801: White Male Clerks

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 15:10

AC'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--K5ACCGovernments are reading your email.Slow them down with encryption.My public key:pubkey.curry.com'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 15:10

AC'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--K5ACCGovernments are reading your email.Slow them down with encryption.My public key:pubkey.curry.com'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 15:10

Hello my name is David. I have been listening to No Agenda for about a year now.I hear you seriously want to run for Congress. I am a party politician in Canada and have some knowledge of how it works and can give some advice. I am a riding president not a campaign manager. Like a district party chair.I have helped get one guy elected to national office then I moved into basically Nancy Pelosis district and have been losing ever since. I cant stress enough that political parties have huge advantages. Basically by going independent you are starting a podcast and trying to down the biggest radio stations in Austin. The parties are machines for getting peopled elected. If nothing else get the Libertarian nomination and then run for state office. I doubt you will do the latter, but might do the Former. The nomination shows that your at least serious. Will give you a pool of volunteers beyond the NA crew and a way to fundraise and your going to need to do the latter. I can recommend a book for you its not a sci fi book. Its actually serious turns out Robert A Heinlein was like me a middle ranked party volunteer.http://www.amazon.ca/Take-Back-Government-Robert-Heinlein/dp/1612420613If nothing else call for a meetup of NA fans in the Austin area. Let them know that this is part of your election campaign. Bring a copy of your nomination form. Have them all sign it. Have clipboards and pens, or better yet there are apps for that. Then send them out to get your 500 names. If they get more even better.If you want people to put in a min conmittent you need to put in one as well. Half of politics is being asked.If nothing else, get the form, and go to door yourself. You will be surprised by the number of people who will be happy to have someone any candidate show up on our door.Hope this works outDavid March\Riding PresidentHamilton CenterOntario PC Party-- David MarchCA200409006''The thing I like about history is they are always making more of it, and none of it is trademarked.'' Me

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:39

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} body.geezapro { font-family: 'Geeza Pro'; } body.kefa { font-family: 'Kefa' } body.arialhebrew { font-family: 'Arial Hebrew' } body.mshtakan { font-family: 'Mshtakan' } body.plantagenetcherokee { font-family: 'Plantagenet Cherokee' } body.euphemiaucas { font-family: 'Euphemia UCAS' } body.bangla { font-family: 'Bangla Sangam MN' } body.gujarati { font-family: 'Gujarati Sangam MN' } body.gurmukhi { font-family: 'Gurmukhi MN' } body.devanagari { font-family: 'Devanagari Sangam MN' } body.kannada { font-family: 'Kannada Sangam MN' } body.malayalam { font-family: 'Malayalam Sangam MN' } body.oriya { font-family: 'Oriya Sangam MN' } body.sinhala { font-family: 'Sinhala Sangam MN' } body.inaimathi { font-family: 'InaiMathi' } body.tamil { font-family: 'Tamil Sangam MN' } body.telugu { font-family: 'Telugu Sangam MN' } @media print { body { margin: 2mm 9mm; line-height: 1.5em; font-family: -apple-system-font; } .original-url { display: none; } a { text-decoration: underline; } } COPD vs. CHF: Similarities & DifferencesA chronic cough is one of the main symptoms of COPD. The cough can sometimes bring up mucus from your diseased airways. However, it can also be more of a dry cough. CHF patients also tend to have a dry cough that produces sputum. Sputum is mucus that may also contain blood, pus, and/or bacteria.http://www.healthline.com/health/copd/copd-vs-congestive-heart-failure#UnderstandingCOPD&CHF2 COPD vs. CHF: Similarities & Differences Part 1 of 6

What Do COPD and CHF Have in Common?Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and congestiveheart failure (CHF) can leave you feeling short of breath. The two seriousconditions also share other symptoms and common risk factors. However, thecauses and treatments of COPD and CHF differ significantly.

Part 2 of 6

Understanding COPD & CHFCOPD is actually a broad term for several types of seriousrespiratory conditions that affect the small airways in the lungs. Theseinclude chronic bronchitis and emphysema. With bronchitis, the airways thatextend from the trachea into the lungs become irritated. Emphysema occurs whenserious damage is done to the tiny air sacs in the lungs where oxygen andcarbon dioxide is exchanged. These diseases leave your lungs unable to work atfull strength, making it hard or difficult to breathe.

Understand the different stages of COPD >>

CHF occurs when the heart becomes too weak to pump bloodthroughout the body. Because blood isn't pumped out of the heart effectively,fluid levels can build up. This is the ''congestion'' referred to in the condition'sname. When blood backs up or pools in the heart, the heart tends to beat morerapidly and expands to handle the greater volume of blood. This leads toworsening heart failure. The condition is made even more serious because areduction in blood to the kidneys causes them to retain more sodium and fluid.

Part 3 of 6

Similar SignsShortness of breath and wheezing are symptoms of both COPDand CHF. These breathing difficulties are usually experienced after physicalactivity and tend to develop gradually. For example, you may notice feeling alittle more out of breath after climbing a set of stairs. As COPD and CHF worsen,shortness of breath or wheezing may occur with little exertion.

A chronic cough is one of the main symptoms of COPD. Thecough can sometimes bring up mucus from your diseased airways. However, it canalso be more of a dry cough. CHF patients also tend to have a dry cough thatproduces sputum. Sputum is mucus that may also contain blood, pus, and/orbacteria.

COPD can also produce tightness in the chest. CHF doesn'tlead to chest tightness, but you may feel your heart beating irregularly orrapidly in your chest.

Part 4 of 6

Differing OriginsWhile they share some common symptoms, CHF and COPD developfrom different causes. Heart failure can be caused by coronary artery disease(CAD), the blockage of blood vessels in the heart and the cause of heart attacks.Other causes include diseases of the heart valves, high blood pressure, anddiseases of the heart muscle itself.

The single mostcommon cause of COPD is smoking. A history of smoking doesn't guaranteeyou'll get COPD, but it certainly increases the likelihood of developingrespiratory problems. Smoking is also a risk factor for heart disease and CHF.

Some cases of COPD may be attributed to breathing secondhandsmoke or inhaling chemicals in the workplace. A family history of COPD can alsoincrease your likelihood of developing the condition.

Part 5 of 6

Lifestyle and TreatmentBecause smoking can contribute to COPD and CHF, you'll mostlikely be advised to give up the habit no matter your current health condition.

Regular physical activity is also important to strengthenyour heart and lungs. However, both COPD and CHF can limit what types ofexercises you can do. Talk with your doctor about activities that are safe, aswell as what precautions you should take before and during exercise.

As you may expect, the types of medications given to COPDand CHF patients differ. A common COPD medication is a bronchodilator, whichrelaxes the muscles around your airways. This can help make breathing easier.There are short-acting bronchodilators, which last up to six hours. These are usuallyrecommended for times when you're likely to be more active. Long-lastingbronchodilators can last up to 12 hours, and are used every day. Theseriousness of your COPD will determine what type of bronchodilator is best.

If you have severe COPD, you may also need inhaledglucocorticosteroids. Steroids help minimize inflammation in your airways.

CHF can involve the use of several medications. Among themain drugs used to help the heart are vasodilators, which are used to widenblood vessels and lower blood pressure. This also helps lower the burden on theheart. Other key medications include diuretics. Diuretics reduce the amount offluid and sodium in the body and can also help lower blood pressure. A drugcalled digoxin strengthens heart contractions and is a very important part ofCHF treatment for many patients.

Anticoagulant medications may also be used as they can helpreduce the risk of blood clots. Oxygen therapy, which delivers oxygen to thelungs through a tube in the nose, is often used for cases of serious CHF andCOPD.

Part 6 of 6

PreventionThe main preventive measure you can take to avoid COPD is tonever smoke or to stop smoking. There are many proven products and therapies tohelp people quit smoking. Ask your doctor about these methods or look forprograms in your community or at your local hospital.

Not smoking can also help preserve heart health. But othersteps should also be taken to help lower your risk of CHF. Managing your bloodpressure and cholesterol, either through medications or lifestyle changes, can goa long way toward maintaining a healthy heart. The other keys to preventing CHFinclude exercising most days of the week and eating a diet that's low insaturated fats, added sugars, and sodium, and rich in fruits, vegetables, andwhole grains.

Having regular checkups and following yourdoctor's advice may also help prevent COPD, CHF, and other serious healthproblems.

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Fri, 19 Feb 2016 19:52

The first ever national Libertarian debate is happening, and it will be televised. The new was released earlier this week by Governor Gary Johnson's campaign after a previously scheduled debate was canceled. The previous debate was scheduled for February 26th-28th via John Stossel, the International Students for Liberty Conference, and the FOX Business Network. Itwas set to include Austin Peterson and John McAfee as presidential nominee hopefuls. However, the debate conflicted with the dates for the Libertarian Party of Alabama/Mississippi Joint Convention. Johnson was scheduled to appear at the joint convention, and therefore turned down the invitation to appear at the ISFL and FOX debate. This incited the anger and disappointment of many Party members, some even accusing Johnson of being ''afraid of debating Austin Petersen and John McAfee'' and ''chickening out.'' They argued that a national viewership was far more important than smaller, local bases, as the Party must receive 5% of the national vote in order to receive federal funding in future elections.Petersen made a statement that ''this is why we can't have nice libertarian things'' along with the hashtag, #WhereIsGaryJohnson? He complained that Johnson was ruining the opportunity for everyone involved. Moreover, while accusing Johnson of fear, he failed to acknowledge that both he and McAffee were also scheduled to attend the same AL/MS debate with Johnson; however, according to a press release directly from the AL/MS Libertarian Party, Petersen and McAfee both canceled to go to Washington. Now that the February Washington debate is canceled, both candidates are back on board. Despite Petersen neglecting to acknowledge the AL/MS LP in any of his recent statements, he and McAfee are both listed as attendees on his website. McAfee's statement was also rife with disappointment, and somewhat accusatory, but at least acknowledged that both he and Petersen had had the same prior commitments and didn't use phrases like, ''do you even liberty, bro?'' So, that's that.

Earlier this week, Johnson's campaign released the following statement:

The Gary Johnson 2016 campaign has confirmed with Fox Business's Stossel that Gov. Johnson will be delighted to participate in a televised debate among Libertarian Party presidential candidates, hopefully in March. We will of course leave the formal announcement of the debate details and date to the Stossel show, but want to express our gratitude to Mr. Stossel for working to find a date for this important event that will not disrupt any planned Libertarian Party activities and that is actually doable for all the candidates who are involved.

So, hope is not lost for Libertarian Party members. Though an official date has not been announced, it will be the first national Libertarian debate in the Party's history. According to Nielsen Media Research, FOX Business Network ended 2015 as the fastest growing cable network of the year. FBN's first ever presidential debate reached a record breaking 13.5 million viewers. Though the Libertarian debate will undoubtedly see fewer viewers, it will certainly reach more people than ever before.

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Fri, 19 Feb 2016 20:43

Last December, the town council in Camarillo, a small town in southern California, a man called Prince Jordan Tyson stood up and delivered a three minute speech as a "concerned citizen" about a planned construction project before the council.

Tyson is not a concerned citizen of Camarillo: he's a struggling actor from Beverly Hills, who was paid $100 to deliver a scripted position from the podium while misrepresenting himself as a local, sincere citizen.

Tyson worked for Adam Swart, a recent UCLA grad, who runs a company called "Crowds on Demand," which hires actors to attend politicians' campaign meetings, and to deliver scripted dialog in the guise of concerned citizens. Swart says that he has been paid by "dozens of campaigns for state officials, and 2016 presidential candidates" whom he won't name, because if he "did, nobody would hire us."

Swart admits that candidates pay him "off the books," but "it's no different from other industries where clients value discretion." He says he has 20,000 actors on his payroll, and that most sign NDAs.

He says he's "part of the democratic process."

And last year, the Hollywood Reporter reported that Republican frontrunner Donald Trump paid actors $50 to wear T-shirts and carry signs for his campaign launch. Trump denied this. But, beyond just paying people to show up, Swart says sometimes clients want more.

"Yes, I have scripted it on some occasions," he said.

Hiring actors is not illegal. Although, entertainment law attorney and USC professor Lincoln Bandlow says telling those actors what to do and say could lead to lawsuits, if someone feels harmed.

"Paying someone to go out there and make false representations to a city council is going to give rise to possible fraud claims, possible intentional interference with business relations claims, maybe defamatory statement claims."

Concerned Citizens Turn Out to Be Political Theater [Marin Austin/NBC LA]

(via Super Punch)

In an ''essay in 50 tweets,'' Clay Shirky explains how the growth of direct-to-voter channels has ruptured the mainstream political parties in America, who relied upon party power-brokers to enforce a prohibition on mentioning the third-rail topics that are the fissure lines the parties paper over.

READ THE RESTThe president's NSA advisory board grew teeth in the wake of the Snowden revelations, and they have done good service in identifying the civil liberties issues raised by the NSA's program of secret mass surveillance.

READ THE RESTHe spent $125m of other people's money. It was time to pay the debt. RE: Jeb Bush tweets picture of engraved gun with the title ''America''

READ THE RESTThese days, everyone's a bro-grammer. To really step it up and make your resume pop from the coding crowd, you need a whole new skill set. And that's where Ruby comes in. Ruby on Rails allows developers to create interactive web applications faster than ever. All those sites out there that look really slick but ['...]

READ THE RESTYou're a coffee connoisseur. None of that watered down swill or repulsive sludge, thanks very much. You respect the process, from the grind to the filter to the pour. Each step is precious and your palate is advanced enough to pick up on all that hard work and resulting flavor. But let's be honest: Dunkin' ['...]

READ THE RESTThere are so many incredible things to see in this world. Puppies running across a field. A sunset over the ocean. Your friends and family members singing behind a birthday cake. If only you could capture it all, just like you remember it. Well of course you can, except now you won't have any annoying ['...]

READ THE REST

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Fri, 19 Feb 2016 21:03

The Circuit Court of Cook County in Chicago has agreed to hear a lawsuit on Sen. Ted Cruz's eligibility for president '-- virtually ensuring that the issue dominates the news in the runup to the South Carolina primary.

Cruz was born in Canada to a US citizen mother and a noncitizen father. The Constitution requires presidents be "natural-born citizens," but what exactly that requires hasn't been settled in court.

Now, perhaps, it will be. The lawsuit in Illinois aims to resolve the question by challenging Cruz's eligibility for the presidency. It was filed by Lawrence Joyce, an attorney who has told local media that he supports Dr. Ben Carson and has had no connection with the Trump campaign.

