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John Kasich suggests women can avoid rape by forgoing drunken parties

Another day on the campaign trail, another eyebrow-raising comment about what women should or shouldn’t do. This time the advice came from Republican presidential candidate John Kasich, the governor of Ohio.

At a town hall in Watertown, N.Y., a first-year student from St. Lawrence University asked Kasich what he’d do as president to help her feel safer regarding “sexual violence, harassment and rape.”

Kasich launched into a quick speech about ensuring rape kits and other resources are available to victims of sexual assault.

“In our state, we think that when you enroll you ought to absolutely know that if something happens to you along the lines of sexual harassment or whatever, you have a place to go where there is a confidential reporting, where there is an ability for you to access a rape kit, where that is kept confidential, but where it gives you an opportunity to be able to pursue justice after you have had some time to reflect on it all,” he said. “We are in a process of making sure that all higher education in our state — and this ought to be done in the country — that our coeds know exactly what the rules are, what the opportunities are, what the confidential policies are, so that you are not vulnerable, at risk and can be preyed upon.”

Continued the student, who had not finished saying her piece, “It’s sad that it’s something that I have to worry about just walking…”

“I’d also give you one bit of advice,” Kasich interrupted. “Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol.” The room burst into applause.

With this comment, Kasich joined the ranks of those who place the onus for decreasing sexual assaults on female college students, asking them to alter their behaviors and avoid important campus social functions, while the lifestyles and habits of their male counterparts are treated as an unchangeable norm that does not need addressing. This line of thinking runs counter to recent national efforts to address sexual assault on campuses by encouraging bystander intervention and teaching men it is their responsibility not to hurt women, among other things.

It was hardly Kasich’s first time getting tripped up in response to a question by a young woman. Here are some other instances in which he has spoken to or about women awkwardly — or even, some would say, offensively.

Taylor Swift tickets

In an earlier run-in with a female college student, Kasich last October offended 18-year-old college newspaper staffer Kayla Solsbak when she raised her hand to ask a question and he reportedly said, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any Taylor Swift concert tickets.” She went on to pen an op-ed that called his comments condescending.

Women in kitchens

“How did I get elected?” Kasich asked at a campaign event on February. “I didn’t have anybody for me. We just got an army of people, and many women who left their kitchens to go out and to go door to door to put up yard signs for me.” Kasich later conceded women don’t hang out so much in kitchens these days, and later apologized if he offended anyone.

Social Security surprise

At another town hall, Kasich reportedly expressed bewilderment after a young woman asked him a Social Security question, wondering whether someone had told her to inquire about the topic. “I think for myself,” she replied.

The budget slim-down diet

During a November town hall in Iowa, Kaisch chose to describe balancing a budget to a female reporter by asking her, “Have you ever been on a diet?”

So there you have it. Young women questioners, you are John Kasich’s kryptonite.

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A contested convention in the age of the smartphone

This July, thousands of delegates, party officials, campaign staff and journalists will descend on the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland for the Republican National Convention. It is possible, or even likely, that no candidate will win the presidential nomination on the first or second ballots — something that hasn't happened since 1952, back when the closest thing to a computer was a giant calculator, telephones required land lines, and the founder of Twitter had yet to be conceived. Though candidates were able to use broadcast television as a tool to influence results, any backdoor power brokering at the convention went relatively undocumented.

Technologically, the 2016 landscape is much different. In the era of the iPhone, the near 20,000-person crowd that will fill the Quicken Loans Arena will serve as both its own private media network and — depending on the capabilities of the venue — a bandwidth-swamping black hole. 2,472 people in that crowd will be the delegates who will vote to nominate the president. And, according to a recent report from Politico, each candidate's team has already begun developing tech tools for tracking the faces, names, and home states of each of them. All of this political negotiating will take place as smartphone-toting supporters of Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and John Kasich document the scene via Snapchat and Vine, producing their own real-time feeds full of rumors and disinformation.

But the precise technology that will be at play on the convention floor is still anyone's guess. A Trump convention strategist told Politico that his team will use some sort of "custom-built hardware" with a "closed loop" system that would allow his staff to communicate efficiently without having to rely on potentially unreliable Wi-Fi (it sounds suspiciously like a walkie-talkie). Cruz's team, on the other hand, plans to build an iPhone app that works offline and contains strategic data about each delegate and whether they might be swayed. Kasich has yet to divulge a strategy. Ideally, each candidate's team will need a tool that can (1) effectively record and deliver data and messages without relying on what will likely be an overwhelmed Wi-Fi network, and (2) possibly identify or track delegates on the floor.

Though some "House of Cards" buffs might think a campaign tracks delegates via a big whiteboard in a hotel room, state-specific rules make record keeping much more complicated. Depending on whether you're a delegate from Iowa or a delegate from Hawaii, you may be bound to vote for a given candidate for one or more rounds of voting. Any data-based tracking app would need to account for this web of restrictions and send push alerts when a delegate is free to change his vote, so the managers know the best time to court him.

When it comes to battling the congested cellular network that candidates are sure to encounter during the convention, one of the most reliable options for teams to communicate may be a mesh network app like FireChat. These wireless networks can function entirely without Internet, as long as a minimum number of people in a concentrated location use them. FireChat uses Bluetooth and peer-to-peer Wi-Fi connections to link up nearby phones that also have the app installed. If enough people have the app, they form a distributed network and can pass messages along in one large public stream.

According to Christophe Daligault, a marketing officer at FireChat, tools like these have become popular during political events when Wi-Fi networks are overwhelmed — or when authorities shut down Internet services in order to control information. The app first took off during the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong in August 2014, when half a million people used it during the span of a week. Since then, it's been used during elections in the Congo and Venezuela, and for less formal instances on cruise ships or at Burning Man. Daligault said his team briefly met with then-Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul last year to discuss his campaign's possible use of the app.

FireChat currently works as a type of location-based Twitter feed, where everyone in one particular location can see the messages that people are typing into the app. But within the next month, it will allow users to create their own private networks so they can invite only their acquaintances.

"The beauty of it is, it goes wherever you go," Daligault told Yahoo News. "It's your own social network that doesn't need a network."

Depending on the guidelines that the Republican National Convention rules committee sets before the event, candidates may also attempt to use tracking techniques that have traditionally been used at trade shows. Organizers can track attendees by placing radio frequency identification (RFID) chips inside their badges, each of which contains information about an individual. According to Brian Ludwig, a senior vice president of sales at the event technology company Cvent, it's common practice to code certain categories into each attendee's chip, such as his state or industry. This same technology could be incredibly helpful to tipping off candidates' teams about where delegates are traveling on the convention floor.

"I want to know who's going in on the trade show floor, how long they're standing in front of certain booths, and the interested parties," he told Yahoo News. "You could have someone scanning folks at the door. But that's obtrusive, and you have to have staff. Putting mats down or RFID panels on doorways can allow less obvious tracking of folks."

If convention organizers are unwilling to offer that kind of information to campaign staff, another option could be to use something called beacon technology. Here's how it works: Candidates could ask delegates to download and activate an app made specifically for the convention. Strategically placed small trackers — $20 contraptions shaped like hockey pucks — at key locations in the arena would register a delegate's presence, as long as his or her Bluetooth is on, and automatically send a push notification to that delegate's phone.

