foes and everybody in between howling about how he’s got things wrong.

A true abortion foe wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake.  And now he’s got a wedge issue that may really hurt his campaign in the coming weeks.

My reservations about Trump’s viability as a Presidential contender continue to grow by the day.

Secret Service Didn’t Seem to Think That Former BreitBart Report Was a Threat to Trump: This Flies in the Face of Trump Saying She Was a Threat

I prefer to leave the security analysis to the professionals at the scene, but Donald Trump’s defense of his campaign manager’s assault of a reporter doesn’t hold water.

The Secret Service guards who were around Trump made no move to stop her from pushing in on him.  Therefore, they did not consider her a threat, as Trump has claimed.  If she did what he’s claiming, the Secret Service would have been all over her and there would have been a massive scene.   Those ladies and gentlemen know what they’re doing.

She’s the one with the bruises on her arm, and with the audio of the interview.  I think Trump should let the law take its course without starting ANOTHER anti-woman vendetta on Twitter.  His opponents are already making political hay out of his comments on Twitter in the form of new political attack ads.

He’s very unlikely to stay out of it.

Another Lotto Winner Murdered: All States Should Give Winners the Option of Remaining Anonymous

If I won a multi-million dollar lottery ticket, I’d give serious thought to ripping it to pieces right in front of lottery officials after confirming that I had no right to privacy.  Better that than to live looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life, or hiring security guards, or moving to another state just to live in relative safety.

Do lottery officials not realize that people are dying because of the lack of anonymity? 

In the latest case, three people allegedly murdered a Lotto winner in Georgia in January after breaking into his house, taking him and his two-year old baby hostage and demanding money.  When they couldn’t find his wallet, they shot him.  Three were involved with the actual break-in and killing, but the four others were somehow involved as well, and the police are promising more arrests.

In a lot of the cases, it was family members who were the murderers, but lately it’s been strangers or casual acquaintances who have carried out the attempted armed robberies and murders.

Granting Lotto winners privacy will protect them from the people they don’t know.   Keeping their own mouths shut about their good luck may help deal with relatives who decide there’s some kind of score to be made.

The practice of trotting the winners out in front of the cameras for all to see to accept a huge check should come to an end.  How many people need to get robbed in their own homes at gunpoint, their families threatened, and the prize winners gunned down before these lotteries (in every state, and not just a few) get with the program?

This needs to get fixed.

Feds End Court Case Against Apple in San Bernadino Shooter Case: They Found a Way to Decrypt Shooter’s iPhone Without Apple’s Help

An Israeli company is rumored to have stepped forward and helped the FBI gain access to a locked iPhone that was used by one of the San Bernadino shooters, so the Department of Justice ended it’s court case to compel Apple to assist them.

While it’s good that they’ve gotten the information they needed, it’s still a very troubling situation.

Now Apple has to worry about this hack that defeated their much-vaunted security measures.   And the government may not want to give their back door away for Apple to patch.

That’s for them to sort out.  I think Apple made the correct move in refusing to assist the government in this case, as creating backdoors is just asking for hackers to steal the information and exploit it.   Someone always profits from stolen information.

What good is security if it’s full of holes and can be exploited by anyone?  That’s what would have happened if Apple had put back doors into their iPhone operating systems.  Software is available for employers to override passcodes on iPhones if someone is using a company phone.  The Health Department that the shooter worked for did not put the applications on their company phone, even though they had paid for it.

It’s unfortunate that our smartphones have become pawns in a much bigger game of national security vs. personal liberty.   Nature of the beast, I guess.

When the Federal Government Went After the Italian Mobs in New York City, Who Did They Approach to Infiltrate the Mafias? ITALIANS! So Why is There Such a Backlash Against Having Muslims Do The Same Thing?

The liberal political establishment has been blasting the GOP presidential candidates for suggesting that they’d go into Muslim neighborhoods and recruit Muslims to report on extremists in their communities.

Excuse me, but that’s PRECISELY what the federal government did when they went after the Five Families in New York City.  They didn’t just recruit any Joe Blow off the streets, they recruited Italians and Sicilians to be informers.

The libs need to get off their high horses and get with the program and protect the country.   I detest the mess that they’ve made out of the immigration debate, and the fact that they’re attacking the Republicans for trying to clean up the failed policies of the current Administration.  And I especially detest that the author of those failures is leading the criticism of his potential successors for daring to clean up his mess.

Who knows, they might find a lot of cooperation in the Muslim communities, who have opened the doors of their mosques to law enforcement already.

We don’t want to be like Europe.  Their model is failing right before our eyes, and people who are doing nothing but going about their business are being blown up by an enemy that we’re supposedly “winning” against.  Thanks a lot, Mr. President.  What’s it going to take to get your attention, a huge bomb attack in Times Square?