"Joyce said his concern is that the eligibility issue lie unresolved during Republican primaries, thus letting the Democrats take advantage of it after a potential Cruz nomination, when it'd be too late," reports the Washington Examiner.

When this question initially came up, the conventional wisdom among constitutional lawyers was that it was a nonissue: Cruz was obviously eligible. But as the debate has heated up among candidates (with Donald Trump, in particular, fanning the flames), it's also begun to heat up among constitutional law scholars.

The issue is actually twofold: whether Ted Cruz should be considered a natural-born citizen, and whether Cruz's own preferred school of constitutional interpretation would see it that way.

The problem: the meaning of "natural-born citizen"Here is what the Constitution says about who can be president:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

The problem is the Constitution doesn't define "natural born Citizen." Neither does any current law. And no one has ever brought a court case to decisively settle the question as a matter of US law.

There are three ways someone can be a US citizen. He can be born in the US (regardless of who his parents are). He can be born outside the US to at least one US citizen parent, as long as certain criteria are met. (Those criteria are set by federal law and have been changed over time.) Or he can immigrate here and then successfully apply for citizenship, a process called naturalization.

Everyone agrees that the first category of people are natural-born citizens. Everyone agrees that the third category of people are not natural-born citizens (regardless of how unfair it might be that immigrants can't be president). But Ted Cruz is in the middle category, and this is where the meaning of "natural born" starts to get fuzzy.

The only definition of "natural born" in US history would include Ted Cruz

Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images Legal scholar and Ted Cruz tormentor Laurence Tribe.Because there's never been a court case to explicitly test the question of who counts as a natural-born citizen for the purpose of presidential eligibility, the question is by definition "unsettled." It hasn't been resolved yet. And court opinions that have mentioned the term in passing while ruling on other questions have come to very different opinions about what it means.

But it's a stretch to say, as Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe did, that the scholarship on the question is "completely unsettled." That implies that scholars are totally split on the issue, which isn't exactly the case.

The majority of constitutional law scholars who've written about the meaning of "natural-born citizen" have agreed that if a court were to rule on the question, it ought to rule that someone born outside the US but eligible for citizenship through parents counts as "natural born."

One of the key arguments in favor of this point is that while there is no longer any law defining "natural born," there used to be one '-- way back in 1790. The Naturalization Act of 1790 explicitly said that "the children of citizens of the United States, that may be born beyond sea, or out of the limits of the United States, shall be considered as natural-born citizens."

That term disappeared from immigration law after 1795. While there's at least one scholar who argues that this was intentional, because Congress didn't want that definition to persist, there's no evidence for that. And since Congress didn't come up with an alternate definition, that remains, to this day, the only definition of "natural born" we have.

This isn't a smoking gun. Scholars have looked at English precedents, US judicial decisions, bills, and congressional debates to figure out what the meaning of "natural born" is supposed to be and how (if at all) it's changed over time. But while some scholars have maintained that the evidence supports a narrow meaning of "natural born" '-- one that wouldn't include Ted Cruz '-- more of them agree that the evidence supports a broader one.

What would legal scholar Ted Cruz say about the eligibility of candidate Ted Cruz?One of the constitutional scholars who used to think that the definition of "natural born" ought to include Ted Cruz is Laurence Tribe, who was Cruz's law professor at Harvard. But Tribe is now the leading scholar raising questions about Cruz's eligibility. Trump has taken to citing Tribe approvingly in rallies; Cruz has fired back that Tribe is a liberal professor who is only interested in taking him down.

Why is Tribe raising questions about Cruz's eligibility, even if Tribe thinks Cruz should ultimately be eligible? There are two answers.

The first answer is that Tribe is making a claim about what Ted Cruz ought to believe the Constitution says.

Cruz is a proud supporter of the conservative legal tradition of constitutional originalism: interpreting the Constitution not by what its words ought to mean today, but by what the Founding Fathers meant as they wrote them in 1787. Cruz is arguably the national politician most closely identified with originalism; he's certainly the presidential candidate with the closest ties to the conservative legal movement.

According to Tribe, constitutional originalism defines "natural born" very narrowly, in a way that would exclude Cruz. By extension, Tribe argued in the Boston Globe, any judges Cruz would appoint to the federal bench as president would invalidate his own presidency.

But Tribe clearly doesn't believe this line of argument himself because he is very much not an originalist. And one of the points of his column is that maybe if originalism is such an inflexible theory that it wouldn't allow one of its own biggest supporters to be president, it is generally a bad idea. He points out that the reason the Founding Fathers didn't want immigrants to be president is totally moot today '-- but so is the idea of a "well-ordered militia." And if originalists like Cruz still support the Second Amendment, Tribe says, they can't wave away the "natural-born citizen" clause.

Originalists disagree about what originalism is and what it says about "natural born"

Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty ImagesWhile you wouldn't know it from Tribe's piece, there is no one originalist take on what "natural-born citizen" means. The strongest supporters of a narrow definition that would exclude Cruz are generally originalists, but there's a more even split among originalists than there is among constitutional scholars as a whole.

Since the Founding Fathers never actually debated the meaning of "natural-born citizen" when writing the Constitution, originalist scholars have had to turn to other sources to figure out what the common understanding of the phrase would have been at that time. And the answers scholars come to differ depending on which sources they consult.

Some originalists, like Michael Ramsey of the University of San Diego '-- who fortuitously just finished a paper on this question when the topic came up in the campaign '-- argue that the Founding Fathers would have understood "natural-born citizen" to mean the same thing "natural-born subject" did in English law at the time.

Over the century before the Revolution, Parliament had passed several bills clarifying that children born abroad to British subjects counted as "natural-born subjects" (this mattered for inheritance reasons). So by the time the Founding Fathers were writing down the Constitution, the broad definition of the term was fairly well established.

Other originalists, like Mary Brigid McManamon of Widener University's Delaware Law School '-- who recently published a column in the Washington Post arguing that Cruz is ineligible to be president '-- think that laws passed by Parliament don't count.

To McManamon, the precedent the Founding Fathers used wasn't British law as of 1787, but the English common law tradition (law made by courts rather than legislation). And in the common law, "natural born" did not apply to children born outside the bounds of the country. That's why Parliament had to pass bills to include such children.

Each of these arguments is far more complicated, of course. (For one thing, some scholars argue that the common law wasn't as uniformly narrow as McManamon says it was.) But the debate among originalists as to what "natural born" means is really a debate among originalists as to what originalism ought to include. Should it include both common law and legislation, or just common law? Does a law passed in 1790 reflect the intent of the Founding Fathers, since so many of them were in Congress when it passed, or does it show that they needed to add something they thought wasn't in the Constitution already?

The truth is that there isn't nearly as much of a gulf between originalism and "living constitutionalism" as there might seem to be. Originalists look to a number of sources to figure out what the Constitution means, just like anyone else does. And even the living constitutionalists who've written about natural-born citizenship care about what the Founding Fathers meant it to mean at the time '-- that's just not the be-all and end-all of their jurisprudence.

This can only be settled in court. But who would nominate a walking court case?Ultimately, this is, quite literally, an academic debate. As long as no US court has issued a ruling on the question, it wouldn't matter if every legal scholar in America agreed on the hypothetical meaning of "natural born." It would still be legally unsettled.

Congress could at least stick some kind of bandage on the question by passing a "sense of the Congress" resolution '-- that's what it did in 2008 to affirm the eligibility of John McCain, who landed in the "natural born" gray zone for different reasons from Cruz. But the Senate has made it clear that it intends to do no such thing for Ted Cruz. This probably is less because they don't think Cruz is natural-born than because Senate Republicans really don't like Ted Cruz, but it's a problem for him nonetheless.

That's the other answer to why Tribe is agitating against Ted Cruz. He doesn't believe any court in the country would actually rule that Cruz was ineligible (though, he claims, that's only because Cruz-style originalism isn't the norm). But, he writes, "it's worth thinking about the legal cloud" hovering over Cruz in the meantime.

The problem for Ted Cruz here isn't so much that a court is likely to rule against him as it is that Republicans might be afraid to support Cruz for the nomination because they're worried his eligibility will become an issue. A court taking up the issue days before the South Carolina primary is pretty much his worst nightmare.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 19:32

A Chicago Tribune archival photo of a young man being arrested in 1963 at a South Side protest is Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders, his campaign has confirmed, bolstering the candidate's narrative about his civil rights activism.

The black-and-white photo shows a 21-year-old Sanders, then a University of Chicago student, being taken by Chicago police toward a police wagon. An acetate negative of the photo was found in the Tribune's archives, said Marianne Mather, a Chicago Tribune photo editor.

See more vintage photos from the Tribune's archives >>

"Bernie identified it himself," said Tad Devine, a senior adviser to the campaign, adding that Sanders looked at a digital image of the photo. "He looked at it '-- he actually has his student ID from the University of Chicago in his wallet '-- and he said, 'Yes, that indeed is (me).'" Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, was traveling Friday near Reno, Nev., on the eve of the state's Democratic presidential caucuses.

Sanders' activism at the University of Chicago has been in the news recently, after questions arose about a different photo that appeared to show Sanders addressing students at a 1962 campus sit-in. At first, several alumni identified the speaker as another man, according to the University of Chicago Library's Special Research Center. The other man is no longer alive.

However, photographer Danny Lyon, who took that photo, contacted the research center and made available more photos from the same sequence, confirming Sanders' identity, the center said.

Devine called those questions about the sit-in photo "unfair and unfounded."

"His activism and when it occurred, as a young college student, set in motion the direction of his life," Devine said.

After the 1962 photos surfaced, Mather and photographer Brian Nguyen looked in the newspaper's archival collection and found several negatives that appeared to be Sanders.

The subjects of the photographs were not listed on the negatives, but information filed with them indicated that the Tribune arrest photo was taken in August 1963 near South 73rd Street and Lowe Avenue, which is in the Englewood neighborhood.

A January 1964 Tribune story on the court cases of those who had been arrested in August identified a Bernard Sanders. The negatives were scanned and an image was shown to the Sanders campaign Friday. On Saturday, the campaign confirmed that a second photo also shows Sanders.

In the mid-1960s, protests over segregation in the Englewood area raged over mobile classrooms dubbed "Willis Wagons," named for then-Chicago Schools Superintendent Benjamin Willis. The phrase "Willis Wagons" was believed to have been coined in 1963 by Rosie Simpson, a leader in education reform in Chicago. She was describing the trailers that Willis set up for black children instead of sending them to white schools.

Sanders was arrested Aug. 12, 1963, and charged with resisting arrest. He was found guilty and fined $25, according to a Tribune story about the protests.

Sanders enrolled at the University of Chicago on Oct. 3, 1960, and graduated in June 1964 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science, said Jeremy Manier, a university spokesman.

Sanders attended Brooklyn College before coming to the U. of C., Manier said.

At the University of Chicago, he was a leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, a major civil rights group. News accounts from the time had Sanders leading protests over racial inequality.

kskiba@tribpub.com

Twitter @Katherine Skiba

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:07

European diplomats warned that Ankara cannot invoke Article 5Germany says that NATO cannot 'pay the price for a war started by Turks'Turkey has called for international ground operation in Syria Russia called Security Council meeting to halt Turkey's shelling of KurdsSee more news from Russia at www.dailymail.co.uk/russia By Gianluca Mezzofiore For Mailonline

Published: 08:06 EST, 20 February 2016 | Updated: 15:00 EST, 20 February 2016

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European diplomats have warned the Turkish government that it cannot count on the NATO support should the conflict with Russia escalate into an armed conflict, according to German media.

Ankara has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's five-year war. Saudi Arabia has said it would be ready to take part in an international force to be deployed in Syria.

Turkey has called for a joint ground operation in Syria with its international allies, insisting it is the only way to stop the country's five-year war. Turkish tanks are pictured in action here in Kobane, Syria, in 2014

A protester holds a placard in 2015 reading 'Killer Russia! Get out from Syria' (L) while others shout slogans in front of the Russian Istanbul consulate during a demonstration against Russia's Syria policy in Istanbul

Russian pilots stand outside their Su-30 jet fighter, armed with air-to-air missiles, before a take off at Hmeimim airbase in Syria last year

But Russia, which has been carrying out air strikes in support of main regional ally Bashar al-Assad, has voiced its opposition to the operation. It also called on the Security Council to press Turkey to halt its shelling of Kurdish forces in northern Syria - but it was rejected.

Turkey's plan was based on the assumption that, in case of conflict, the country could invoke Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the collective defence clause if any member state is attacked.

But Luxembourg foreign minister Jean Asselborn told German magazine Der Spiegel that the Turkish government cannot count on Nato

'NATO cannot allow itself to be pulled into a military escalation with Russia as a result of the recent tensions between Russia and Turkey,' he said.

Asselborn also stressed that Article 5 can only be invoked when a member state is clearly attacked.

A German diplomat echoed Asselborn's stance and said:

'We are not going to pay the price for a war started by the Turks.'

On Friday, French President Francois Hollande also said that Europe needs to prevent a conflict between the two nations.

'There is a risk of war between Turkey and Russia,' he said in an interview with France Inter radio.

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 03:57

Secretary of State John Kerry met with the heads of major studios on Tuesday to talk about how to counter the ISIS narrative.

''Great convo w/ studio execs in LA. Good to hear their perspectives & ideas of how to counter #Daesh narrative,'' Kerry tweeted, along with a photo of his meeting with Jeff Shell, chairman of Universal Filmed Entertainment Group; MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd; Warner Bros. Entertainment CEO Kevin Tsujihara; DreamWorks Animation CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg; 20th Century Fox Chairman and CEO Jim Gianopulos; 20th Century Fox Co-Chair Stacey Snider; Sean Bailey, president of Walt Disney Motion Picture Production; Universal Pictures Chairman Donna Langley; Tom Rothman, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment's Motion Picture Group; Universal Pictures President Jimmy Horowitz; Amblin Partners CEO Michael Wright; and NBCUniversal Vice Chairman Ron Meyer.

Daesh is an acronym for the Arabic phrase ''al-Dawla al-Islamiya fil Iraq wa al-Sham,'' another term for ISIS. The terrorist group reportedly hates the term, but western leaders have been using it instead of Islamic State.

The meeting was held at Universal Studios, and lasted about 90 minutes.

One attendee who was there said that the executives also exchanged ideas and observations about studio worldwide marketing of movies and TV shows, a way of showing how narrative storytelling can cross cultures. The attendee described part of the gathering as a ''brainstorming session,'' including how to involve storytellers in regions afflicted or threatened by ISIS, as a way to counter the narratives promulgated by the terrorist organization. ''Let's figure out how to involve people who are there,'' the attendee said.