"At the end of the day, when someone goes to that convention their inbox is a mess," Ludwig said. "They're going to have 500 emails by the time they leave after a couple days. Literally the best conduit to someone's eyeballs is not by sending them an email or text, but sending them a push notification that pops no matter what, even if the app is closed down."

According to Ludwig, Cvent is in talks with the RNC to provide preregistration, online check-in, badges, and a mobile app for an event made up of about 1,300 "major VIP donor types" at the convention. Whether Trump, Cruz, or Kasich will eventually adopt any of the company's techniques, however, is yet to be seen.

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Trump’s daughters and wife defend his treatment of women

Throughout the Republican presidential primaries, Donald Trump has had a strained relationship with female voters — thanks in part to his derogatory comments about women. He has called his critic Rosie O’Donnell a fat pig, disparaged Carly Fiorina’s looks and seemingly attributed Megyn Kelly’s hard questioning during a debate to her menstrual cycle. But during a Tuesday night CNN town hall discussion with the New York mogul’s family, his wife and daughters argued that these insults meant nothing in comparison to their own positive experiences with him.

Asked by an audience member what they think about the media’s portrayal of Trump as insensitive to women, his daughters Ivanka and Tiffany and wife, Melania, came to his defense.

“I think the facts speak for themselves,” Ivanka, who is the daughter of Trump’s first wife, said. “I’ve witnessed these incredible female role models that he’s employed in the highest executive positions at the Trump organization my entire life. And in an industry that has been dominated by men — is still dominated by men, but certainly was when he was starting out in his career —he was employing some of these women, and raising them through the ranks.”

Tiffany, Trump’s 22-year-old daughter from his second marriage, to Marla Maples, said that she felt her father made no gender distinctions in offering encouragement.

“Every time I speak to him on the phone, whether it be at school or when I’m with him in his office or in Palm Beach, he wants us to do the best,” she said. “He has the utmost faith that we can accomplish whatever we set our minds to, just as well as men, if not better.”

As for Melania, she offered a much more cut-and-dried story of Trump’s approach to women.

“He treats everyone equally,” she said. “If you’re a woman and they attack him, he will attack back, no matter who you are. We are all human, and he treats them equal as men.”

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This is what Donald Trump’s family thinks about his Twitter presence

Donald Trump has tweeted hundreds of insults at people and places, and even gone after a Neil Young song. He’s retweeted comments by neo-Nazis and a supporter who shared an unflattering photo of Ted Cruz’s wife. But ask his family what they think about his social media presence, and they just laugh it off.

During a Tuesday night town hall conversation with Trump, his wife, Melania, and his children Ivanka, Tiffany, Eric and Donald Jr., CNN host Anderson Cooper took a moment reflect on the reality TV star's infamous tweets. “Are there some days you wake up and you look at Twitter and you think, really?” Cooper asked the family, provoking a round of laughter. 

“It kind of makes him the person he is, honestly,” Donald Trump Jr. said. “It’s so great to not see the traditional politician sound bites that you read too often. He’s so authentic. He writes the tweets himself. He doesn’t have a team of hundreds of hundreds of people behind him, and I think that’s actually what makes him the great candidate that he is.”

“Melania, do you ever want to say to him, put the mobile device down?” Cooper asked.

“Anderson, if he would only listen,” she said. “I did many times. And I just say ‘OK, do whatever you want.’ He’s an adult, he knows the consequences.” Trump, who said he’d likely tweet very little if elected president, also revealed the process behind his tweets.

“During the day I’m in the office,” he said. “I just shout it out to one of the young ladies who are tremendous office staff — Meredith, and some of the people that work for me — and I’ll just shout it out and they’ll do it. But during the evenings, after 7 o’clock or so, I will always do it by myself.”

Excuse us while we pour one out for Meredith, who officially has one of the least appealing jobs in New York. 

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Newly woke Mark Zuckerberg calls out Trump during Facebook conference

Today, Facebook kicks off its sixth F8 developer’s conference, which usually means the announcement of a few new bells and whistles to the platform, plus some ambitious plans to take over the world. But before he could get to any of that, CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg got uncharacteristically political.

“As I look around and I travel around the world, I’m starting to see people and nations turning inward, against this idea of a connected world and a global community,” he said in his opening keynote speech in San Francisco. “I hear fearful voices calling for building walls and distancing people they label as ‘others.’ For blocking free expression, for slowing immigration, reducing trade and, in some cases around the world, even cutting access to the Internet.”

It’s pretty clear that by “voices,” Zuckerberg was passive-aggressively referring to Republican presidential primary frontrunner Donald Trump, who has called for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, a ban on all Muslims from entering the United States and a defense strategy that would somehow shut down the Internet in Islamic State-controlled areas of Syria and Iraq.

Zuckerberg then made it clear that he sees Trump's policies as standing in direct conflict with Facebook’s “roadmap” for the future, and vowed to work even harder to bring people together.

“Instead of building walls, we can help people build bridges.” he said, echoing a line from recent Hillary Clinton stump speeches in which she contrasts knocking down barriers with Trump's promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. That, and a February speech in which Pope Francis said, “A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not in the Gospel.” Walls these days: a very controversial thing.

Mark Zuckerberg takes a jab at @realDonaldTrump during #F82016 #F8 pic.twitter.com/xKf9Sd2vrP

— Mashable GIF (@mashablegif)

April 12, 2016

Brace yourself for the Trump rant on Twitter that's sure to come in reply.

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In diverse and liberal New York, Ted Cruz seeks his sliver of support

BRONX, N.Y.—Fresh from a key victory in Wisconsin’s primary, Ted Cruz arrived at Saburosa 2 — a Dominican eatery owned by Chinese-Americans in the South Bronx — ready to court a small, conservative constituency scattered around the largely blue state of New York. But as the afternoon meet and greet unfolded, it became clear that the Texas senator wouldn’t be able to woo potential supporters without also encountering challengers.

“Why are you in the Bronx if you’re such an anti-immigrant?” asked Gonzalo Venegas, who was with his brother, Rodrigo. The two co-host a show on TeleSur English and make up the Bronx hip-hop duo Rebel Diaz.

As the brothers were escorted by police out of a crowd filled with men wearing either cowboy hats or yarmulkes, Rodrigo continued to rip into Cruz’s anti-immigration attitude and highlight what he called “environmental racism,” which his community was experiencing because of climate change.

“We’re one of the poorest congressional districts in the country, and to receive this right-wing bigot is an insult to the whole community,” he yelled. “People are dying!” he continued, as sweat rolled down his temple. “People are dying, Ted Cruz!”

Cruz shakes hands of supporters at Saburosa 2 in the Bronx. (Photo: Timothy A. Clary/AFP).

Though the meet and greet continued, the disruption set a tone for the event. Even if Cruz was able to arrange a backroom schmoozing session hosted by Democratic state Sen.Rubén Díaz, his plan to collect at least some of New York’s 95 GOP delegates would definitely come with image problems.

But in the face of protests, and despite polling in third place in the state, Cruz knew exactly what he was doing in a minority-rich district with conservative tendencies. New York is among the 24 states that award delegates by congressional district, rather than on a statewide basis. Generally each district choses three delegates — five in Missouri.