I also found it very interesting that Obama criticized Cruz and attacked his new friends, the Castros, in the same speech.   I wonder if he said the same thing to their faces while he was on his vacation to Cuba?

Now the Secretary of Defense Has an Email Problem: Will He Get Off Scot-Free Like Hillary Clinton Has So Far, Or Will He Be Prosecuted?

I don’t get it.

The Secretary of Defense saw what was happening with Hillary Clinton and the amount of trouble she’s in for using personal email for official government business, yet he continued to do exactly the same thing with his own personal email for months after Secretary Clinton’s problems became public knowledge.

What was he thinking?  In many cases, Department of Defense communications are even more sensitive than State Department ones are. 

Now we’ll see if there’s a difference in how her scandal has been treated by the feds as compared to what happens to him.  If he’s prosecuted immediately, or forced to resign, we’ll know that the fix is in.  Actually, we already know that the feds have been avoiding taking aggressive steps against Clinton as she’s the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination.  If they prosecute, her campaign derails.

We’ll be watching this situation with great interest.

If Companies Want Us to Stop Using Ad Blocker Programs, Then They Should Stop Putting Battery-Draining, Invasive, Cookie-Depositing, Bandwidth-Hogging, Computer Slowing Ads That Don’t Respect Privacy on the Web: Did I Miss Anything?

I read over on CNET that companies are getting aggressive in their dealings with users who dare to use ad-blocking software to keep their privacy intact.

Hey, if they don’t like ad-blockers, then they should get the monster that they created back in the cage and throw away the key.  Better yet, slay their creation and come up with a less intrusive and privacy-invading way to make money.  

Any ad that drains the batteries on our devices is evil.  Any ad that uses up more bandwidth than necessary is evil.   Any ad that places a cookie on our computers without expressed permission from us is evil.  Any ad (or web site) that uses trackers is evil.  Any search engine that saves our searches to profile us  is evil (and very annoying and worrying).  Forcing ads on us should be an online crime.

I have medical training, and sometimes I have to look up the names of medications or conditions and what the common treatments are.  No, I am not RH-negative. No, I do not have an STI or Zika.  No, I do not have pancreatic cancer.  No, I do not have a blood disease either, nor do I have a penile or vaginal problem, or anything.  Nor do I have autism or autism-spectrum.  No, I do not have high-altitude sickness.  Yet I get carpet bombed with ads promoting sexual health, cancer treatment centers, condoms and other stuff that I have no interest in.

That’s why I started using ad-blockers and browsers that do not allow tracking.  And if they don’t want our interest or traffic, we’ll find the information elsewhere and spend our money elsewhere too, in excess of the money they’re making off their ads.

Instead of going after users who hate ads and trackers and who don’t want a footprint online, they should fix their own problem by themselves and leave us out of it.    Blaming US for THEIR problem is wrong.

Obama Will Turn Up in Surprise Visit to Tehran or Pyongyang Before The End of His Term: He Seems to Be Working Off a Bucket List

President Obama seems to be working off a bucket list, and it wouldn’t surprise me if one morning we wake up to the news that President Obama turned up in Iran or in North Korea.  I think it’s possible that it will happen prior to the new President being sworn in on January 20th.

The visit to Cuba was an insult to Cuban Americans whose families were driven out of their homeland by the Castro regime and hate the Castro brothers.

We can improve ties with Cuba while still telling the Castros where to go, but President Obama didn’t do it that way.  

Keeping the Castros in power isn’t a good idea.

Hulk Hogan Wins Huge Lawsuit Against Tabloid Website Gawker.com : First Amendment Doesn’t Apply in this Case

Some web sites have been commenting that First Amendment rights are threatened by Hulk Hogan’s victory against tabloid website Gawker.com, but I don’t think that’s right.  

Someone made a sex tape recording without Hogan’s knowledge or permission and Gawker posted parts of the recording on its web site, and then refused to take it down.    Hogan filed a $100 million lawsuit against Gawker and put Gawker’s sleazy editor on the stand to defend his decision to post the illegal video onto the web site. 

The jury agreed with Hogan, and awarded him $115 million for his troubles, with punitive damages pending next week. 

The punitive punishment should be interesting.   I’m thinking it’ll be in the $20 million range. Gawker doesn’t have the assets to comply with the ruling.  

I’ve been reading opinions online that the Hogan lawsuit threatens the First Amendment, but I disagree.   Posting illegal porn is not protected speech and should never be considered to be legal by the courts.  

Hopefully this gives people putting “revenge porn” online some second thoughts before they destroy someone’s life.  There will be a price to pay, and that’s a good thing.