The meeting was organized by Shell, who is chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Kerry is a member of the board. Rick Stengel, under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, suggested that they set up a meeting with Kerry in Los Angeles after the summit with Asian leaders in Palm Springs this past weekend.

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Source: American Renaissance

Thu, 18 Feb 2016 07:19

Rumours that Twitter has begun 'shadowbanning' politically inconvenient users have been confirmed by a source inside the company, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart Tech. His claim was corroborated by a senior editor at a major publisher.

According to the source, Twitter maintains a 'whitelist' of favoured Twitter accounts and a 'blacklist' of unfavoured accounts. Accounts on the whitelist are prioritised in search results, even if they're not the most popular among users. Meanwhile, accounts on the blacklist have their posts hidden from both search results and other users' timelines.

Our source was backed up by a senior editor at a major digital publisher, who told Breitbart that Twitter told him it deliberately whitelists and blacklists users. {snip}

Shadowbanning, sometimes known as ''Stealth Banning'' or ''Hell Banning,'' is commonly used by online community managers to block content posted by spammers. Instead of banning a user directly (which would alert the spammer to their status, prompting them to create a new account), their content is merely hidden from public view.

{snip}

However, Twitter isn't merely targeting spammers. For weeks, users have been reporting that tweets from populist conservatives, members of the alternative right, cultural libertarians, and other anti-PC dissidents have disappeared from their timelines.

Among the users complaining of shadowbans are sci-fi author and alt-right figurehead Vox Day, geek culture blogger ''Daddy Warpig,'' and the popular pro-Trump account Ricky Vaughn. {snip}

The pattern of shadowban reports, which skews towards the alt-right, the populist right, and cultural libertarians, follows close on the heels of Twitter's establishment of a ''Trust and Safety Council'' packed with left-wing advocacy groups, as well as Islamic research centre the Wahid Institute.

{snip}

For close to a year now, Breitbart has covered Twitter's march towards political censorship. In May 2015 Allum Bokhari reported that the site had begun to experiment with shadowbans, ostensibly to protect users from abuse. Then, as now, it was suspected that ''protecting users from abuse'' was an excuse to implement a system that would later be used for political censorship.

{snip}

Original Article

Topics: Censorship

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Archived Version

Sat, 13 Feb 2016 15:45

Surveillance legislation proposed by the UK last November has been examined in detail by the country's politicians, with a new report recommending 86 alterations, but broadly approving the powers requested by the government. The parliamentary committee scrutinizing the draft Investigatory Powers Bill said that companies like Apple and Facebook should not be required to decrypt messages sent on their services, but approved plans to record every UK citizen's browsing history for 12 months. The committee also gave a thumbs up to the bulk retention of data, and the targeted hacking of individuals' computers, known as "equipment interference."

Confusing wording like "data includes any information that is not data"

The Investigatory Powers Bill will be the first legislation to fully codify digital surveillance in the UK, and has been dubbed the "snoopers' charter" by critics (a name used to refer to similar laws rejected a few years ago). The Bill has been attacked by ISPs, privacy advocates, the UN, and the world's largest tech companies, with critics agreeing that the Bill is being rushed into law and that its wording is confusing. Critics point to portions of the law like the statement that "data includes any information that is not data." The UK's home secretary and the Bill's principal architect, Theresa May, later explained that this was supposed to refer to things like paper.

This latest report repeats these complaints, stressing the need for clarity in the Bill's language. However, it also gives its approval to a number of controversial items. The report's authors says that the bulk interception and surveillance should be "fully justified" in a rewrite of the legislation, and notes that although these powers might contravene the EU's right to privacy, "security and intelligence agencies would not seek these powers if they did not believe they would be effective." This is despite the fact that this sort of mass surveillance (already in place, of course, just not officially legislated) has often proven to be ineffective, as with last year's terrorist attacks in Paris.

"The potential value of [internet records] could outweigh the intrusiveness."

Similarly, the committee found no faults with the government's plans to force ISPs to store users' web history for 12 months at a time. This information (known as Internet Connection Records or ICRs) would be available to police without a warrant, with the report noting: "We heard a good case from law enforcement and others about the desirability of having such a scheme. We are satisfied that the potential value of ICRs could outweigh the intrusiveness involved in collecting and using them."

Evidence submitted to the committee pointed out that these records would reveal "sensitive information" about citizens' political, religious, and sexual preferences, as well their health and daily activities, while ISPs noted that storing this data securely would be a "technical challenge." Experts also testified to the difficulty of sorting this data, as many apps like Facebook and Twitter keep a near-constant connection to the internet, and internet users can access sites they're not aware of. One expert noted that he created a blog with a "tiny one-pixel image in the corner" that showed up as Pornhub.com on visitors' internet history.

Good news for American tech giants

By comparison, the committee were much more wary of the UK's desire to access encrypted data, including chat logs from apps like Apple's iMessage and Facebook's WhatsApp. "The Government still needs to make explicit on the face of the Bill that [internet companies] offering end-to-end encrypted communication or other un-decryptable communication services will not be expected to provide decrypted copies of those communications if it is not practicable for them to do so."

Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and Twitter all submitted evidence to the committee saying the proposed legislation would be harmful, impacting individuals' privacy while emboldening more authoritarian regimes like Russia and China to demand similar access to users' data. Apple submitted evidence separately, although CEO Tim Cook also took the time to personally criticize the Bill, saying: "If you halt or weaken encryption, the people that you hurt are not the folks that want to do bad things. It's the good people. The other people know where to go."

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:39

body{font-family:Helvetica,Arial;font-size:13px}Hey John and Adam,Piecing a few things together here on the San Bernardino iPhone situation:The iPhone is a county-owned and issued phone. As you probably have seen by now, some details came out about the iCloud password being reset by someone working within the county Health Department, at the request of the FBI, rather than the FBI's original story about Farook reseting the password himself (and disabling iCloud backups). It seems the county either usedApple Mobile DeviceManagement(MDM)to change the password, or they did it through having access to the county email address used for the iCloud account.If the FBI had access to iCloud and iCloud backups, this whole thing would be a non-issue, because iCloud backups are stored unencrypted at the current time (that is changing very quickly, per some friends within Apple) and they would have all the data they could possibly want. That isn't the case'--they ''lost'' the backups, so they say they need access and the only way in is through the issued court order.It seems to me that this entire situation may be yet another one completely orchestrated by the FBI. Farook would be yet another idiot the FBI coerced into action, like we've seen so many times. They selected him because he has this particular iPhone under county control, so they could work the entire plot into this situation which would lead them to this court order to set the precedent they want'--to be able to get into any iOS device they come across in the future.Thank you for your courage and passion!Sir Anthony,Philadelphia, PAA Dude Named Ben who works an awful lot on iOS

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:43

AP/Alan DiazAntivirus software founder John McAfee on Ocean Drive in the South Beach area of Miami Beach, Florida.

Cybersecurity expert John McAfee is running for president in the US as a member of the Libertarian Party. This is an op-ed article he wrote and gave us permission to run.

Using an obscure law, written in 1789 '-- the All Writs Act '-- the US government has ordered Apple to place a back door into its iOS software so the FBI can decrypt information on an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters.

It has finally come to this. After years of arguments by virtually every industry specialist that back doors will be a bigger boon to hackers and to our nation's enemies than publishing our nuclear codes and giving the keys to all of our military weapons to the Russians and the Chinese, our government has chosen, once again, not to listen to the minds that have created the glue that holds this world together.

This is a black day and the beginning of the end of the US as a world power. The government has ordered a disarmament of our already ancient cybersecurity and cyberdefense systems, and it is asking us to take a walk into that near horizon where cyberwar is unquestionably waiting, with nothing more than harsh words as a weapon and the hope that our enemies will take pity at our unarmed condition and treat us fairly.

Any student of world history will tell you that this is a dream. Would Hitler have stopped invading Poland if the Polish people had sweetly asked him not to do so? Those who think yes should stand strongly by Hillary Clinton's side, whose cybersecurity platform includes negotiating with the Chinese so they will no longer launch cyberattacks against us.

The FBI, in a laughable and bizarre twist of logic, said the back door would be used only once and only in the San Bernardino case.

Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, replied:

The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone. But that's simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices. In the physical world, it would be the equivalent of a master key, capable of opening hundreds of millions of locks '-- from restaurants and banks to stores and homes. No reasonable person would find that acceptable.

The government is asking Apple to hack our own users and undermine decades of security advancements that protect our customers '-- including tens of millions of American citizens '-- from sophisticated hackers and cybercriminals. The same engineers who built strong encryption into the iPhone to protect our users would, ironically, be ordered to weaken those protections and make our users less safe.

AP

No matter how you slice this pie, if the government succeeds in getting this back door, it will eventually get a back door into all encryption, and our world, as we know it, is over. In spite of the FBI's claim that it would protect the back door, we all know that's impossible. There are bad apples everywhere, and there only needs to be in the US government. Then a few million dollars, some beautiful women (or men), and a yacht trip to the Caribbean might be all it takes for our enemies to have full access to our secrets.

Cook said:

The FBI may use different words to describe this tool, but make no mistake: Building a version of iOS that bypasses security in this way would undeniably create a backdoor. And while the government may argue that its use would be limited to this case, there is no way to guarantee such control.

The fundamental question is this: Why can't the FBI crack the encryption on its own? It has the full resources of the best the US government can provide.

With all due respect to Tim Cook and Apple, I work with a team of the best hackers on the planet. These hackers attend Defcon in Las Vegas, and they are legends in their local hacking groups, such as HackMiami. They are all prodigies, with talents that defy normal human comprehension. About 75% are social engineers. The remainder are hardcore coders. I would eat my shoe on the Neil Cavuto show if we could not break the encryption on the San Bernardino phone. This is a pure and simple fact.

And why do the best hackers on the planet not work for the FBI? Because the FBI will not hire anyone with a 24-inch purple mohawk, 10-gauge ear piercings, and a tattooed face who demands to smoke weed while working and won't work for less than a half-million dollars a year. But you bet your ass that the Chinese and Russians are hiring similar people with similar demands and have been for many years. It's why we are decades behind in the cyber race.

Adam Berry/Getty ImagesParticipants in the 28th Chaos Communication Congress computer-hacker conference in 2011 in Berlin.

Cyberscience is not just something you can learn. It is an innate talent. The Juilliard school of music cannot create a Mozart. A Mozart or a Bach, much like our modern hacking community, isgenetically created. A room full of Stanford computer science graduates cannot compete with a true hacker without even a high-school education.

So here is my offer to the FBI. I will, free of charge, decrypt the information on the San Bernardino phone, with my team. We will primarily use social engineering, and it will take us three weeks. If you accept my offer, then you will not need to ask Apple to place a back door in its product, which will be the beginning of the end of America.

If you doubt my credentials, Google "cybersecurity legend" and see whose name is the only name that appears in the first 10 results out of more than a quarter of a million.

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:19

Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump is calling for Americans to boycott Apple products until the tech giant complies with a court order and helps the FBI hack into San Bernardino killer Syed Farook's iPhone.

''Boycott Apple until such time as they give that information,'' he said on Friday in Pawleys Island, South Carolina. ''It just occurred to me.''

Apple isn't Trump's first boycott target. There's a laundry list of them, compiled by the Washington Post, including Starbucks, Macy's, Univision, Mexico, Oreos, Fox News, and Glenfiddich scotch '-- for varied offenses such as supporting the wrong tennis player and changing a cup design.

Trump and/or his campaign staff use an iPhone to tweet. According to a piece by Mother Jones engagement editor Ben Dreyfuss, 99 tweets sent from Trump's account came from Twitter for iPhone, as of September 2015.

Trump has said he used to have ''a lot of @Apple stock.'' He's since sold it '-- but not out of moral principles. It was out of spite because he felt the iPhone screen was too small.

He tweeted on Friday that he does have an iPhone '-- but that he'll give it up if Apple doesn't help the FBI.

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 20:57

February 17, 2016

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Los Angeles- Today, Congressman Ted Lieu (D-Los Angeles County) issued the following statement regarding the APPLE court order. Congressman Lieu is one of only four computer science majors in Congress. Congressman Lieu is also the author of the ENCRYPT ACT of 2016.

"The terrorist attack in San Bernardino was horrific and the tragic loss of innocent lives demands a strong response. I have several deep concerns, however, about the unprecedented court order that forces Apple to create software it does not have in order to provide a ''back door'' way to weaken its smartphone encryption system.

This FBI court order, by compelling a private sector company to write new software, is essentially making that company an arm of law-enforcement. Private sector companies are not'--and should not be'--an arm of government or law enforcement.

This court order also begs the question: Where does this kind of coercion stop? Can the government force Facebook to create software that provides analytic data on who is likely to be a criminal? Can the government force Google to provide the names of all people who searched for the term ISIL? Can the government force Amazon to write software that identifies who might be suspicious based on the books they ordered?

Forcing Apple to weaken its encryption system in this one case means the government can force Apple'--or any other private sector company'--to weaken encryption systems in all future cases. This precedent-setting action will both weaken the privacy of Americans and hurt American businesses. And how can the FBI ensure the software that it is forcing Apple to create won't fall into the wrong hands? Given the number of cyberbreaches in the federal government'--including at the Department of Justice'--the FBI cannot guarantee this back door software will not end up in the hands of hackers or other criminals.

The San Bernardino massacre was tragic but weakening our cyber security is not the answer '' terrorism succeeds when it gets us to give up our liberties and change our way of life. We can take common sense security measures without trampling on privacy rights."

###

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 19:17

iPad in Business - IT - AppleProgressive IT organizations everywhere are prioritizing productivity by empowering employees with iPad and iPhone. Because it's easy to manage iOS devices on corporate networks, IT can focus on what's most important '-- enabling users and driving innovation.

Setting a new standard for transformation.The new IT puts iOS at the center of your mobile strategy with a user-centric approach. iOS 9 takes this even further with new ways to deploy apps, secure devices, and manage data.

Security

Secure by design.iOS devices are secure right out of the box and deliver a great user experience. This is possible because Apple makes the hardware, software, and services that power all iOS devices '-- ensuring every element is built with security in mind.

Built in, not bolted on.Advanced features in iOS protect the entire system and all apps on the device, seamlessly encrypting corporate and personal data. iOS has a secure boot process from the moment a device is turned on. Regular software updates protect iOS from any emerging security concerns. Safeguards ensure that both third-party and in-house apps access data only in ways that are authorized. And iOS devices connect to corporate networks smoothly and securely to protect data during transmission.