If Cruz is able to pick off a few districts where his socially conservative views appeal to voters — like the heavily Latino 15th Congressional District — he’ll receive a considerable bump in his delegate count, regardless of how unpopular he might be to the majority of Manhattanites. It explains his appearance in the Bronx on Wednesday, and his packed Thursday schedule, which includes a town hall in a village northwest of Albany, an appearance at a Bronx deli and a tour of a matzo bakery in Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach.

Ted Cruz speaking to the press after the meet and greet. (Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo News).

During a brief press Q&A after the event, Cruz made the connection between his views and those of the Latino community. He praised the immigrant work ethic, argued for the importance of small businesses and education, and bashed New York mayor and “liberal democrat” Bill de Blasio for being controlled by unions and not standing by the NYPD. 

But when a news anchor for a Spanish-language television station asked him a question, he stumbled, attempting to answer in Spanish but then switching to English.

“I have the problem of a second-generation immigrant,” said the Texas senator, who famously sparred with former presidential candidate Marco Rubio during a debate about his Spanish-speaking skills. “I learned Spanish when I was a little kid, but to be honest, what I really spoke at home was Spanglish. As you know in our community, that’s true with just about everyone and certainly with their kids.”

He forged on.

“In the Hispanic community we have shared values,” he said. “The values that resonate in our community are faith, family, patriotism. I think the most powerful value in this community is the American dream. We’re filled with optimism. When my dad came to America from Cuba, he couldn’t speak English, he was washing dishes, but he was filled with hopes and dreams for the future and for his kids.”

SLIDESHOW – The battle for New York >>>

Though his stumble may have hurt his appearance of authenticity among potential Latino voters, many attendees at the event said Cruz’s socially conservative views on issues like abortion and religious liberty ultimately made him the more attractive candidate over New York resident Donald Trump.

“As a junior senator, he stood up against the establishment on a lot of issues and stood his ground,” Donald Sadler, a 51-year-old pastor from Orange County, N.Y., told Yahoo News. “He’s done things for the veterans, he’s pro-life, he’s pro-family, pro-constitution, pro second amendment — all the issues that are important to me, my family and the future of this country.”

Yonatan Telesky, a 30-year-old Orthodox Jewish resident of Manhattan and a registered Democrat, said that of the four viable candidates left in the race, Cruz is the only one whose views align with the interests of the Orthodox Jewish community and the black and Hispanic religious communities in the rest of New York State.

“If he makes a good campaign, he has a chance to win quite a few congressional districts,” Telesky told Yahoo News. “There are practically no Republicans here, so if he can get the few Republicans in each one, he might beat Trump.”

The scene outside the restaurant. (Photo: Alyssa Bereznak/Yahoo News).

As Cruz exited the building, flanked by a scrum of news reporters, a small crowd had formed outside the restaurant and around the shiny black SUV that would be his getaway car. A Muslim man sparred with a Cruz supporter, yelling about the senator’s recent comment that America must secure Muslim neighborhoods. Another man quietly held up a sign that said “Defy the gay mafia” next to a woman with a rainbow-colored sign that read “Love wins.” It was just another day in New York.

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It’s all up to YOU! The art of the campaign fundraising email

Photo: Jae C. Hong/AP Photo.

As the remaining presidential candidates enter the third month of primary voting, the tones of their campaigns have added a tinge of desperation. Pleas for support at rallies have become louder; digs at competitors harsher, and — most notably — voters have been besieged by fundraising emails all the more frequently.

And just as candidates hone their ground-game strategies in the primary states, they are refining their approaches to digital communication. Ahead of today’s primary election in Wisconsin, where both races are tight, Yahoo News asked three digital marketing experts to critique some sample fundraising emails.

Our test subject? Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, who is currently polling ahead of frontrunner Donald Trump for tonight’s primary. Cruz has cultivated an extensive grassroots fundraising effort, pulling in $54.7 million as of February — far more than his two remaining opponents. Below is the verdict on the (apparently effective) subject lines and language of a few of the Texas senator’s campaign emails.

(no subject)

Though one would hope that a possible future president would be more explicit if he had something to email to, say, Vladimir Putin, the “no subject” subject line has emerged as a common ploy in digital marketing.

“You see this in emails happening a lot more frequently lately, where people will put ‘Fwd’ or ‘Re:’ or ‘no subject,’” Isla McKetta, a content creator at the Seattle-based marketing company Moz, told Yahoo News. “It’s an attempt to be kind of casual or off-the-cuff.”

Piquing the curiosity of a recipient can sometimes be more effective than being straightforward. According to Cathy McPhillips, a vice president at the Content Marketing Institute, emails without subject lines have an 8 percent higher open rate than emails with subject lines, typically because people associate such messages from close friends or family members. “People just want to know what it is,” McPhillips told Yahoo News.

sorry for the late note

In line with the same sort of casual outreach that President Obama made famous in his 2008 campaign, email fundraising teams are keen to maintain an aura of an intimacy between a candidate and voters. Sometimes that means purposefully keeping text all lowercase while offering an absurd apology for sending a note that most readers will not see until the morning. In other cases, it means stretching the truth to say the sender is “Ted Cruz’s iPad,” even if the message is being sent from the same standard email address attributed to other emails.

“They’re basically saying, ‘Ted is a real person, he’s not just some political robot, and he’s communicating with you one on one with these messages,’” Joe Stych, an email marketing manager at the web automation app Zapier, told Yahoo News. “If you have an editor writing something, they’ll put it in title case. If you have Ted Cruz typing away on his iPad, then he’s probably not going to correct his capitalization. I’m pretty sure the iPad would correct it for him, but we just won’t go there.”

Though this level of dishonesty might turn off those recipients still unsure about who they plan to vote for, McKetta says that diehard Cruz-heads probably wouldn’t be bothered by this tactic.

“Lots of people would be willing to suspend their disbelief enough in order to open it,” she said. “If you support a candidate enough to sign up for their emails, you care, you are involved, and you want to believe that Ted cares about you.”

(ACTION REQUIRED) Cruz Crew: Make Phone Calls for Ted

In many cases, campaigns use subject lines that stir a level of emotion or urgency, the same way a click-baity Daily Mail headline might. According to McKetta, you can often place them into a small set of categories.

“I like to think about subject lines as having six different types: direct, playful, curiosity-inducing, personalized, scarcity and call to action,” she said. “This one is definitely a call to action. It’s very specific about what it’s doing: You know if you’re part of the Cruz Crew, and you know if you want to make phone calls for Ted.”

Though McPhillips says pressing subject lines like these typically have higher open rates, Cruz’s campaign took a risk by including an all caps phrase in the subject line.

“When things seem like they’re shouty or they’re hard to read, it usually backfires because it just becomes frustrating to the viewer,” she said. McPhillips also notes that using all caps, the word ‘free’ and exclamation points are the three simplest ways to trigger spam filters, causing the message to be lost to junk-mail purgatory.

Fw: 9:16AM

This email requires some context: The full message includes an original note from Cruz with an actual voicemail attached to it, and appears to have been sent to the inbox of his wife, Heidi. She then forwarded it to some email subscribers, suggesting that at 9:16 a.m., they may have — gasp — missed an opportunity to personally speak with Cruz.