Argentina Sinks Chinese Fishing Vessel: Like China, Argentina Has Established a 200 Mile Economic Exclusion Zone and This is the Result

A Chinese fishing vessel dared to fish inside Argentina’s 200 mile exclusion zone that they’ve established off their coastline, and the Argentinian Coast Guard opened fire and sent it to the bottom of the ocean.

China is demanding an investigation.  I hope they remember this when they start doing the same to ships that operate in their own disputed zone.  They haven’t done so yet, but they’re militarizing some of the reefs.  How long can it be?

The Law of the Sea Treaty establishes the 12 mile limit; China and Argentina are signatories. 

Anything past the 12 mile limit is and should remain international waters. 

I think our planet has enough trouble without adding the possibility of nations going to war over fishing boats and oil platforms.   Here’s a map that illustrates the problem.  With so many maritime borders overlapping already, tacking another 200 miles on compounds the problem.

China has claimed waters that are far beyond their territory.  From where the disputed islands are on the map, they’re definitely not Chinese.  Other nations have a much better claim on the islands and the surrounding waters.  A case was brought to the Hague, but China argued that it didn’t have jurisdiction. 

China’s entire argument is that it had a 2,000 year old claim to the islands.  If China was still ruled by an Emperor, that might hold more water, but China got rid of their last Emperor. 

Vietnam’s territorial claims are almost as vast as China’s, except their claims have been validated by the U.N.

The Philippines claims seem to be the closest to making sense.  The disputed islands are much closer to the Philippines than any other nation.

Here’s the timeline of the court case in the Hague between the Philippians and China.  The court is still deciding if it has jurisdiction to settle this mess, which I hope that it does. 

Kasich’s New Liberal Immigration Amnesty Stance Sucks: He Needs to Get Out of the Race Too

I don’t like the direction that John Kasich has gone in since I voted in the Michigan primary last week.

I voted for Cruz as it looked like Kasich’s stand was shifting even then, but I wasn’t sure.

What he was saying last week made a lot of sense.  Here’s his prior immigration stance as of last week, according to the ontheissues.org web site:

• It's a silly argument to ship 11M illegals back to Mexico. (Nov 2015)
• Focus of immigration should be to keep families together. (Sep 2015)
• Latino immigrants will continue to play critical role in US. (Sep 2015)
• Focus on border & guest workers, not birthright citizenship. (Sep 2015)
• 1993: end birthright citizenship; 2015: not part of approach. (Aug 2015)
• Seal the border with Mexico, support legal immigrants. (Jul 2015)
• Open to pathway to citizenship, but doesn't like it. (Feb 2015)
• Post-Sept-11 open-door melting-pot is essentially intact. (May 2006)
• Limit the number of legal immigrants, and their benefits. (Nov 1996)
• Voted YES on more immigrant visas for skilled workers. (Sep 1998)
• Declared English the official language of the US. (Jan 1999)

But now, he’s making all kinds of noise about immigration and amnesty.  I don’t know if he’s pulling out all the stops to win in Ohio today, but I can’t agree with him on his new liberal policies on immigration.

I don’t have an argument with him from a religious point of view, but I don’t like the bait and switch that he’s pulled on voters who supported him previously.

I wonder how many of his prior supporters will support him now that he’s gone liberal on this issue.   He may have handed Trump a victory in Ohio.

Rubio Needs to Get Out Now: If He Loses in Florida, It Could Be the End of His Political Career

I think Marco Rubio needs to get out of the race prior to Tuesday’s primary in Florida.

If he wants to stay in politics, he can’t lose Florida if he chooses to stay in.  Things typically don’t go well for primary candidates who lose their home states, especially if they aren’t the front-runner.

Hope he’s weighing his options.

Violence at Trump Events is Not Unexpected: Trump Has Actively Been Encouraging It With His Abrasive Language, Confrontational Rhetoric and Unwillingness to Adapt His Strategy

There has been a spike in violence at Donald Trump’s campaign events, and it’s not unanticipated at all.  A blind man could have seen it coming.

What I am surprised at is that it hasn’t happened much much sooner than now, and that no one has tried to shoot their way into one of his campaign events.   Even now, attendees at some of his events are saying they may have to kill his opponents if they don’t stop protesting.

Ridiculous!

Does Kristallnacht ring a bell?  I think parts of the country are on the verge of one, with Trump at the wheel. 

Historically, when a political leader calls for violence to deal with groups of people, violence ensues.  We saw it in Rwanda, we saw it in Iraq, and in Libya, during the breakup of Yugoslavia, and we’re seeing it in Syria on a daily basis.

Trump needs to cool it, before American people start to die.