Freedom to work.Effective security involves setting the right level of restrictions without impacting productivity. By personalizing devices with their own apps and content, users take greater ownership and responsibility. iOS and MDM offer smart ways to manage corporate data and apps discretely, seamlessly separating work and personal data. As a result, IT retains control of business resources, and personal data remains private for the user.

Learn more about privacy

iOS features that secure the system, apps, and data:

Initiate software updates via MDMNEWApp trust securityNEWSystem software authorizationTouch ID and device passcodesApp entitlementsApp extensionsFile-level data protectionEncryptionKey classesPer-app VPNSingle sign-oniOS features that enable users to be productive:

MailContactsCalendarNotesRemindersSiri and DictationMapsMessagesSafariFaceTimeiBooks StoreApp StoreiCloudiOS Security paper

Learn about advanced security features for iOS devices.

Download the PDFManagement

Management that doesn't get in the way.iOS has an MDM framework that's both powerful and scalable, making it easy for IT to manage corporate data. And employees still have the freedom and flexibility to use their iOS devices the way they expect '-- enabling productivity for all.

Manage data without containers.iOS removes the need for containers and dual workspaces that frustrate users and hinder productivity. The native management framework provided in iOS effortlessly manages data flow between apps. Per-app VPN ensures separate network pathways for personal and corporate data, while managed open-in prevents corporate attachments from being saved to personal apps or cloud services. From a user's perspective, it's seamless. And because corporate accounts, apps, and content installed via MDM can be managed by iOS, IT has the ability to remove or upgrade them without impacting personal data.

A better BYOD experience.In the world of new IT, user-owned devices can coexist seamlessly with corporate devices. MDM keeps business resources separate from employee personal data and apps, safeguarding user privacy while protecting corporate data. By opting into MDM, users can access services like Wi-Fi, email, and calendars and view what is being managed. When no longer needed, users have the option to opt out of at any time by removing the profile from the device.

iOS features for managing work and personal data:

Managed AirDropNEWManaged screen recordingsNEWManaged apps, books, domainsManaged accountsManaged open-inManaged document providersManaged keyboardsManaged actionsManaged widgetsManaged shared sheetsManaged photo editingiOS features for supporting user-owned devices:

Opt-in enrollmentOver-the-air configurationManaged apps, books, domainsManaged accountsManaged extensionsMDM user interface for greater transparencySelective wipe of corporate accounts, apps, and documentsDeployment

Streamline deployment at any scale.It's never been easier to get users fully set up and running in minutes. With iOS and Apple programs, organizations can deploy devices and content with greater flexibility and control. Both IT and users benefit from streamlined setup, while built-in support for key technologies enables IT to quickly integrate iOS devices into an existing infrastructure.

Fully automated setup for company devices.With the Device Enrollment Program (DEP), IT can automate enrollment in a third-party mobile device management (MDM) solution, enabling zero-touch configuration on iPad and iPhone. Once a device is wirelessly supervised, additional controls like global proxy and always-on VPN can be enabled.

Learn more about the Device Enrollment Program

App distribution made simple.IT can empower every line of business to be even more productive by giving employees the apps they need. The Volume Purchase Program (VPP) makes it easy to find, buy, and distribute or assign apps from the App Store to your users. With iOS 9, businesses can now assign and distribute apps directly to devices without the need for an Apple ID. And VPP apps can be assigned to users or devices in any country where the app is available.

Learn more about the Volume Purchase Program

iOS features for managing corporate-owned devices:

Enrollment optimizationNEWStreamlined setup with DEPLockable MDM, supervised modeGlobal proxyAlways-on VPNAdvanced content filteringExtensive device queries with full remote wipeiOS features for managing apps and content:

Device-based app distributionNEWMultinational support for VPPNEWEnterprise app trust improvementsNEWNetwork usage rulesNEWVPP managed app distributionOver-the-air in-house app distributionApp configurationCaching Server for optimized deliveryAuto-install apps on supervised devicesiOS Enterprise Deployment Overview

Learn more about deploying iOS in your business environment.

Download the PDFNext See how IT organizations have embraced a user-centric approach.Learn more

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 18:49

by Scott Creighton

Much is being made of the ''fight'' between the Justice Department and Apple over access to information on the Iphone that was being used by San Bernardino shooting patsy suspect, Syed Farook at the time of the event.

I say ''being used at the time'' because Syed didn't really own the phone, his employer, the government, owned it.

Not only did they own it at that time and not Syed, but they also seem to have changed the password hours after the attack, WHILE THE PHONE WAS IN THE POSSESSION OF FEDERAL INVESTIGATORS, for some unknown reason.

What that did was stop the auto-backup to the Icloud preventing the disclosure of whatever data the phone collected during the time the patsies were supposedly missing for a couple hours after the attack and possibly showing what they were doing BEFORE the attack.

Poof. That information is now gone.

That is, if he ever really had the phone with him in the first place because the auto-update function hadn't been used on that phone for about a month and a half prior to the attack which means he never took it to a secure location'... like his home'... during that entire time.

''The filing states, ''the owner [San Bernardino County Department of Public Health], in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup.''

'... Missing the opportunity for a backup was crucial because some of the information stored on the phone would have been backed up to the iCloud and could have potentially been retrieved. According to court records, the iPhone had not been backed up since Oct. 19, 2015, one-and-a-half months before the attack'' ABC News

So a government official reset the password, supposedly on his own initiative, but, according to Apple and even the Feds, the investigators were in possession of the phone when the reset took place.

''The auto reset was executed by a county information technology employee, according to a federal official. Federal investigators only found out about the reset after it had occurred and that the county employee acted on his own, not on the orders of federal authorities, the source said.

Apple executives say the iPhone was in the possession of the government when iCloud password was reset. A federal official familiar with the investigation confirmed that federal investigators were indeed in possession of the phone when the reset occurred.'' ABC News

So the investigators had the phone after the shooting when an employee of the government reset the password remotely from somewhere else?

Hmmm. I wonder why they would do that.

The Feds have also determined that the Iphone in question was never paired with any computer at Farook's home which would be kind of odd considering that is a key feature with these devices.

Due to the extremely dubious nature of these developments in the story, I doubt the ''fight'' between Apple and the Feds is really a fight. This new development seems to me to be an obviously contrived plot-twist leading up to a Supreme Court ruling which Apple is saying will certainly take place.

Let's keep this new development in mind while we take a look back at the rest of the M. Night Shyamalan story surrounding the San Bernardino shooting.

Yeah, I went there.

Truth be told, the Feds aren't looking for Apple to provide them with information as much as they are looking to have the corporate giant provide them with access to information via a change in the code of the operating system which Apple themselves say could be used as a master key to backdoor any other Iphone in the future.

You might recall that Farook and his 90-pound, hobbit-like wife, Tashfeen Malik, were blamed for a mass casualty event at a social services center, the Inland Regional Center, which claimed the lives of 14 of his co-workers'... 14 of the same co-workers who attended his both his wedding celebration and a recent baby-shower. Oh yeah, they had a new-born, only 6 months old.

So what was the motive? Why would these new parents try to kill their co-workers and friends and leave their new baby without a single parent? Facebook claimed right after the shooting that Tashfeen pledged her undying loyalty to ''ISIS'' just prior to the attack under a different name but unfortunately, Facebook deleted that posting the day before so there was no evidence of that. The Feds later said there was no such posting.

''The woman, Tashfeen Malik, declared allegiance to the Islamic State on Facebook at roughly the time of the shooting on Wednesday, according to a Facebook spokesman.'' New York Times

A Facebook Inc spokesman said the profile in question was removed by the company on Thursday for violating its community standards barring promotion or praise for ''acts of terror.'' He declined to elaborate on the material.

But CNN and other news media outlets reported that Malik's Facebook posts included a pledge of allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. Reuters

Two witnesses, Juan Hernandez and Sally Abdelmageed, stated they saw three tall, athletic white men dressed in tactical armor and wearing masks get out of a black SUV and attack the center.

Juan describes seeing ''3 white male shooters'' in tactical gear leaving the scene of the shooting and getting into the black SUV.

'--''

''three men, dressed in all black, military attire with vests on holding assault rifles and one of them opened up the door to building three'... and he'... opens up the door to building three and '... he'... starts to spray, shoot all over into the room'... I couldn't see a face, he had a black hat on (mask) and uh, from my view all I could see was a black hat (mask) and long sleeve shirt'... black cargo pants with zippers on the sides, big puffy pockets, he had a huge assault rifle and extra ammo'... I just saw three dressed exactly the same'.... their skin tone looked white. They looked like they were athletic build. They appeared to be tall'' Sally Abdelmageed

Officials stated a third man was involved in the escape and slow speed car chase with the black SUV who was detained and released.

The chief said a third person fled the sceneand was taken into custody, but the police did not know his role, if any. A police officer was wounded in the shootout and was being treated at a hospital for non-life-threatening injuries. New York Times

Burguan also said police detained a third suspect who was seen running away, but they do not yet know if he was involved. He said one police officer sustained non-life-threatening injuries. NPR (H/T AnonX)

Directly after the shooting at the center, the black SUV with the three tall athletic white male shooters with the short, nonathletic brown-skinned Farook and his Hobbit wife simply drove off and wasn't seen or heard from again until a couple hours later when a call from an anonymous person told authorities where they could find the truck. Once LEOs arrived, it sped past them, practically begging the cops to give chase which they did and which was captured by a helicopter'... all of it but the important part at the end.

While they were there, a black SUV with Utah plates passed by slowly, then sped up and raced off, a law enforcement official close to the investigation said.

A police cruiser pursued it. CNN

The missing hours between the shooting at the center and the slow speed chase have never been accounted for. I wonder how long it takes to dress up a Hobbit like GI Joe?

Was the third man involved and released at the scene of the ''shootout'' the driver of the SUV? Did he also make the anonymous call? Was he a tall, athletic white man with former military training? The video of the ''shootout'' and the chase conveniently avoided that particular moment when the SUV stopped. Did the driver simply jump out and run over to authorities before the festivities began?

Inquiring minds want to know.

And yes, there was an active shooter drill taking place at that very same time:

''The call first came in at 10:59 a.m. of multiple shots fired from the area of 1365 S. Waterman Ave., San Bernardino Police Department Lt. Richard Lawhead said. The department's SWAT team was training nearby and was suited, 'ready to roll' and responded rapidly, Lawhead said.''KTLA

The guns used in the attack did not belong to Farook or his wife. In fact, it appears Farook had a mental disability and couldn't purchase them in the first place. Seems like a custom-made story to help them push a national mental hygiene law, doesn't it?

With that in mind, remember, Obama wasted no time politicizing the shooting:

President Obama once again called for better background checks and new restrictions on access to guns for people who might pose a danger. ''We should come together in a bipartisan basis at every level of government to make these rare as opposed to normal,'' New York Times Dec. 3, day after shooting

Needless too say, the current plot twist in the San Bernardino shooting story is par for the course with this particular psyop which was horribly managed from the beginning.

The ludicrous nature of the official story '' the couple that swore allegiance to ''ISIS'' that never did any such thing, who then go on a rampage with someone else's guns killing guests of their baby-shower for no apparent reason while cleverly disguised as three tall white men and then who disappear for hours, somehow miraculously avoiding being followed by the large number of tactical SWAT team members gathered for an active shooter drill taking place nearby '' is now matched by the ludicrous nature of the official story of the ''fight'' between Apple and the Feds.

I guess it kind of makes sense that John Kerry went to that gaggle of Hollywood Mockingbirds to ask for their help in the hearts and minds campaign against ''ISIS'''... apparently no one working for the government can come up with a believable story-line that holds up to a minimum of scrutiny. I guess that is because originality and creativity aren't really sought after traits in the corporate mindset that is a prerequisite of government service today.

My guess is, what they want, what both sides want, is a Supreme Court ruling that provides Big Tech companies cover for handing over software that allows Big Brother access to your data at all times.

Notice in this story, it isn't about someone collecting all your data. We know that Apple does that with automatic updates (which they say you can turn off.. but who knows if that is true). They get everything from you and if you sync your Iphone or Ipad to your home desktop, it mines data from that location as well and sends that up to the ''cloud'' like everything else.

That data is then the property of Apple, sitting there in ''your'' cloud on ''their'' server. Who do you think owns it?

This case is simply a contrived plot-device'.... a ham-handed manifestation for a court ruling and nothing else. And like everything else surrounding this psyop, it seems to have been crafted as if it were an afterthought.

Maybe M. Night Shyamalan wrote this one or Uwe Boll.

Either way, I'm sure they'll get better production value out of the list of those 12 Mockingbirds Kerry was chatting with the other day. And it's about time. They privatize every other aspect of government they can, they might as well do the same for psyop events because quite frankly, they're become a bit stilted and predictable like The Walking Dead with equally bad acting making the things almost impossible to watch'... like The Walking Dead.

I mean, if we are going to get screwed by these people with these endless psyops, the least they can do is put a little effort into making them believable. Don't you just hate it when the producers of a movie or a TV show treat you like an idiot?

If you're going to run the country like a scripted reality show, at least make it a good one.

I know, why not hire someone with experience running reality TV shows to be president? That would help'...

'... oh wait'...

'---

Speaking truth ABOUT power since 2007(For my mailing address, please email me at RSCdesigns@tampabay.rr.com)

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Filed under: Neoliberalizing America, San Bernardino shooting, Scott Creighton

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 18:21

The password for the San Bernardino shooter's iCloud account associated with his iPhone was reset hours after authorities took possession of the device.

The Justice Department acknowledged in its court filing that the password of Syed Farook's iCloud account had been reset. The filing states, "the owner [San Bernardino County Department of Public Health], in an attempt to gain access to some information in the hours after the attack, was able to reset the password remotely, but that had the effect of eliminating the possibility of an auto-backup."

Apple could have recovered information from the iPhone had the iCloud password not been reset, the company said. If the phone was taken to a location where it recognized the Wi-Fi network, such as the San Bernardino shooters' home, it could have been backed up to the cloud, Apple suggested.

The auto reset was executed by a county information technology employee, according to a federal official. Federal investigators only found out about the reset after it had occurred and that the county employee acted on his own, not on the orders of federal authorities, the source said.

Apple executives say the iPhone was in the possession of the government when iCloud password was reset. A federal official familiar with the investigation confirmed that federal investigators were indeed in possession of the phone when the reset occurred.

Missing the opportunity for a backup was crucial because some of the information stored on the phone would have been backed up to the iCloud and could have potentially been retrieved. According to court records, the iPhone had not been backed up since Oct. 19, 2015, one-and-a-half months before the attack and that this ''indicates to the FBI that Farook may have disabled the automatic iCloud backup function to hide evidence.''