“This email is just kind of strange,” Stych said. “It appears to have a voice message from Ted Cruz that somehow ended up in Heidi Cruz’s inbox, and she decided to forward it to you. It doesn’t really make any sense, to be honest.” 

Though it appears Cruz’s email managers were aiming to hit the same vague and personal sweet spot as a “no subject” line, Stych says that sometimes an imprecise subject line like this one can backfire. Using “Fw” ahead of the message is a way to establish a more intimate connection with recipients, but according to McPhillips, that method is considered a shady tactic among email marketers.

“They’re using a lot of techniques that are on the list of the top five things you shouldn’t do in a subject line,” she said. “But because their goal is to get people to open it and spend five dollars, they’re doing whatever it takes.”

FWD: [3] missed emails

In this particular subject line, the Cruz campaign has tweaked its forwarding tactic so that the abbreviation is in all caps, and now has a ‘D.’ The difference in the two isn’t sloppiness, according to Synch; it’s likely a way to test which marker is more effective. 

“The forward with the ‘D’ and the forward without the ‘D’ is probably A/B testing to see which one is more opened,” he said. “They’re just trying to see which one works better.”

When it comes to alerting recipients that they’ve missed three emails, couching the “3” in brackets to make it appear as if their email provider is trying to get their attention, McKetta says that Cruz’s team has once again walked into spammy territory. But it’s possible that, with the help of their own analytics, they have also have weighed the cost and benefits of this.

“Email is very audience-specific, and it’s really hard to say without researching into Ted Cruz’s audience whether this would turn off subscribers,” McKetta said. “I’m sure that his campaign team has done that kind of research. But I would definitely be watching the unsubscribe rate after subject lines like this.”

Ultimately, according to McPhillips, whether a politician offends an email subscriber may have less to do with the message and more to do with an individual’s attention span.

“We have emails coming to us all day long from so many forces,” she said. “It is nice to see emails that are short and sweet: Here’s what we need, here’s why, and here’s a link. But then again, if I just had these in my inbox and not lined up in a row, I may not have been this critical.”

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Who are the winners and losers in the Apple v. FBI drama? An explainer

Photo: Digital Trends

Late on Monday, the FBI announced that it had finally gained access to San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook’s iPhone, effectively ending its month-long fight with Apple over unlocking the device.

Though international debate about encryption is far from over, this leaves both sides in somewhat uncomfortable positions. The FBI looks a little silly for making this into a federal case, and Apple’s device security — which has long been a selling point for its products — has taken a very public hit. Below, a quick explainer of what happened, and how each of these powerful American institutions has emerged from this long and exhausting brawl.

So wait, back up. What did the FBI do to get into the phone?

Funny you ask — that’s the question that every tech journalist in the world wants to answer. Last week, less than 24 hours before the Justice Department was set to face off with Apple lawyers in court, investigators asked to postpone the hearing because they were approached by an “outside party” who offered to help them get into the device.

Who that outside party is we do not know. But there are some pretty reasonable guesses. As Wired reported last week, the FBI has a sole source contract with the Israeli mobile forensic firm Cellebrite. Its website advertises that the company’s hackers can extract data from locked iPhones running any version of iOS up to 8.4.1. It’s possible that those forensic researchers could be exploiting a vulnerability that Apple has already patched in iOS 9.

There are a few other theories that could explain the FBI’s feat, but they get pretty deep in the technical weeds of how iOS stores memory. You can read about these theories here.

A vulnerability in iOS? That’s worrying. Does the FBI have to tell Apple what that is?

Technically, no. And it’s possible they have already signed a nondisclosure agreement with the outside party that helped them do it. If the FBI happens to take Apple to court over accessing a device again, it’s possible the details of this case could come up and become public information.

How does Apple feel about all this?

On a call with journalists last week, Apple lawyers acknowledged that the FBI’s sudden discovery of a break-in method was always a possibility, and one Apple was willing to accept. Indeed, as the company has pointed out in court filings, it is constantly fighting to keep up with the latest security advancements, and patching known vulnerabilities.

But any court order to weaken Apple’s systems, it argued, would make it significantly less secure, because that would make it more likely to be targeted by cybercriminals. Apple lawyers said they hoped the FBI would share its method for breaking into the device, but that there was no way to force it to do so.

But let’s face it: Even if the vulnerability that was exploited by the FBI’s hired hackers has already been patched in later versions of iOS, the fact that law enforcement could get into Farook’s phone makes Apple’s overall security look bad. And it further supports criticism from some cryptographers that Apple could’ve done more to prevent the FBI from even requesting the access it wanted in the San Bernardino case in the first place. Even though the court case was dropped, Apple was definitely cut down in the eyes of the privacy community, and probably the public.

It’s also worth noting that the third party the FBI hired did not report whatever vulnerability it discovered in iOS to Apple. According to a report by the New York Times last week, that could possibly be because unlike most major tech companies, Apple does not offer large sums of money in exchange for finding security errors in its code.

But why did the FBI go through all that legal drama if it could’ve just taken more time to search for outside help?

During the debates spurred by the San Bernardino court case, many privacy activists and members of Congress suggested the FBI simply wanted to set a legal precedent that gave it a court-mandated way to access encrypted information on the devices of terrorists and criminals.

But, as Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Nate Cardozo told Yahoo News last week, it seems “the government was taken by surprise by the strength of Apple’s opposition and the amount of support they were able to garner in both the tech community and the civil liberties community.” In other words, if your court case is prompting journalists to ask President Obama what he thinks about a very controversial topic, you’re probably doing something that could be embarrassing for your organization.

I can imagine that the judge handling this case was not amused.

Well, the federal magistrate assigned to the San Bernardino case is reportedly unfazed by unpredictable situations, even that time a plane crashed into her house in 2003 (no biggie). But the fact that the FBI repeatedly claimed it couldn’t unlock Farook’s phone without the help of Apple — only to say, “Whoops, never mind! We can!” the day before a trial — diminishes its argument in court. That is to say, any judge in any similar case in the future may be skeptical of those claims. The FBI lost a lot of legal credibility through this whole kerfuffle.

Did anyone win?

Hackers, maybe? Or, at least, discreet mobile forensic firms that are hired as private contractors by the government. And I would argue that the American people also won a small victory. An important and complicated issue pitting security and privacy interests against each other was debated pretty seriously in the public square. That may even push Congress to address the issue, however briefly.

Do I have to look out for any more public legal battles like this in the future?

Well, now that the FBI has learned its lesson, it’s likely to be much more secretive about any other access it pursues through third-party forensic labs. Consider the assertive tone of a statement released by a Justice Department spokesperson yesterday: “It remains a priority for the government to ensure that law enforcement can obtain crucial digital information to protect national security and public safety, either with cooperation from relevant parties, or through the court system when cooperation fails. We will continue to pursue all available options for this mission, including seeking the cooperation of manufacturers and relying upon the creativity of both the public and private sectors.”

Chances are, they won’t be seeking the public’s sympathy next time.

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Making sense of the FBI’s abrupt Apple trial postponement

Photo: Bloomberg Video

Less than 24 hours before the FBI was set to face off with Apple in a highly publicized battle over access to a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone, investigators had an apparent breakthrough.