The development comes as the Justice Department is pushing forward with its legal fight against Apple, urging a federal judge to compel the tech giant to help the FBI crack open an iPhone left behind by Farook.

Farook, who along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, launched a deadly assault on Dec. 2, 2015, killing 14 of Farook's coworkers at a holiday party.

The Justice Department has asked Apple to turn off the feature that erases an iPhone's data after 10 failed attempts to unlock the device so that investigators can run all possible combinations to break the four-digit passcode on Farook's phone. A federal judge ordered Apple to help the FBI but the company has said it plans to fight the order.

Prosecutors said Farook's device could be encrypted to the point that its content would be "permanently inaccessible," and, "Apple has the exclusive technical means which would assist the government in completing its search."

After the court order, Apple quickly vowed to challenge the decision.

"The United States government has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers," Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement to customers Tuesday night. "[T]his order ... has implications far beyond the legal case at hand."

"The FBI wants us to make a new version of the iPhone operating system, circumventing several important security features, and install it on [the shooter's] iPhone," Cook added. "In the wrong hands, this software -- which does not exist today -- would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession."

In addition, all of the personal and sensitive information on customers' phones "needs to be protected from hackers and criminals who want to access it, steal it, and use it without our knowledge or permission," Cook wrote.

If the battle between the FBI and Apple continues, it's a matter that could work its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:50

The FBI captured the iPhone of dead San Bernardino terrorism suspect Syed Rizwan Farook back in December, but encryption technology prevents them from accessing its contents. On Tuesday, a federal magistrate judge in California ordered Apple to write a custom version of the iPhone software that disables key security features and install it on Farook's iPhone in order to foil the encryption.

On Wednesday morning, Apple CEO Tim Cook came out swinging in response. In his open letter to customers, Cook described the FBI's actions as an "unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers."

"The government suggests this tool could only be used once, on one phone," Cook wrote. "But that's simply not true. Once created, the technique could be used over and over again, on any number of devices."

While no one is too worried about the privacy rights of a dead terrorism suspect, both Apple and civil liberties groups see this case as an opening blow in a much larger government effort to undermine the security of their customers' smartphone data. Law enforcement and intelligence figures have been arguing for some time now that smartphone encryption is making it harder for them to do their job, while technology companies argue that complying with law enforcement requests will make it impossible for them to protect their customers.

But in this specific case, the FBI is asking for much less than a general back door into encrypted iPhones, and the Bureau argues there's ample precedent for its request. The police have long asked telephone companies, banks, landlords, and other businesses to help them spy on the activities of criminal suspects. As long as the requests are narrowly targeted and receive proper judicial oversight, they have not been especially controversial. The FBI argues that by asking Apple to help them hack into Farook's iPhone, it's just exercising the same kind of power in the digital realm that it's long exercised in other areas of life.

We can expect Apple to challenge the magistrate judge's order. The case's ultimate significance may depend less on whether Apple wins or loses than on the precedent that's set in the process. Giving law enforcement agencies broad power to order technology companies to hack into their customers' devices could be terrifying. But the courts may be able to find a legal principle that allows access in compelling cases like this one without making device hacking a routine law enforcement tool.

The FBI wants Apple to help guess Farook's passcode

Photo by David McNew/Getty Images People hold a vigil in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting.The encryption chip on the iPhone uses a powerful algorithm called AES to protect customer data. Each iPhone has a unique number called an encryption key that is needed to scramble or unscramble the data on the iPhone. This key is 256 bits long '-- that is, a string of 256 1s and 0s '-- which means there a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion possible values for an iPhone's encryption key. So if you wanted to crack the iPhone's encryption by "brute force" '-- guessing each possible encryption key in sequence until you find the right one '-- it would take many lifetimes even if every computer on the planet were working on the problem.

Apple has chosen not to keep copies of iPhone keys after the smartphones leave its factories. So if law enforcement made a copy of the data stored on an iPhone and brought it to Apple for help unscrambling it, it would be literally impossible for Apple to help.

So then why are we having a debate at all? The reason is that the weakest link in the iPhone's security isn't the encryption itself, but the passcode the user uses to unlock the iPhone. The encryption chip on the iPhone refuses to function until the correct passcode is entered. And by default, the passcode on an iPhone is only four or six digits long.

So while the iPhone's internal encryption chip uses a key with a trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion possible values, the passcode to unlock that encryption chip only has 10,000 or 1 million possible values on most iPhones (if you're extra paranoid, you can enable alphanumeric passcodes, which have many more possible values). So if you're trying to crack iPhone encryption, it's a lot faster to try to guess the user's passcode than the underlying encryption key.

People have built robots to use "brute force" on smartphone passcodes '-- punching in each of the 10,000 or 1 million possible values one at a time until they find the correct value. A million seconds is only about 11 days, so it doesn't take that long for a robot like this to try every possible passcode.

Apple has added two features to the iPhone to help defeat the attack. First, if the user guesses a password wrong several times, the iPhone will introduce a delay of up to an hour before it will accept additional guesses. Second, the user can optionally enable a self-destruct feature that will permanently disable access to the encrypted data by deleting information needed to unscramble it.

And this is where the FBI has sought Apple's help. The FBI isn't asking Apple to directly unscramble the data on the iPhone '-- something Apple couldn't do if it wanted to. Rather, the FBI is demanding that Apple modify the software on Farook's iPhone to make it easier for the FBI to guess his passcode. The FBI wants Apple to disable delays between passcode guesses, disable the self-destruct feature, and allow passcodes to be entered electronically over a wifi network or using the iPhone's lightning port. Taken together, these measures will allow the FBI to guess Farook's passcode much more quickly than it could have otherwise '-- and without worrying about triggering the phone's auto-wipe function.

Apple is worried about a much bigger picture

Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images Hillary Clinton has called for technology companies and law enforcement to work together.If this were simply about Farook's phone and the hassle involved in helping the FBI pry it open, it's unlikely Apple would be taking such a big public stand. The concern is that the government is trying to take advantage of a particularly odious defendant to set a precedent that could have much broader implications.

For starters, although the hassle involved in complying with the FBI's request is considerable, once Apple engineers have done the necessary work of creating the custom software it will be much easier to comply with other law enforcement requests for the same service. Today's extraordinary request for an extraordinary suspect, in other words, could be tomorrow's routine request.

And the Farook case comes against the backdrop of a larger debate about whether technology companies should be compelled in general to provide government "back doors" into their products. Throughout the past year, FBI Director James Comey has been warning that smartphone encryption is hampering law enforcement efforts. He wants to compel technology companies to provide law enforcement with access to their customers' data on demand. On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton has called for the technology sector to embark on a "Manhattan-like project" to figure out a way to provide back doors to law enforcement without compromising device security more broadly.

Technologists say that if technology companies deliberately weaken their encryption products to accommodate the US government, they'll simultaneously make those products more vulnerable to hackers and foreign governments seeking to exploit those same weaknesses. Either you build data security systems from the ground up to be unbreakable, in which case the government can't crack them either, or else you deliberately create exploitable security holes, in which case a whole range of bad actors can exploit them.

Apple has tried to tie the debate over the San Bernardino request to this larger debate over back doors, arguing that it shouldn't be forced to provide law enforcement with a back door into its products. But a crucial difference here is that Apple isn't being asked to proactively introduce a security vulnerability into every iPhone. Rather, it's being asked to help hack into the phone of a dead terrorism suspect.

The FBI, having heard the concerns of technology companies, has asked Apple to make custom software that is tied specifically to the device ID of Farook's iPhone.

Civil liberties groups are worried about setting a bad precedent

Photo by Jason Lee-Pool/Getty Images Chinese President Xi Jinping would love it if Apple helped unlock encrypted iPhones.By itself, it's hard to see the harm in Apple helping the government access the iPhone of a dead suspected terrorist. But Apple and civil liberties groups argue that approving the FBI's request would open the door to more problematic requests in the future.

In the San Bernardino case, the FBI is seeking access to data on an iPhone that's already in its possession. But Julian Sanchez, a civil liberties expert at the Cato Institute, argues that we shouldn't expect the government's requests to stop there. It would be even more useful for law enforcement if they could get Apple to use its software update functionality to install software on phones not in its possession. For example, the Drug Enforcement Administration could ask Apple to install software on a suspected drug kingpin's phone to record all his conversations and send the audio back to DEA headquarters.

Still, much depends on the details of the precedent that gets set in this case. Part of the FBI's argument is that because the iPhone is programmed to only accept software updates from Apple, getting Apple to write custom software is the only way for law enforcement to get access to the data on Farook's iPhone.

That argument might not work as well in the kinds of cases Sanchez cites: Hacking into a drug kingpin's iPhone might be a particularly convenient way to spy on him, but there are likely other ways to spy on drug dealers that don't involve forcing Apple to help spy on its customers. Courts might tell the DEA to use those other approaches instead.

Another worry, Sanchez says, is that if Apple develops software to help the US government bypass iPhone encryption, foreign governments are sure to take notice. And countries like China and Russia have a much more expansive idea of what constitutes a crime.

The FBI says there's ample precedent for its requestThe FBI argues that the federal government has long had the power to ask private businesses to help it execute search warrants. Law enforcement groups have routinely asked telephone companies to help it tap suspects' phone conversations, but that's not all. The FBI also pointed to cases where landlords and credit card companies, among others, have been compelled to help the FBI spy on their customers.

And the FBI argues that it's not unprecedented to ask companies to write software in order to comply with a legal request. "Providers of electronic communications services and remote computing services are sometimes required to write code in order to gather information in response to subpoenas and other process," the bureau notes.

Finally, the FBI notes, only Apple can aid the FBI here. The iPhone is designed to only accept software updates from Apple. That means that even if the FBI were able to create its own hacked iPhone software, it wouldn't be able to install the software on Farook's iPhone without Apple's assistance.

New iPhones might not be hackableOne reason Apple is now butting heads with the FBI is that ever since the 2013 revelations of Edward Snowden, the Cupertino smartphone company has been taking stronger and stronger technical measures to resist government surveillance. A couple of years ago, Apple made strong encryption a default setting for iPhones and chose not to retain the encryption keys that would allow it to easily break into the phones at law enforcement's request. Apple hoped that by tying its own hands, it would be able to truthfully tell law enforcement that it was simply impossible to comply with warrants seeking the contents of encrypted iPhones.

The iPhone 5C is more than two years old, and Apple hasn't been standing stillBut as we've seen, the security measures on the iPhone 5C, Farook's model of iPhone, aren't quite unbreakable, because Apple is still able to install a new version of the iPhone's software to override the protections against password guessing.

But the iPhone 5C is now more than two years old, and Apple hasn't been standing still. The latest iPhone model has a new feature called Secure Enclave that's designed to make the kind of attack the FBI is seeking more difficult.

"The Secure Enclave is a separate computer inside the iPhone that brokers access to encryption keys," security expert Dan Guido writes. "The Secure Enclave keeps its own counter of incorrect passcode attempts and gets slower and slower at responding with each failed attempt, all the way up to 1 hour between requests. There is nothing that iOS can do about the Secure Enclave."

No one outside of Apple knows if the latest iPhone models are truly unbreakable. But in principle, there's no reason Apple couldn't build an iPhone that even it doesn't know how to unlock without the passcode. And there's no law against building such a device.

So if the FBI gets its way, the arms race between law enforcement and technology companies will only continue. Apple is clearly betting that whatever its stance might be, standing up for its own customers' privacy will be a hit in the marketplace.

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:40

Apple's response to US and UK government demands for backdoors to user data has been direct, bordering on defiant. Yesterday (Feb. 16), Apple CEO Tim Cook published a letter explaining the company's refusal to comply with a US federal court order to help the FBI access data on a phone recovered from one of the attackers in the San Bernardino, California shootings.

Apple appears to take a different tack in dealing with data security demands from China, a key growth market for the company.

In January 2015, the state-run newspaper People's Daily claimed, in a tweet, that Apple had agreed to security checks by the Chinese government. This followed a piece in the Beijing News (link in Chinese) that claimed Apple acceded to audits after a meeting between Cook and China's top internet official, Lu Wei. China's State Internet Information Office would reportedly be allowed to perform ''security checks'' on all Apple products sold on the mainland. According to the report, this was despite Cook's assurances that the devices didn't contain backdoors accessible by any government, including the US.

If Apple had indeed agreed to a Beijing security audit, it could have shared vital information with the Chinese government, such as its operating system's source code, that could indirectly help government agents discover vulnerabilities on their own. It would have been a serious departure from Apple's public, privacy-centric stance.

Cook has said on earnings calls that he believes the Greater China region, which includes Taiwan and Hong Kong along with the mainland, will eventually become Apple's biggest market. Some could get the impression that Apple capitulated to Beijing's security demands because it wanted access to a huge and growing market.

Instead of addressing those rumors head on, Apple didn't say either way whether it had agreed to a Beijing security audit. Apple didn't respond immediately to Quartz's attempts to confirm those reports at the time, and said weeks later it could not comment on them. When contacted today, an Apple spokesperson pointed Quartz to the company's privacy policy, which states that the company has never worked with any government to create a backdoor to its products. ''We have also never allowed any government access to our servers. And we never will,'' the policy reads.

That's in stark contrast to the company's forthright approach elsewhere in the world. In the US, Apple has made Cook available for interviews, where he has argued strongly against government backdoors. In the UK, Apple has publicly opposed a draft surveillance law that could mandate a backdoor. Cook has also given interviews warning of the ''dire consequences'' arising from backdoors.

Why the different approach in China? To be clear, Apple hasn't said that it agreed to special security checks by Beijing. But that's precisely the problem. Its silence regarding Beijing's security demands, but its vocal resistance to requests from other governments, contributes to a perception that it has different security standards for different markets''even when that may not be the case.

This article was updated with more information about Apple's earlier response to claims it was allowing audits in China.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:30

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Cyrus VanceAndrew Burton / Getty Images

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Thursday that his office has 175 Apple devices it cannot access because of encryption '' and that it's affecting both law enforcement and the victims of crimes.

''It is very difficult to explain to a victim of a crime that we cannot get the evidence that may identify the individual who may have committed the crime,'' he said.

This week a U.S. magistrate judge ordered Apple to assist federal investigators with unlocking an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terror attack shooters. Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company will fight the judge's order, calling the request ''an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers.''

Joined on Thursday by NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, Vance said Apple and Google are ''acting like teenagers saying 'nobody can tell me what to do,''' and said ever-improving smart phone encryption is impacting law enforcement's ability to solve crimes.