After many statements and much legal testimony from law enforcement insisting that Apple’s assistance was the only way to unlock the iPhone of Syed Rizwan Farook, the Department of Justice filed a motion Monday to delay its hearing because, just the day before, “an outside party demonstrated to the FBI a possible method” for unlocking Farook’s phone.

The sudden move is an unexpected twist in what has become a dramatic clash between law enforcement and the world’s most valuable tech company over the reach of government surveillance in modern times.

In so abruptly changing course, investigators have undercut many of the legal arguments they were relying on to gain access to the device. This decision comes after a series of technical mistakes both in written testimony and in the FBI’s initial investigation of Farook’s phone. Now, as the FBI seeks an alternate way of accessing Apple devices, there are new questions about the security of the company’s operating system and the newfound methods of the FBI.

On a call Monday evening, Apple attorneys were careful not to frame the DOJ’s delay as a sign of victory. The company was informed of the FBI’s motion to vacate at 2:30 p.m., but not given any details of the potential access method or “outside party” that it plans to use to access the information on Farook’s iPhone. Apple’s lawyers did, however, draw a stark contrast between FBI agents’ assertions under oath that they had exhausted all avenues in accessing the phone and the agency’s statement today that it “has continued to pursue all avenues available to discover all relevant evidence related to the attacks.” The hearing is now postponed until a check-in date on April 5.

Earlier in the day at an Apple product announcement, CEO Tim Cook made a statement about the company’s fight to protect encryption.

The eleventh-hour request to cancel the hearing could be a potential sign that the FBI wants to drop its order entirely, according to Nate Cardozo, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital-rights group.

“The government was taken by surprise by the strength of Apple’s opposition and the amount of support they were able to garner both in the tech community and the civil liberties community,” he told Yahoo News. “The government wanted to frame this as security versus privacy. But I think Apple was successful in reframing it as security versus security.”

The FBI’s discovery of an outside source to aid in unlocking Farook’s iPhone has raised eyebrows among security experts, as many have long speculated that the National Security Agency could help break into the phone. During a hearing about encryption before the House Judiciary Committee, FBI Director James Comey said his organization has “talked to anybody who will talk to us about it,” implying that “anybody” also included government organizations. However, the following week, the American Civil Liberties Union detailed a way that law enforcement could have easily worked around the iPhone’s auto-erase feature.

“This suggests that the FBI either doesn’t understand the technology well enough or wasn’t telling us the full truth earlier when it said that only Apple could break into the phone,” ACLU attorney Alex Abdo said in a statement. “Either possibility is disconcerting.”

Earlier this month, whistleblower Edward Snowden challenged the notion that enlisting Apple’s cooperation was the FBI’s only hope in the San Bernardino case. “Respectfully, that’s bull****,” he said via a video stream from Moscow to the Common Cause Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference.

The DOJ is still pursuing a similar case in which it is demanding access to the iOS 7 operating system of a drug dealer’s iPhone in a criminal investigation. New York Federal Judge James Orenstein recently ruled strongly in Apple’s favor, and law enforcement appealed. But given the way the FBI has undercut its argument in the San Bernardino case, Cardozo says it’s possible that the agency could be ready to back off from the larger fight of encryption altogether.

“It’s tempting to think that there’s something weird going on, but I never ascribe to malign intent before I ascribe to incompetence,” he told Yahoo News. “It kind of just seems like incompetence rather than conspiracy at this point.”

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At FBI’s request, Apple security expert will testify in San Bernardino case

Photo: Digital Trends

Next Tuesday’s hearing in the legal battle between the FBI and Apple just got a little more dramatic.

On late Wednesday evening, prosecutors were granted an evidentiary hearing, meaning that the legal arguments will be preceded by witnesses and live testimony. Specifically, the FBI has requested to interrogate Eric Neuenschwander, Apple’s head of product security and privacy, and the attorney who initially worked with the FBI in its investigation of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone — both of whom previously provided written testimony to the court.

The case revolves around a single iPhone 5C, used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who, along with his wife, killed 14 people at a Christmas party in December. The FBI has requested that Apple help unlock Farook’s phone by creating a new mobile operating system. The company characterizes such help as a "backdoor," potentially leading to much greater government access to other encrypted communications. The dispute has drawn stark battle lines between law enforcement and the tech industry, sparking a fierce debate over how much sacrifice of privacy is necessary for public safety.

Apple’s lawyers say they hope that when the trial starts, unreleased portions of the testimony by Neuenschwander and his colleague will be put on the record. The request for an evidentiary hearing this late in the process is unusual, lawyers say, and may indicate that the government is "uncomfortable" with its legal grounds. Apple did not say whether they would ask to examine the two FBI agents who gave written testimony earlier.

The hearing will begin with a statement by federal magistrate Sheri Pym at 1 p.m. PT on Tuesday, March 22. That will be followed with about an hour and a half of witness testimony. The second portion of the hearing will consist of arguments by lawyers for Apple and the government, and a closing statement by Apple.

Yahoo News will be there, live-blogging every raised eyebrow and sip of water. Be sure to follow along on Tuesday.

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FBI vs. Apple: It’s getting heated

Police officers monitor a demonstration outside the Apple Store on Fifth Avenue in New York in February. (Photo: Julie Jacobson/AP)

Ever since a federal magistrate ordered Apple to help the FBI unlock the phone of a San Bernardino shooter in early February, the company and the bureau have been trading insults in the media and the courts. That conflict continued with a new round of filings Tuesday afternoon (embedded below).

In the final scheduled filing before a crucial hearing set for March 22, Apple criticized prosecutors' attempt to “rewrite history” in its legal argument, arguing that the FBI was using the All Writs Act — a 1789 law empowering judges to issue warrants and authorize searches — as “an all-powerful magic wand rather than the limited procedural tool it is.” Apple lawyers wrote that “the Founders would be appalled” by the government’s overreach in this case.

The high-stakes legal battle has forced members of Congress, major law enforcement groups, virtually every large Silicon Valley tech company and even President Obama to offer opinions on the government’s right to see encrypted data.

Related: Apple v. FBI: Examining the slippery slope argument

The tech company reaffirmed its position that Congress, not a court, should decide the reach of the FBI when it comes to accessing the encrypted communications of private individuals.

Reply Brief in Support of Apple's Motion to Vacate

“It has become crystal clear that this case is not about a ‘modest’ order and a ‘single iPhone,’” the brief reads. “Instead, this case hinges on a contentious policy issue about how society should weigh what law enforcement officials want against the widespread repercussions and serious risks their demands would create.”

In an attempt to discredit certain claims made by the government, Apple’s filing includes written statements from its vice president of software engineering, Craig Federighi — a public figure within the company who often presents at the company's highly publicized product launches — and Robert Ferrini, the company’s director of advertising and planning. Federighi said that Apple designs the security of its phones only to protect its customers’ data, and that it enforces the same security infrastructure “everywhere in the world.” This contradicts the FBI's claims that they adjust those rules country by country. Ferrini’s statement addressed an FBI accusation that Apple lawyers described as “offensive” on a Tuesday night call with journalists: that Apple marketed its phones to customers as “warrant-proof.”

“Since the introduction of iOS 8 in October 2014, Apple has placed approximately 1,793 advertisements worldwide — 627 in the United States alone — of different types, including print ads, television ads, online ads, cinema ads, radio ads and billboards,” his statement read. “Of those advertisements, not a single one has ever advertised or promoted the ability of Apple’s software to block law enforcement requests for access to the contents of Apple devices.”

SLIDESHOW – iPhone security protests >>>

Bruce Sewell, senior vice president and general counsel for Apple Inc., watches as FBI Director James Comey testifies on March 1 during a House Judiciary hearing. (Photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)

Finally, Apple’s lawyers criticized prosecutors’ understanding of certain technical issues at play in the case, arguing that the FBI was “either confused or reckless and careless” in addressing them.

The two sides will face off in court next Tuesday.

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Obama on encryption debate: ‘There has to be some concession’ from tech companies

During President Obama’s keynote event at the South by Southwest tech conference, the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith brought up the ongoing fight between Apple and the FBI over access to a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone.

“Putting aside the specifics of this case, there are big questions around the idea of how you balance the need of law enforcement to conduct investigations, and the need of citizens to protect their privacy,” Smith said. “Mr. President, where do you come down on the privacy versus security debate?”

Obama offered a long and careful reply, indicating that he is hopeful that tech companies and law enforcement can find common ground on the issue.

Related: At SXSW, Obama calls on tech industry to solve ‘big problems’

“The question now becomes how we as a society — setting aside this specific case between the FBI and Apple, setting aside the commercial interests, the concerns about what the Chinese government could do with this — we’re going to make some decisions about how we balance these prospective risks,” he said. “I’ve got a bunch of smart people sitting here talking about it, thinking about it. We have engaged the tech community aggressively to help solve this problem.”

Obama said he felt it was wrong to take an “absolutist perspective,” and proposed a form of encryption in which a few organizations can access the key for systems in certain agreed-upon scenarios.

“If your argument is strong encryption no matter what and that we can and should, in fact, create black boxes, that I think does not strike the kind of balance we’ve lived with for 200, 300 years,” he said. “It’s fetishizing our phones above every other value. And that can’t be an answer. I suspect the answer is going to come down to how do we create a system where the encryption is as strong as possible, the key is as secure as possible, it is accessible by the smallest number of people possible for a subset of issues that we agree are important.”

The Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith and President Obama at SXSW in Austin, Texas, Mar.11, 2016. (Photo: Larry W. Smith/EPA).

However, Obama did admit that he was not an expert in the area of cryptography, saying “how we design that is not something that I have the expertise to do.”

Apple and the many privacy activists and experts who have backed the company in its ongoing legal battle against the FBI, argue that any compromise to encryption could lead to a “slippery slope,” dismantling the intricate security systems the tech industry has worked hard to create.

Related: Apple v. the FBI: Examining the slippery slope argument

After the event, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-CA.—who questioned the motives of FBI Director James Comey during a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week—released a statement criticizing Obama’s viewpoint.

“The President’s speech today showed a fundamental lack of understanding of the tech community, the complexities of encryption, and the importance of privacy to our safety in an increasingly digital world,” it read. “There’s just no way to create a special key for government that couldn’t also be taken advantage of by the Russians, the Chinese, or others who want access to the sensitive information we all carry in our pockets everyday.”

The FBI, which just yesterday called Apple’s rhetoric “corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights,“ disagrees. The two organizations will face off in court on March 22nd.

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At SXSW, Obama calls on tech industry to solve ‘the big problems that we’re facing today’

In the first-ever visit by a president to the technology and arts festival South by Southwest, Barack Obama spoke about cybersecurity, countering religious extremism, and engaging citizens through new digital avenues. He also urged members of the tech industry to help solve America’s most pressing challenges.

“The reason I’m here is to recruit all of you,” he said in a discussion with the Texas Tribune’s Evan Smith. “It’s to say to you, as I’m about to leave office, how can we start coming up with new platforms, new ideas, new approaches to solve some of the big problems that we’re facing today.”

Held before an audience of about 2,000 SXSW attendees at the Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas, the public conversation was the culmination of a weeklong campaign by the White House to promote its initiatives in technology. Alongside the premiere of several tech-centric initiatives, senior officials emphasized citizen access to newly released government tools, collaborations with private tech companies and the use of emerging technology to tackle complicated policy problems that are not being addressed by Congress.

Related: Obama on encryption debate: ‘There has to be some concession’

But as Obama discussed the benefits a strengthened relationship between the government and the tech industry, Smith questioned whether they could overcome their differences, exemplified in the legal battle between the FBI and Apple over access to the data on the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

Though Obama declined to comment on that specific case, he said those who think there’s no middle ground in the debate — specifically the privacy activists defending encryption — are being unreasonable.

President Obama speaking at SXSW. (Photo: Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for SXSW)

“The question we now have to ask is: If it’s now technologically possible to make an impenetrable device or system, where the encryption is so strong that there’s no key or door at all, then how do we apprehend the child pornographer, how do we disrupt a terrorist plot?” he said. “There has to be some concessions to the need to get into that information somehow.”

In many of his answers, Obama took the opportunity to appeal directly to some of the entrepreneurs and technologists in the audience, emphasizing the importance of their expertise in addressing what he said the government’s responsibility to solve “the hardest problems.”

“We want to create a pipeline where there’s a continuous flow of talent to help shape the government,” Obama said, adding that he had just met with filmmakers and technologists about countering violent extremism online.

This is not the first time members of the Obama administration’s digital team have appealed to the technologists of SXSW to aid the government. Last year, U.S. digital service administrator Mikey Dickerson, the former Google engineer who helped revamped the disastrous Healthcare.gov website, emphasized the need for experienced technologists in the White House.

Related: Meet Obama’s big data dude

“Some of you, not all of you, are working right now on another app for people to share pictures of food or a social network for dogs,” he wrote in a Medium post afterwards. “I am here to tell you that your country has a better use for your talents.”

Jason Goldman, the White House chief digital officer who, in 2009, helped launch Twitter at this very same festival, says that Obama’s call for tech aid should appeal to those Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who are looking for a higher purpose.

“It’s about how we can rely on all sectors and all parts of American life to take on big challenges and think creatively about how to solve problems that maybe seem too hard,” he told Yahoo News. “People can show up and make things better for themselves, their neighbors, their communities. That’s what it means to be a citizen in this world.”

Related: White House enlists Silicon Valley to solve a low-tech problem: Affordable diapers

Some of the programs the White House announced this week included an open-data project to share information among federal, state and local governments; a partnership with the e-commerce startup, Jet, to make diapers more affordable for the charities that distribute them to poor families; and a new mandate that would require the federal government to share some of its source code with the public.

“While what we’re talking about here today is technology, this isn’t just a story about technology for technology’s sake,” said Kristie Canegallo, White House deputy chief of staff, in a press call Thursday afternoon. “This is about how we can improve the role of government and ensure that it’s delivering the best services for the American people.”

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White House enlists Silicon Valley to solve a low-tech problem: Affordable diapers

The White House is announcing a collaborative project to reduce the cost of diapers for low-income families. (Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

Josh Miller, a White House official who helps with digital outreach, was thinking about diapers.