Vance did not name specific cases, but Bratton held up the cell phone seized after the recent shooting of two police officers in the Bronx and said that detectives have not been able to unlock it. Vance added that cell phone data can help investigate murders, child pornography, and theft.

''This has become, ladies and gentlemen, the wild west of technology,'' Vance said. ''And Apple and Google are their own sheriffs.''

Vance said Apple slowly complied with court orders up until iOS8 was released in September 2014.

''When Apple made its decision in the late fall of 2014 to lock their devices through end-to-end encryption, I was aware immediately this was going to have an impact in the DA's office,'' Vance said.

Bratton said that criminals are aware of the protection, adding that a Rikers Island prisoner was caught on tape calling encrypted phones a ''gift from God.''

''I would advocate that Apple and Google should not be in the business of giving gifts from God,'' he said.

Check out more articles on BuzzFeed.com!

Mary Ann Georgantopoulos is a reporter for BuzzFeed News and is based in New York.

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Archived Version

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:29

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

The U.S. government escalated its legal battle with Apple on Friday when it filed a motion to compel the technology company to help the government to unlock the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists, calling its refusal to grant the FBI access to the phone a ''marketing'' stunt.

If granted, the motion would force Apple to comply with the court's order from earlier this week or risk being held in contempt. Before the motion was filed, the court had given Apple's attorneys a few days to argue their case against the earlier order.

On Friday evening, Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym issued a new order in the case, setting out a timeline over the next month for parties to brief the legal issues involved in the case and scheduling arguments on the matter for March 22 at 1 p.m.

Taking no immediate action on the Justice Department's request, Pym instead told Apple to respond with any challenge to the initial Feb. 16 order by Feb. 26, as previously reported.

The strongly worded Justice Department motion, filed with Pym in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, responds at length to a statement issued earlier this week by Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, in which the company argued it had a duty to protect the privacy of its customers.

In the Department of Justice's view, Apple has ''conceded it has the capacity to help'' federal investigators gain access to the phone. The government argues that, in the absence of such technical impediments, the company should be forced to unlock the phone immediately.

''Apple appears to object based on ['...] a perceived negative impact to its reputation and marketing strategy were it to provide the ordered assistance to the government,'' the motion reads. The government says that is not a legitimate basis for opposing the order.

The iPhone at the center of the controversy belonged to Syed Farook, a Pakistani-American who together with his wife killed 15 people late last year in San Bernardino.

Apple has not yet filed a formal reply to the court's order, so there is no way of knowing how the specifics of Apple's legal arguments will go beyond Cook's statement.

The company, which has retained Gibson Dunn's Ted Olson and Ted Boutrous as its legal counsel in the matter, is expected to argue that the Department of Justice's original petition is an overstepping of the All Writs Act, a law passed in 1789 that allows the government to issue warrants and other legal orders.

UPDATE

This story has been updated with information about Judge Pym's Friday night order in the case.

BuzzFeed News legal editor Chris Geidner contributed to this report.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 17:29

Andrew Burton / Getty Images

The Apple ID password linked to the iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists was changed less than 24 hours after the government took possession of the device, senior Apple executives said Friday. If that hadn't happened, Apple said, a backup of the information the government was seeking may have been accessible.

Now, the government, through a court order, is demanding Apple build what the company considers a special backdoor way into the phone '-- an order that Apple is challenging. The government argues Apple would not be creating a backdoor.

The executives said the company had been in regular discussions with the government since early January, and that it proposed four different ways to recover the information the government is interested in without building a backdoor. One of those methods would have involved connecting the iPhone to a known Wi-Fi network and triggering an iCloud backup that might provide the FBI with information stored to the device between the October 19th and the date of the incident.

Apple sent trusted engineers to try that method, the executives said, but they were unable to do it. It was then that they discovered that the Apple ID password associated with the iPhone had been changed. (The FBI claimed earlier Friday that this was done by someone at the San Bernardino Health Department.)

Had that password not been changed, the executives said, the government would not need to demand the company create a ''backdoor'' to access the iPhone used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who died in a shootout with law enforcement after a terror attack in California that killed 14 people. The Department of Justice filed a motion to compel the company to do that earlier Friday.

The Apple senior executives spoke with reporters on Friday afternoon to respond to the government's filing, noting that the government had opened the door to discussion of Apple's prior efforts in the case by discussing those actions in their Friday filing.

Creating the backdoor access, the executives said, would put at risk the privacy of millions of users. It would not only serve to unlock one specific phone, they said, but create a sort of master key that could be used to access any number of devices. The government says the access being sought could only be used on this one phone, but Apple's executives noted that there is widespread interest in an iPhone backdoor, noting that Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said Thursday that his office has 175 Apple devices he'd like cracked. They also claimed that no other government in the world has ever asked Apple for the sort of FBiOS the government is demanding that it build now.

Asked why the company is pushing back so hard against this particular FBI request when it has assisted the agency in the past, Apple executives noted that the San Bernadino case is fundamentally different from others in which it was involved. Apple has never before been asked to build an entirely new version of its iOS operating system designed to disable iPhone security measures.

The Apple senior executives also pushed back on the government's arguments that Apple's actions were a marketing ploy, saying they were instead based on their love for the country and desire not to see civil liberties tossed aside.

The U.S. Department of Justice has not yet responded to a request for comment.

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 06:52

With a special hacking tool, the Federal Bureau of Investigations not only took over operations of a child pornography site, but also located some 1,300 visitors. Now the computer code used to hunt down suspects must be released per a court order.

What the FBI has called "the largest remaining known child pornography hidden service in the world," Playpen operated in the part of cyberspace known as the Dark Web on the browser Tor where its IP address was hidden. That is, until the FBI managed to capture control of the site in February 2015 where it proceeded not to shut it down, but rather kept the illegal content up for two weeks to catch 1,300 visitors' IP addresses, including some in Chile, Greece, and the UK.

The estimated 137 people charged thus far by the US Department of Justice could soon find out just how the FBI identified them, thanks to a court order announced Wednesday and reported by Motherboard. One defendant's attorney persuaded a federal judge to order the release of the FBI's entire code used in the broad sting.

Colin Fieman, a federal public defender involved in the case, told Motherboard the judge meant ''everything,'' the FBI used, including an exploit, or attack, on a vulnerability in the Tor browser's security as well as a network investigative technique (NIT) hacking tool to entangle Playpen and its users.

Wednesday's court order follows a prior limited release of the FBI's NIT code. Last month, the Fieman's code expert, Vlad Tsyrklevitch, reviewed the NIT code to find it lacking a section that would have confirmed its uniqueness. What's crucial about that is the defense's ability to show if its client, Vancouver School District employee Jay Michaud, had his computer improperly searched or additionally compromised.

''This component is essential to understanding whether there were other components that the Government caused to run on Mr. Michaud's computer, beyond the one payload that the Government has provided,'' Michaud's lawyers wrote in an earlier filing, Motherboard reported.

Whether or not the code will be publicly released remains to be seen as the FBI and defense lawyers each have made respective requests to keep sensitive documents sealed or unsealed.

The defense has also argued that the FBI was complicit in distributing, or even itself distributed, child pornography after the takeover of Playpen. However, last month a judge found the FBI's methods did not amount to ''outrageous conduct."

Full NIT disclosure is not unprecedented. In 2012, the FBI revealed details of how it seized control of three child porn sites on the Tor browser using the hacking app Metasploit after a judge warranted a malware attack on all the sites' visitors' computers in order to reveal their IP addresses.

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 00:06

By: Mikey Campbell

Thursday, February 11, 2016 6:29 PMSeattle-based law firm PCVA has decided to move forward with a class action lawsuit related to Apple's hardware repair practices, specifically targeting the "Error 53" code issue that renders iPhone unusable following an unauthorized Touch ID fingerprint sensor install.

Filed with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the pending suit alleges Apple has "gone too far" in its attempts to control the iPhone hardware platform, saying the "Error 53" message some users are seeing as a result of unauthorized repairs warrants redress.

Error 53 codes affect iPhone 6 and 6s handsets that have undergone Touch ID module '-- or in some cases screen, flex cable and water-damaged component '-- replacement by a repair firm operating outside of Apple's Authorized Service Provider network. Most users see the message after restoring a saved backup or updating to the latest iOS version.

In addition to being rendered unusable, iPhones showing Error 53 messages repaired through an unofficial dealer are no longer covered under Apple's warranty as they were, in effect, tampered with by an outside party.

Users have reported Error 53 codes from at least early 2015, but it wasn't until recently that the issue gained public notoriety. A media report last week suggested Apple was not only aware of the error message, but had software safeguards in place that "bricked" affected units to satisfy standard iOS security measures.

"We protect fingerprint data using a secure enclave, which is uniquely paired to the Touch ID sensor," an Apple representative said. "When iOS detects that the pairing fails, Touch ID, including Apple Pay, is disabled so the device remains secure."

For its part, Apple is attempting to protect highly sensitive biometric user data gathered by Touch ID and its supporting circuitry. By distributing certified parts through authorized repair agents Apple can control against potential security breaches built into unchecked parts.

The lawsuit rekindles an ongoing "right to repair" argument that has long plagued Apple. The company has in may cases made it nearly impossible for users to open, let alone repair, a device on their own. From generous application of adhesives to the introduction of proprietary pentalobe screws, Apple engineers its devices to thwart unauthorized repair efforts. Apple claims such steps are required to ensure its devices work as designed, allowing for a consistent user experience.

On behalf of its clients, PCVA seeks at least $5 million in damages and restitution for users affected by Error 53 codes, as well as the release of a software update that removes the imposed repair restriction from iOS.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 23:09

Earlier today, a federal judge ordered Apple to comply with the FBI's request for technical assistance in the recovery of the San Bernadino gunmen's iPhone 5C. Since then, many have argued whether these requests from the FBI are technically feasible given the support for strong encryption on iOS devices. Based on my initial reading of the request and my knowledge of the iOS platform, I believe all of the FBI's requests are technically feasible.

The FBI's RequestIn a search after the shooting, the FBI discovered an iPhone belonging to one of the attackers. The iPhone is the property of the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health where the attacker worked and the FBI has permission to search it. However, the FBI has been unable, so far, to guess the passcode to unlock it. In iOS devices, nearly all important files are encrypted with a combination of the phone passcode and a hardware key embedded in the device at manufacture time. If the FBI cannot guess the phone passcode, then they cannot recover any of the messages or photos from the phone.

There are a number of obstacles that stand in the way of guessing the passcode to an iPhone:

iOS may completely wipe the user's data after too many incorrect PINs entriesPINs must be entered by hand on the physical device, one at a timeiOS introduces a delay after every incorrect PIN entryAs a result, the FBI has made a request for technical assistance through a court order to Apple. As one might guess, their requests target each one of the above pain points. In their request, they have asked for the following:

[Apple] will bypass or disable the auto-erase function whether or not it has been enabled;[Apple] will enable the FBI to submit passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE for testing electronically via the physical device port, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, or other protocol available on the SUBJECT DEVICE; and[Apple] will ensure that when the FBI submits passcodes to the SUBJECT DEVICE, software running on the device will not purposefully introduce any additional delay between passcode attempts beyond what is incurred by Apple hardware.In plain English, the FBI wants to ensure that it can make an unlimited number of PIN guesses, that it can make them as fast as the hardware will allow, and that they won't have to pay an intern to hunch over the phone and type PIN codes one at a time for the next 20 years '-- they want to guess passcodes from an external device like a laptop or other peripheral.

As a remedy, the FBI has asked for Apple to perform the following actions on their behalf:

[Provide] the FBI with a signed iPhone Software file, recovery bundle, or other Software Image File (''SIF'') that can be loaded onto the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will load and run from Random Access Memory (''RAM'') and will not modify the iOS on the actual phone, the user data partition or system partition on the device's flash memory. The SIF will be coded by Apple with a unique identifier of the phone so that the SIF would only load and execute on the SUBJECT DEVICE. The SIF will be loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade (''DFU'') mode, recovery mode, or other applicable mode available to the FBI. Once active on the SUBJECT DEVICE, the SIF will accomplish the three functions specified in paragraph 2. The SIF will be loaded on the SUBJECT DEVICE at either a government facility, or alternatively, at an Apple facility; if the latter, Apple shall provide the government with remote access to the SUBJECT DEVICE through a computer allowed the government to conduct passcode recovery analysis.

Again in plain English, the FBI wants Apple to create a special version of iOS that only works on the one iPhone they have recovered. This customized version of iOS (*ahem* FBiOS) will ignore passcode entry delays, will not erase the device after any number of incorrect attempts, and will allow the FBI to hook up an external device to facilitate guessing the passcode. The FBI will send Apple the recovered iPhone so that this customized version of iOS never physically leaves the Apple campus.

As many jailbreakers are familiar, firmware can be loaded via Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) Mode. Once an iPhone enters DFU mode, it will accept a new firmware image over a USB cable. Before any firmware image is loaded by an iPhone, the device first checks whether the firmware has a valid signature from Apple. This signature check is why the FBI cannot load new software onto an iPhone on their own '-- the FBI does not have the secret keys that Apple uses to sign firmware.

Enter the Secure EnclaveEven with a customized version of iOS, the FBI has another obstacle in their path: the Secure Enclave (SE). The Secure Enclave is a separate computer inside the iPhone that brokers access to encryption keys for services like the Data Protection API (aka file encryption), Apple Pay, Keychain Services, and our Tidas authentication product. All devices with TouchID (or any devices with A7 or later A-series processors) have a Secure Enclave.

When you enter a passcode on your iOS device, this passcode is ''tangled'' with a key embedded in the SE to unlock the phone. Think of this like the 2-key system used to launch a nuclear weapon: the passcode alone gets you nowhere. Therefore, you must cooperate with the SE to break the encryption. The SE keeps its own counter of incorrect passcode attempts and gets slower and slower at responding with each failed attempt, all the way up to 1 hour between requests. There is nothing that iOS can do about the SE: it is a separate computer outside of the iOS operating system that shares the same hardware enclosure as your phone.

The Hardware Key is stored in the Secure Enclave in A7 and newer devices

As a result, even a customized version of iOS cannot influence the behavior of the Secure Enclave. It will delay passcode attempts whether or not that feature is turned on in iOS. Private keys cannot be read out of the Secure Enclave, ever, so the only choice you have is to play by its rules.