Miller, whose title is “director of product,” had been in on a discussion with his colleagues on the Domestic Policy Council. They were looking for ways to make diapers more affordable for the poor families who struggle to pay for them. President Obama would ask Congress for a pilot program to provide diapers for low-income families, but it was unlikely to pass. So Miller decided to reach out on Twitter to a company called Jet, an innovative, e-commerce startup founded by Marc Lore, the former CEO of Diapers.com.

Chris Ramirez, who works on Jet’s customer experience team, fielded Miller’s tweet. He was surprised that someone from the White House would pop up in his Twitter feed, but after some double-checking, discussing how Jet might be able to help with his problem, Ramirez says, “the conversation just took off.”

The result, to be announced today, is a wide-ranging collaboration among the White House, Jet, diaper manufacturer First Quality and nonprofits across the United States to lower the price of diapers for the low-income families who struggle to afford them. By modifying diaper packaging and streamlining shipping processes along the lines of on-demand models like Amazon Prime, the project will allow nonprofits to quickly buy diapers in bulk online for distribution to families who need the assistance.

The project is one of many recent collaborations between tech-driven companies and an administration that has often been stymied by congressional opposition. In snatching up technologists from high-profile Silicon Valley companies to work for the U.S. Digital Service, the president has begun building a “startup” within the White House that not only tweets and Snapchats, but also is increasingly addressing policy issues with private-sector solutions. The diaper program announcement comes just a day before President Obama attends the tech-heavy South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin, Texas, where he will address the importance of civil engagement in the era of technology.

Though the collaboration may have started with a simple tweet, it’s rooted in detailed research by Megan Smith, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. In 2013, Smith released a study that found 3 in 10 poor mothers could not afford an adequate supply of diapers, leading, understandably, to symptoms of depression and anxiety.

When Luke Tate, a senior policy adviser in the Domestic Policy Council, came across this research, he started looking into how this financial burden affects low-income families as a group. He found that in 2014, the poorest 20 percent of Americans with infants and toddlers spent nearly 14 percent of their income on diapers.

“The thing that blew me away though was that low-income families nationwide are paying on average $936 a year for an essential good that’s comparable to a utility,” he told Yahoo News. “I’m thinking [my family is] paying half that.”

That difference in price, he discovered, was because poor families can’t take advantage of on-demand shipping services like Amazon Prime. Those who can afford to subscribe to such services, have Internet access to use them, and live in buildings where packages can be delivered are able to save money by buying essential items such as toilet paper in bulk. By comparison, those who don’t have those advantages — both poor families and the charities that assist them — pay on average almost twice as much per diaper.

“It’s just an incredible and jarring illustration of how expensive it is to be poor,” Tate said.

Traditionally, the Domestic Policy Council would address an issue like this by identifying a public program, like food stamps, and writing a provision for diapers into the president’s budget proposal. But according to its director, Cecilia Muñoz, congressional intransigence on the budget has led her office to turn to more innovative methods.

“When you think about it, we’ve been finding creative ways around the obstacles in this town for seven years,” she told Yahoo News. “This is just the latest example.”

So Muñoz’s department turned to the Office of Digital Strategy, a group best known for heading the White House’s social media channels. Using his experience as a former Facebook employee, Miller visualized this diaper problem from the perspective of “the user.” In this case, that meant the nonprofits that lacked the space to store bulk shipments of diapers, or access to on-demand purchasing that would make a warehouse unnecessary. He figured Jet, which specializes in reducing product costs by finding more efficient ways to ship and package items, was the perfect business to collaborate with. And the company agreed.

“What made this so compelling is how well it fit with our core focus here,” Dana Hork, the brand experience director at Jet, told Yahoo News. “We find scalable and sustainable advantages for our customers. Developing a more cost-effective diaper for a family in need was a very natural extension of our main focus.”

Jet set up a 10-person team to figure out how to reduce the price per diaper without sacrificing quality. To do this, they contacted First Quality, the company that manufactures Cuties diapers, and began to brainstorm ways to redesign the packaging in a cost-efficient way. They eliminated some of the high-resolution images printed on the packages that are sold in stores, and they increased the number of diapers that could fit into each box, cutting the unit cost for nonprofits from about 50 cents to 13 cents.

Meanwhile, Jet set up a separate page on its website, where any nonprofit can register to access these heavily discounted diapers and receive them within 48 hours with free shipping. So far, it has partnered with the National Diaper Bank Network, which, according to White House Chief Digital Officer Jason Goldman, estimates that its locations will order more than 15 million diapers through this program this year.

Goldman, who has overseen partnerships with Instacart and Kickstarter to aid with the refugee crisis during his past year in the White House, said that the success of private sector collaborations depends on framing issues in a way that allows companies to address them head-on.

“We know that people get outraged about 2x pricing on Uber,” he told Yahoo News. “But they just aren’t aware of the fact that low-income families have to pay more than that surge price on diapers. Contextualizing the problems in terms that [companies] understand helps people really think about the greater challenges that aren’t being tackled.”

Goldman hopes to address more areas of need with the help of Silicon Valley talent in the coming year. And his office’s recruiting process will be center stage at SXSW, when Obama delivers a keynote speech there on Friday.

“This is obviously one of the big reasons we’re going to SXSW,” he said. “So the president can have a conversation there with the world leading innovators and thinkers and entrepreneurs — folks who think creatively about problems that have seemed entrenched for a long period of time. That’s like the spirit of entrepreneurship that’s fueled not only the tech sector’s growth in the last couple of years, but is endemic to the American character.”

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GOP candidates pledge to vote for the man they call a liar, con man and fraud

As Donald Trump has notched win after win in the GOP primaries and caucuses, conservative and Republican Party elites have begun to panic.

They have created new million-dollar coalitions to take down the New York businessman, rallied around the hashtag #NeverTrump and cheered past nominee Mitt Romney’s speech on Thursday morning tearing down the real estate mogul. 

But asked at the end of Thursday night’s debate whether they’d vote for Trump if he was the Republican nominee, every candidate reluctantly said yes. Although not without making it really, really, really clear they didn’t want to. 

“Support the Republican nominee?” said Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, as if he needed to process the question. “I’ll support Donald if he’s the Republican nominee — and let me tell you why.” He went on to berate Bernie Sanders as a “socialist,” and accuse Hillary Clinton of lying to “the family of victims who lost their lives in the service of our country,” concluding that, “We must defeat Hillary Clinton.” (Anyone interested in a #NeverTrump sticker, however, can purchase one on Rubio’s website.)

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas also pledged to support Trump, but made his answer all about himself: “I gave my word that I would,” he said. “And what I have endeavored to do every day in the Senate is do what I said I would do.” 

Gov. John Kasich said he’d do it too. It may have been an easy call for the Ohio governor, since he believes he won’t need to cast that particular vote. “I kinda think that before it’s all said and done, I’ll be the nominee,” he said, and then launched into an explanation of candidate ethics. “When you’re in the arena, you enter a special circle, and you want to respect the people that you’re in the arena with. So if [Trump] ends up as the nominee — sometimes he makes it a little bit hard — but, uh, you know. I will support whoever is the Republican nominee for president.” 

Finally, moderator Chris Wallace turned the question to Trump. “Can you definitively say tonight that you’ll definitely support the Republican nominee for president, even if it’s not you?” he asked. “Even if it’s not me?” Trump said innocently, eliciting laughter from the audience. He couldn’t resist answering the question without lobbing one last insult at his opponents.

“I’m going to give them some credit too, even though they don’t deserve it,” said Trump. “But the answer is: Yes, I will.”

(Cover tile photo: Jim Young/Reuters)

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In sign of apocalypse, Donald Trump defends the size of his … hands

Oh, yes he did. 

During Fox News’ Thursday night debate, moderators addressed the somewhat juvenile tone that has overcome the GOP campaign in the past week.

Bret Baier asked Marco Rubio about the contradictory nature of personal attacks he made on Donald Trump recently, including an implication that the businessman peed his pants backstage at the last debate and mocking Trump for having what Rubio described as abnormally short fingers. It was a fair question, one the Florida senator immediately dodged by saying he’d prefer to debate policies and experience. 

Then it was Trump’s turn to answer.

“I have to say this: He hit my hands,” Trump said. “Nobody has ever hit my hands. I’ve never heard of this one.” (Spy magazine famously referred to Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian” in the 1980s and ’90s.) “Look at those hands,” Trump said, holding his fingers up for everyone to see. “Are they small hands? And he referred to my hands: ‘If they’re small, something else must be small.’ I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee.”

Oh, yes he did. 

Cover tile photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

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Tech and civil rights groups rally behind Apple in court filings

Photo: Bloomberg Video

Privacy advocates, legal and computer security experts, and over 30 major tech companies filed briefs with a California court on Thursday asking it to dismiss the FBI order that would force Apple to help unlock the phone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. Support came from a wide range of individuals, including a United Nations human rights official and Salihin Kondoker, the husband of a surviving victim of the December shooting.

The “friend of the court” submissions are the latest development in a saga pitting Apple against the FBI over the bureau’s attempts to unlock a San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. The FBI’s position has drawn support from law enforcement leaders, sharp scrutiny from Congress and outrage from privacy activists.

Related: Apple v. FBI: Examining the slippery slope argument

Never a company to bypass a good public relations opportunity, Apple created a website to aggregate amicus briefs and letters to the court submitted in its favor, circumventing the court’s sometimes slow digital processing system.

Most prominent among Apple’s supporters was a joint filing from 15 Silicon Valley giants, including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook. In a brief that voiced concerns about government overreach and the failure to consult Congress, the companies argued that a decision against Apple threatens the very nature of their products.

SLIDESHOW – Shooting in San Bernardino, California >>>

“How apps and programs store data is not just—as the government claims—a “public brand marketing strategy.” It is at the core of the products’ identities,” the statement, embedded below, reads. “Indeed, how companies store and manage customers’ data is one way companies tailor their chat, e-mail, social-media, and data storage solutions to customers’ needs. Change those features and the government has changed the product in a fundamental way.” 

Amicus Brief for Apple from Major Tech Companies

Additionally 17 other Silicon Valley companies, including Twitter, eBay, Airbnb, LinkedIn, Medium, Kickstarter, and Reddit filed a similar statement of support, emphasizing the importance of maintaining consumer confidence in the area of privacy. 

“The government’s demand here will force companies to violate existing representations to their users regarding access to, and the security of, their data, and will undermine their ability to make such assurances in the future," the statement read. “Similarly, the government could require companies to break other aspects of their agreements with users—by collecting more information than disclosed, sharing the data in undisclosed or unintended ways, or even surreptitiously forcing users to download code mandated by the government to weaken the privacy and safety protections promised to users.”

AT&T and Intel also filed individual briefs backing Apple.

The App Association, which represents more than 5,000 mobile tech companies, expressed concern about the economic effects that a decision against Apple could have on its emerging market and small businesses across America.

“Just one tool to protect privacy and security is directly implicated in this case, but what the Government seeks to do would send rippling effects through the entire digital economy, particularly for those who develop software for the mobile economy,” the group’s brief reads.

SLIDESHOW – iPhone security protests >>>

Seven security experts, including cryptographer Bruce Schneier and Charlie Miller, who recently revealed vulnerabilities in Chrysler’s automotive systems, expressed doubt that Apple would be able to prevent outsiders, including criminals, from stealing and using what Apple is calling the “GovtOS” software that the FBI wants it to create.

“For practical reasons, the security bypass this Court would order Apple to create almost certainly will be used on other iPhones in the future,” their joint brief reads. “This spread increases the risk that the forensic software will escape Apple’s control either through theft, embezzlement, or order of another court, including a foreign government.”

Kondoker, whose wife, Anies, was shot three times at the holiday party where Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people, appealed personally to Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym, arguing that the decision in this case is not just about the FBI’s investigation.

“When I first learned Apple was opposing the order I was frustrated that it would be yet another roadblock,” he wrote. “But as I read more about their case, I have come to understand their fight is for something much bigger than one phone. They are worried that this software the government wants them to use will be used against millions of other innocent people. I share their fear.”

The American Civil Liberties Union touched on issues of individual rights, taking special issue with the FBI’s interpretation of the All Writs Act, a 1789 law originally created to compel compliance with court orders and warrants.

“It is not clear what would prevent law enforcement from obtaining an order compelling: an individual to spy on her neighbor, an employee of the ACLU to retrieve information on another employee’s personal device; a cybersecurity firm to remotely hack into a customer’s network to obtain evidence; or even a friend of a Black Lives Matter organizer to seek out information and report on that person’s plan for a peaceful protest,” the ACLU wrote.

Access Now, a nonprofit dedicated to defending digital rights, partnered with Wickr, an app company that specializes in secure communications, to emphasize the implications of the court’s decisions in countries where government surveillance goes unchecked. Citing both Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist Papers and international law, the organizations offered accounts of journalists and activists from Ethiopia, South Africa and Vietnam who relied on secure communications to avoid persecution.

“In such places, the anonymity and privacy that digital security tools such as encryption provide can save lives,” they wrote in the brief.

Meanwhile, the FBI earned support from several major law enforcement groups and family members of the San Bernardino shooting's victims.

Apple Senior VP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell, left, listens as FBI Director James Comey testifies on Capitol Hill Tuesday at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on encryption and privacy. (Photo: Jose Luis Magana/AP)

On Tuesday, FBI Director James Comey and Apple general counsel Bruce Sewell testified before the House Judiciary Committee about the pending case. In the hearing, Comey emphasized that his organization’s focus was solely on the specific investigation of the San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone. But some committee members openly questioned the FBI’s motives in pursuing a legal order.

“Can you appreciate my frustration with what appears to be little more than an end run around this committee?” Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., asked Comey at one point. Comey said he could not.

In an interview with NPR’s David Greene on Thursday, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. — one of the committee members who sharply questioned Comey — said “the FBI director came unprepared” to the hearing and expressed frustration that the FBI did not investigate all avenues to get data off the iPhone.

“He seemed befuddled that he and his people hadn’t gone through the basics of, ‘How do we defeat this phone one time?’” he said. “Because they were so busy demanding a backdoor be developed for all phones.”