Passcode delays are enforced by the Secure Enclave in A7 and newer devices

Apple has gone to great lengths to ensure the Secure Enclave remains safe. Many consumers became familiar with these efforts after ''Error 53'' messages appeared due to 3rd party replacement or tampering with the TouchID sensor. iPhones are restricted to only work with a single TouchID sensor via device-level pairing. This security measure ensures that attackers cannot build a fraudulent TouchID sensor that brute-forces fingerprint authentication to gain access to the Secure Enclave.

For more information about the Secure Enclave and Passcodes, see pages 7 and 12 of the iOS Security Guide.

The Devil is in the Details''Why not simply update the firmware of the Secure Enclave too?'' I initially speculated that the private data stored within the SE was erased on updates, but I now believe this is not true. Apple can update the SE firmware, it does not require the phone passcode, and it does not wipe user data on update. Apple can disable the passcode delay and disable auto erase with a firmware update to the SE. After all, Apple has updated the SE with increased delays between passcode attempts and no phones were wiped.

If the device lacks a Secure Enclave, then a single firmware update to iOS will be sufficient to disable passcode delays and auto erase. If the device does contain a Secure Enclave, then two firmware updates, one to iOS and one to the Secure Enclave, are required to disable these security features. The end result in either case is the same. After modification, the device is able to guess passcodes at the fastest speed the hardware supports.

The recovered iPhone is a model 5C. The iPhone 5C lacks TouchID and, therefore, lacks a Secure Enclave. The Secure Enclave is not a concern. Nearly all of the passcode protections are implemented in software by the iOS operating system and are replaceable by a single firmware update.

The End ResultThere are still caveats in these older devices and a customized version of iOS will not immediately yield access to the phone passcode. Devices with A6 processors, such as the iPhone 5C, also contain a hardware key that cannot ever be read. This key is also ''tangled'' with the phone passcode to create the encryption key. However, there is nothing that stops iOS from querying this hardware key as fast as it can. Without the Secure Enclave to play gatekeeper, this means iOS can guess one passcode every 80ms.

Passcodes can only be guessed once every 80ms with or without the Secure Enclave

Even though this 80ms limit is not ideal, it is a massive improvement from guessing only one passcode per hour with unmodified software. After the elimination of passcode delays, it will take a half hour to recover a 4-digit PIN, hours to recover a 6-digit PIN, or years to recover a 6-character alphanumeric password. It has not been reported whether the recovered iPhone uses a 4-digit PIN or a longer, more complicated alphanumeric passcode.

Festina LenteApple has allegedly cooperated with law enforcement in the past by using a custom firmware image that bypassed the passcode lock screen. This simple UI hack was sufficient in earlier versions of iOS since most files were unencrypted. However, since iOS 8, it has become the default for nearly all applications to encrypt their data with a combination of the phone passcode and the hardware key. This change necessitates guessing the passcode and has led directly to this request for technical assistance from the FBI.

I believe it is technically feasible for Apple to comply with all of the FBI's requests in this case. On the iPhone 5C, the passcode delay and device erasure are implemented in software and Apple can add support for peripheral devices that facilitate PIN code entry. In order to limit the risk of abuse, Apple can lock the customized version of iOS to only work on the specific recovered iPhone and perform all recovery on their own, without sharing the firmware image with the FBI.

For more information, please listen to my interview with the Risky Business podcast.

Update 1: Apple has issued a public response to the court order.Update 2: Software updates to the Secure Enclave are unlikely to erase user data. Please see the Secure Enclave section for further details.Update 3: Reframed ''The Devil is in the Details'' section and noted that Apple can equally subvert the security measures of the iPhone 5C and later devices that include the Secure Enclave via software updates.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 22:08

Ah, the eternal question: Should you protect your iOS device with a passcode? On one hand, the knowledge that your data is presumably safe from prying eyes makes carrying around your phone and tablet less worrying; on the other, having to tap in a code every time you want to check your email or make a phone call can quickly become annoying.

Apple, for its part, isn't helping make this choice easier for consumers: Methods for bypassing the passcode screen or circumventing it altogether keep getting discovered, and though the company typically provides patches fairly quickly, these security holes don't instill confidence in iOS's ability to keep our data safe.

Besides, passcodes seem inflexible and at times even incompatible with the way we use our devices. I've stopped counting the number of people who have asked me why iOS doesn't use geolocation to automatically engage passcodes when, for example, you leave your house, where you don't need so much protection. And when you leave your passcode-locked device within reach of a toddler, you can find out rather quickly that Apple's deterrents aren't exactly designed with curious children in mind.

A look behind the scenesOn the surface, therefore, passcodes act as little more than gatekeepers to your devices'--and, therefore, to the data stored on them. Like a watchful security guard, iOS becomes increasingly suspicious when incorrect codes are tapped in, and it requires longer and longer pauses between attempts until, after it counts ten tries, it either locks the device up for good or'--depending on your settings'--wipes out the data altogether.

If an iOS device's security consisted of nothing more than a passcode, however, then the system would be ineffective. It's relatively easy for a skilled hacker to bypass this locking mechanism by downloading the contents of your device's flash memory and, thanks to software tools ready-made for this very purpose, gaining access to its every byte in a matter of seconds.

Therefore, Apple, aware that its mobile device would likely be taken to (and lost in) all sorts of public places, baked security right into its hardware, creating a subtle interplay of technologies in which passcodes play a small but crucial role.

Encryption for alliOS security begins during manufacturing, when a unique encryption code is baked right into every device.iPad and iPhone security begins at the factory, where two special codes are burned right into the hardware; the first is a code that's unique to each device, while the second code changes from product line to product line. Thus, for example, each iPhone 5 will have its own unique code, plus a code that identifies it as an iPhone 5.

iOS uses these codes, together with a bit of random data called entropy, to generate a master cryptographic key, which is then stored in a dedicated area of memory called effaceable storage. Even though the hardware codes never change, the entropy ensures that this process, which occurs every time you restore your device, results in a different key every time.

Subsequently, every file that is created on the device is encrypted with a separate key derived in part from the master; because iOS devices support encryption directly in the hardware, this process is typically fast and transparent to the user, and results in files that are unintelligible without the master key.

Should you ever need to completely wipe out a device'--say, because it's been stolen, because you're selling it to someone else, or just because you're reinstalling iOS'--all that the operating system needs to do is erase the effaceable storage, and voil : All the data stored on the device's disk becomes unusable, even though it's technically still there. When you install a new copy of the operating system, a new master key is generated, and the process starts over again.

This storage-based approach is important for two reasons: First, it's relatively quick and efficient'--that can save time at a critical juncture if, for example, there's only a small window of opportunity to erase the device's contents when a thief turns it on to see if it works. Second, it helps to extend the life of the device's flash memory, which can only be written to so many times before it starts to fail.

Enter the passcodeUseful though this security scheme may be when a quick wipe is called for, it does not protect your data from prying eyes, because the key used to decrypt the data is stored right on the device, where a skilled hacker could easily retrieve it.

This is where the passcode comes into play: When you turn the passcode lock on, a technology called Data Protection kicks in, causing a new encryption key to be generated; it's used to encode certain files that have been marked as critically important by the operating system'--like your Keychain'--as well as by individual apps.

Crucially, the passcode itself is used as part of the encryption key, and then discarded when the device later locks. This way, iOS becomes physically unable to decrypt the data until the user re-inputs the passcode.

Because the passcode is not stored anywhere on the device, the only way to decrypt the data without it is to use a brute-force approach: that is, to try all the possible codes until you find the right one.

Four-digit passcodes are easy to remember '... and easy to break.The fact that the passcode isn't stored on your device is, incidentally, the reason why Apple can't help you if you've lost your passcode, and why iOS can't automatically turn off passcodes when you're inside your home: The unlocking code you pick is physically required to encrypt the data, and it is never stored on the device. Any arrangement to the contrary, even in the name of convenience, would introduce a massive security vulnerability and effectively undo any advantage such encryption offers in the first place.

The weak linkUnfortunately, passcodes' dependence on human intervention makes them the weakest link in the iOS protection scheme. People are notoriously bad at choosing security over convenience, and many of us unwittingly weaken the safety of our data through poor ''security hygiene'' practices.

For example, iOS defaults to requiring four-digit passcodes, which most people pick because they are easier to enter single-handedly on the large numeric keypad. According to Apple's own security whitepaper, a malicious attacker who gains access to a device's contents could defeat a four-digit passcode in a little over a minute, using nothing more sophisticated than a simple program that tries all 10,000 possible combinations.

But it gets worse'--research has shown that many people choose extremely weak passcodes like ''0000'' and ''1234,'' giving would-be hackers an easy means of attack. In fact, there's a better than one-in-five chance of that they can gain access to your phone with just five attempts, simply by guessing the most common choices.

Picking better passcodesIt's possible to use the numeric keypad with passcodes longer than four digits'--as long as they are made up entirely of digits.Fortunately, it doesn't take much effort to dramatically increase the security of your passcodes. For starters, if you like numeric codes because they're easy to input using the on-screen keypad, you'll be happy to know that iOS uses the same entry mechanism even if you pick a code longer than four digits. To enable it, open the Settings app and go to General, then tap Passcode Lock, where you can turn Simple Passcode off. If you now enable passcodes and choose one that is made up only of digits, iOS will provide the numeric keypad when you try to unlock your device.

Of course, this also tells attackers that your code is a number, giving them a leg up on breaking it; however, each additional digit increases the amount of time required for a brute-force attack tenfold, which is certainly much better than nothing. For example, going by Apple's estimates, a six-digit code would require around 22 hours to break, while a nine-digit code could be broken only in two and a half years.

This brings me to a crucial point: A passcode isn't a magic solution that protects your data for all eternity'--instead, it buys you time before that data falls into the wrong hands. Given enough time and resources, almost any encryption mechanism can be defeated; thus, your goal should be to pick a passcode whose length gives you enough time to neutralize the effects of losing your data.

Buying timeFor example, your garden-variety thief will most likely turn on a stolen device as soon as possible to make sure that it works, and will possibly root around for a quick score like your online-banking credentials. In this case, even a nontrivial four-digit passcode will give you enough time to log on to Find My iPhone and remotely wipe the phone's contents well before the thief can get his or her hands on them.

More-sophisticated criminals, on the other hand, will immediately pop out any SIM card and only turn on the device well out of range of open wireless hotspots, gaining all the time in the world to find their way into your personal data. In this case, your choice of passcode must be commensurate with the amount of time that you want the information on the device to remain inaccessible.

For example, a six-digit numeric passcode will likely give you enough time to reset all your critical passwords, like those you use to access your email accounts and banking websites.

If, on the other hand, you keep confidential data on the device that could remain ''hot'' for years'--legal documents, for example'--a long alphanumeric passcode may be necessary to ensure that you've at least tried to apply a good standard of care in keeping that information secure.

Finding the right balance between convenience and safety is not that hard once you understand how passcodes work; Apple can likely be counted on to fix whatever new vulnerabilities are found in its operating system in a timely manner, but your devices are only going to be as secure as the locking codes you pick.

After all, as nuclear weapon designers have discovered, the most sophisticated security mechanism is easily undone by the kind of combination a character in a science-fiction satire would keep on his luggage.

Marco TabiniMarco Tabini is based in Toronto, Canada, where he focuses on software development for mobile devices and for the Web.More by Marco Tabini

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 21:51

YESTERDAY, APPLE CEO TIM COOK published an open letter opposing a court order to build the FBI a ''backdoor'' for the iPhone.

Cook wrote that the backdoor, which removes limitations on how often an attacker can incorrectly guess an iPhone passcode, would set a dangerous precedent and ''would have the potential to unlock any iPhone in someone's physical possession,'' even though in this instance, the FBI is seeking to unlock a single iPhone belonging to one of the killers in a 14-victim mass shooting spree in San Bernardino, California, in December.

It's true that ordering Apple to develop the backdoor will fundamentally undermine iPhone security, as Cook and other digital security advocates have argued. But it's possible for individual iPhone users to protect themselves from government snooping by setting strong passcodes on their phones '-- passcodes the FBI would not be able to unlock even if it gets its iPhone backdoor.

The technical details of how the iPhone encrypts data, and how the FBI might circumvent this protection, are complex and convoluted, and are being thoroughly explored elsewhere on the internet. What I'm going to focus on here is how ordinary iPhone users can protect themselves.

The short version: If you're worried about governments trying to access your phone, set your iPhone up with a random, 11-digit numeric passcode. What follows is an explanation of why that will protect you and how to actually do it.

If it sounds outlandish to worry about government agents trying to crack into your phone, consider that when you travel internationally, agents at the airport or other border crossings can seize, search, and temporarily retain your digital devices '-- even without any grounds for suspicion. And while a local police officer can't search your iPhone without a warrant, cops have used their own digital devices to get search warrants within 15 minutes, as a Supreme Court opinion recently noted.

The most obvious way to try and crack into your iPhone, and what the FBI is trying to do in the San Bernardino case, is to simply run through every possible passcode until the correct one is discovered and the phone is unlocked. This is known as a ''brute force'' attack.

For example, let's say you set a six-digit passcode on your iPhone. There are 10 possibilities for each digit in a numbers-based passcode, and so there are 106, or 1 million, possible combinations for a six-digit passcode as a whole. It is trivial for a computer to generate all of these possible codes. The difficulty comes in trying to test them.

One obstacle to testing all possible passcodes is that the iPhone intentionally slows down after you guess wrong a few times. An attacker can try four incorrect passcodes before she's forced to wait one minute. If she continues to guess wrong, the time delay increases to five minutes, 15 minutes, and finally one hour. There's even a setting to erase all data on the iPhone after 10 wrong guesses.

This is where the FBI's requested backdoor comes into play. The FBI is demanding that Apple create a special version of the iPhone's operating system, iOS, that removes the time delays and ignores the data erasure setting. The FBI could install this malicious software on the San Bernardino killer's iPhone, brute force the passcode, unlock the phone, and access all of its data. And that process could hypothetically be repeated on anyone else's iPhone.

(There's also speculation that the government could make Apple alter the operation of a piece of iPhone hardware known as the Secure Enclave; for the purposes of this article, I assume the protections offered by this hardware, which would slow an attacker down even more, are not in place.)

Even if the FBI gets its way and can clear away iPhone safeguards against passcode guessing, it faces another obstacle, one that should help keep it from cracking passcodes of, say, 11 digits: It can only test potential passcodes for your iPhone using the iPhone itself; the FBI can't use a supercomputer or a cluster of iPhones to speed up the guessing process. That's because iPhone models, at least as far back as May 2012, have come with a Unique ID (UID) embedded in the device hardware. Each iPhone has a different UID fused to the phone, and, by design, no one can read it and copy it to another computer. The iPhone can only be unlocked when the owner's passcode is combined with the the UID to derive an encryption key.

So the FBI is stuck using your iPhone to test passcodes. And it turns out that your iPhone is kind of slow at that: iPhones intentionally encrypt data in such a way that they must spend about 80 milliseconds doing the math needed to test a passcode, according to Apple. That limits them to testing 12.5 passcode guesses per second, which means that guessing a six-digit passcode would take, at most, just over 22 hours.

You can calculate the time for that task simply by dividing the 1 million possible six-digit passcodes by 12.5 per seconds. That's 80,000 seconds, or 1,333 minutes, or 22 hours. But the attacker doesn't have to try each passcode; she can stop when she finds one that successfully unlocks the device. On average, it will only take 11 hours for that to happen.

But the FBI would be happy to spend mere hours cracking your iPhone. What if you use a longer passcode? Here's how long the FBI would need:

seven-digit passcodes will take up to 9.2 days, and on average 4.6 days, to crackeight-digit passcodes will take up to three months, and on average 46 days, to cracknine-digit passcodes will take up to 2.5 years, and on average 1.2 years, to crack10-digit passcodes will take up to 25 years, and on average 12.6 years, to crack11-digit passcodes will take up to 253 years, and on average 127 years, to crack12-digit passcodes will take up to 2,536 years, and on average 1,268 years, to crack13-digit passcodes will take up to 25,367 years, and on average 12,683 years, to crackIt's important to note that these estimates only apply to truly random passcodes. If you choose a passcode by stringing together dates, phone numbers, social security numbers, or anything else that's at all predictable, the attacker might try guessing those first, and might crack your 11-digit passcode in a very short amount of time. So make sure your passcode is random, even if this means it takes extra time to memorize it. (Memorizing that many digits might seem daunting, but if you're older than, say, 29, there was probably a time when you memorized several phone numbers that you dialed on a regular basis.)

Nerd tip: If you're using a Mac or Linux, you can securely generate a random 11-digit passcode by opening the Terminal app and typing this command:

python -c 'from random import SystemRandom as r; print(r().randint(0,10**11-1))'It's also important to note that we're assuming the FBI, or some other government agency, has not found a flaw in Apple's security architecture that would allow them to test passcodes on their own computers or at a rate faster than 80 milliseconds per passcode.

Once you've created a new 11-digit passcode, you can start using it by opening the Settings app, selecting ''Touch ID & Passcode,'' and entering your old passcode if prompted. Then, if you have an existing passcode, select ''Change passcode'' and enter your old passcode. If you do not have an existing passcode, and are setting one for the first time, click ''Turn passcode on.''

Then, in all cases, click ''Passcode options,'' select ''Custom numeric code,'' and then enter your new passcode.

Here are a few final tips to make this long-passcode thing work better:

Within the ''Touch ID & Passcode'' settings screen, make sure to turn on the Erase Data setting to erase all data on your iPhone after 10 failed passcode attempts.Make sure you don't forget your passcode, or you'll lose access to all of the data on your iPhone.Don't use Touch ID to unlock your phone. Your attacker doesn't need to guess your passcode if she can push your finger onto the home button to unlock it instead. (At least one court has ruled that while the police cannot compel you to disclose your passcode, they can compel you to use your fingerprint to unlock your smartphone.)Don't use iCloud backups. Your attacker doesn't need to guess your passcode if she can get a copy of all the same data from Apple's server, where it's no longer protected by your passcode.Do make local backups to your computer using iTunes, especially if you are worried about forgetting your iPhone passcode. You can encrypt the backups, too.By choosing a strong passcode, the FBI shouldn't be able to unlock your encrypted phone, even if it installs a backdoored version of iOS on it. Not unless it has hundreds of years to spare.

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 21:51

The strength of Apple's revised encryption scheme in iOS 8 hinges on users choosing a strong passcode or password, which they rarely do, according to a Princeton University fellow.

Apple beefed up the encryption in its latest mobile operating system, protecting more sensitive data and employing more protections within hardware to make it harder to access. The new system has worried U.S. authorities, who fear it may make it more difficult to obtain data for law enforcement since Apple has no access to it.

Despite the new protections, data is still vulnerable in certain circumstances, wroteJoseph Bonneau, a fellow at the Center For Information Technology Policy at Princeton, who studies password security.

"Users with any simple passcode have no security against a serious attacker who's able to start guessing with the help of the device's cryptographic processor," he wrote.

If an iPhone is seized when it's turned off, it's unlikely that the keys can be derived from its cryptographic co-processor called the "Secure Enclave," which does the heavy lifting to enable encryption.

But if an attacker can boot the phone and get access to the Secure Enclave, it would be possible to start guessing passwords in a brute-force attack, and that's where the weakness lies.

Apple doesn't make it easy to completely copy all of the data on a device and boot it up using external firmware or another operating system, which would be an attacker's first step, Bonneau wrote.

His theory of how easy it would be to obtain the data from a device is dependent on an attacker being able to bypass the complicated "secure boot" sequence of an iOS 8 device.

"We'll assume this can be defeated by finding a security hole, stealing Apple's key to sign alternate code or coercing Apple into doing so," he wrote.

If that is possible, the attacker can begin guessing passcodes or passwords against the Secure Enclave. Apple's documentation suggests that such guesses could be conducted at a rate of either 12 guesses per second or 1 guess every five seconds.

By default, Apple asks users to set a "simple passcode," which is a four-digit numerical PIN, although users can set much longer pass phrases.

If an attacker can guess four-digit passcodes at 12 per second, the entire space of 10,000 possible PINs can be guessed in about 13 minutes, or 14 hours at the slower rate of one per five seconds, Bonneau wrote.

Apple could slow down the rate at which passwords can be entered, but that would probably annoy users. An alternative would be to limit the number of overall incorrect guesses and erase the phone's data, but that approach would require warning users that they're at risk of blanking their phone if they continue guessing, he wrote.

Even users who opt to set a longer passcode or phrase rather than a four-digit PIN are probably still at risk.

Bonneau said it's unlikely that users choose stronger passwords to protect their devices than Web services accounts, since "entering passwords on a touchscreen is painful."

The best advice is to create a password that is at least a 12-digit random number or a nine-character string of lower-case letters, he wrote. And do not use that password for any other services.

"These aren't trivial to memorize, but the vast majority of humans can do this with practice," Bonneau wrote.

If there's a fear a device may be seized, it's best to keep it off -- such as when crossing international borders -- as that offers the greatest level of encryption protection, he wrote.

Send news tips and comments to jeremy_kirk@idg.com. Follow me on Twitter: @jeremy_kirk

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 07:10

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) '-- Protesters are preparing to assemble in more than 30 cities to lash out at the FBI for obtaining a court order that requires Apple to make it easier to unlock an encrypted iPhone used by a gunman in December's mass shootings in Southern California.

The protests organized by the Internet rights group Fight for the Future are scheduled to occur Tuesday outside Apple stores in the U.S., the U.K., Hong Kong and Germany.

The U.S. protests will be in cities scattered across more than 20 states, including in New York, Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, where protesters plan to express their discontent outside the FBI's headquarters.

The gatherings will come a week after the FBI went to court to force Apple to weaken the security built into most iPhones to help a terrorism investigation in San Bernardino, California. The FBI wants Apple to remove a feature that erases the information stored on an iPhone after 10 unsuccessful attempts to enter a password, preventing unauthorized users from accessing the device.

The iPhone that the FBI is trying to examine was used by Syed Farook, who along with his wife killed 14 people in December.

Apple is fighting the court order issued in the case, arguing that the special software sought by the FBI could be used to break into millions of other iPhones. The FBI contends Apple is exaggerating the security risks of complying with the court order in a marketing ploy aimed at selling more iPhones.

Fight for the Future believes Apple's concerns are warranted and is hoping the protests will persuade the Obama administration to take a stand against the way the FBI is trying to break into Farook's iPhone, said Evan Greer, the group's campaign director.

The White House so far has stood behind the FBI in its battle with Apple Inc.

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:39

Man, when you started going into disabilities and lawsuits on show 801 it really hit close to home.My CBS affiliate employer got bought out and the new corporate mandate came down that we need to caption everything just to cover our butts. We have to caption weather (even though it clearly is displayed in graphics) and interviews....we are a pretty small market, we don't have the bodies laying around to just type up interviews live on the fly, or caption random banter. Though we can probably afford more people than we have, the previous owners were definitely cheap. I guess we'll see how we handle this.But within 3 DAYS of our new ownership being finalized, we had a deaf guy call the station (via translated) and complain. A guy who apparently had complained before around 5 years ago and our station spent ALOT of money to make sure we were compliant. (At the time we already were) Coincidence that almost immediately after our buyout by a large corporation he's calling and filing with the FCC again? I think not.Better start captioning No Agenda.Sent from Outlook Mobile

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:39

(FYI: "blind community" is what most blind folks use, though "blind and low vision community" is more inclusive; "disability community" is obviously the most inclusive. The traditional PC term for blind is visually impaired, however I personally dislike it, as parsed directly it means you're ugly! That's just me though. Vision impaired is fine, and I don't mind being called blind myself; however vision loss is a spectrum so that term does not apply universally.) I'm actually thrilled that you are talking about this, because virtually no one does, yet it has a major impact on my and most of my friends' lives. The appropriate extent to which the federal government should play a role in enabling access to all people is an open question worthy of more debate. Fraud and abuse of the law is likewise important to uncover, if for no other reason than to separate the bad actors from the good ones. And given WCAG's influence, I think how those regulations can effect the experience of a fully abled person is as legitimate a discussion as how they effect less abled folks. Ideally, an accessible website should be designed in such a way that it is as enjoyable for a disabled person to browse as a fully abled person to browse. All I ask is that you discuss these issues accurately. Section 508 did not just come into being a few years ago and it does not exist to prop up WCAG. It predates WCAG2 by at least a decade and the law makes no mention of it. It is being updated now to include WCAG2, because after 15 years no one's come up with anything better, and those rules don't even come into effect until October at the earliest! Furthermore as you have rightly mentioned, it only effects websites of the federal government and its contractors. They are well within both their legal rights and moral responsibility to establish regulations for how their own web presence should serve the needs of their employees. You are ascribing sinister motives where none exist, and I take umbrage to the characterization of my chosen field as a 'scam,' or 'creating a problem that didn't exist before.' It's great that you and John don't have to deal with these problems, but concluding that they are not problems for others would offend anyone. Hence my accusation of ablest privilege. >I have no problem providing alternate versions for all vision impaired, but being forced to degrade the original work is a borderline 1st amendment issue. "borderline" first amendment issue means it's not a first amendment issue. Which is correct, as the content of the content is unchanged, merely its presentation. The goal of which, in case you forgot, is to make said content accessible--to EVERYONE. So ALL PEOPLE can read it. Equating this to censorship takes a lot of mental gymnastics, but that is what one does when one establishes a conclusion first and then works backwards to justify it. Many consider the alternate version solution inadequate, because what ends up happening is the site which receives the lion's share of the traffic receives the lion's share of the attention and the screenreader friendly website is left to languish. Put another way, separate but equal is inherently unequal, as established by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (and by the supreme court, in Brown V. Board of education--you might have heard about it.) You as a solo artist may be able to maintain two versions of the same content, but it's not so easy for, say, Chase Bank. Safeway, for instance, maintained an alternate accessible shopping cart for many years, but no longer. Amazon also maintains a "screen reader optimized version" of their site, but it is rarely used as it doesn't contain all of the information available on the main site. Again, that's not to say such a solution wouldn't work for you, just that In my experience, it only works as a stopgap measure while your main site is brought up to speed. A website exists to serve content to viewers; if it cannot do that for some people, it is failing at its purpose and is thus a bad website. On 2/18/2016 8:27 AM, Adam Curry wrote: Thank you for the response. You have a real disagreement with me on the 'low vision' point. I have no problem providing alternate versions for all vision impaired, but being forced to degrade the original work is a borderline 1st amendment issue. And you have not walked in my shoes either. We all have disabilities. AC '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'-- K5ACC Governments are reading your email. Slow them down with encryption. My public key: pubkey.curry.com '--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'--'-- On Feb 17, 2016, at 12:23 AM, Drew Mochak <drew@trioptimum.com> wrote: Hey Adam! On the previous episode, you brought up Section 508 of the ADA and how it relates to the field of accessibility contracting on the web. Since I, in fact, contract on accessibility for an extremely influential technology company, I would like to shed some light on this whole situation. First, I would like to link you to a post that has JUST been written by Chris Hofstader on this very subject: http://chrishofstader.com/stop-the-ada-trolls/ (he coded on the most popular screenreader before a stupid merger made it start sucking, now pals around with Richard Stallman and the like.) He provides several examples of exactly the type of scummy behavior you describe, but he also makes it clear that SSBBart Group, as far as anyone is aware, is one of the good ones. This was apparently a somewhat persistent rumor at a recent technology conference, so if you have evidence that suggests it's anything more beyond the post on their blog you put in the shownotes, I and others would very much like to see it. WCAG is a working group from the W3C. Making standards for the web is literally all they do. It is not a legal document, as you point out, and the W3C has no enforcement mechanism. Which is where section 508 comes in. It was signed into law in 1998, and is meant to only apply to websites of the federal government as you know. Obama's DOJ has interpreted this to include operations that do significant business with the federal government, and has prosecuted a number of section 508 lawsuits. There is no guarantee that this would continue under, say, a Trump administration. My understanding of what they're saying is you need to have A guideline in place, and if you don't, do what WCAG tells you to do, and if that looks like too much reading, hire a contractor to tell you what it means for you and then hire more contractors to fix it. I must stress that I am not a lawyer. Lainey Feingold, however, is a lawyer, and provides regular updates in regards to accessibility case law on her website, http://lflegal.com/category/legal-updates/ I met her when she was giving a talk on just this topic, and I can tell you three things: she knows her stuff, she doesn't like suing people, and she's a total Obamabot. Finally, I must tell you that I was quite offended, and I use that word deliberately, by your complaint that accessible websites look like shit and that your experience has been "downgraded" as a result of that process. This is ablest privilage, plain and simple. (I'd use the term you prefer, but I've forgotten what it is.) You are prioritizing your desire to have a page that looks pleasing to you over the desire of others to be able to read the page. Your life is not impacted in a major way by having the text of an image pushed to the side, but when that text is included as part of an image, that can be a serious impediment to all sorts of important tasks for certain people. Whining when somebody has made a change to enable more users of their website because you think the buttons are too dim is petty bullshit. There needs to be some form of legally enforceable standard, in order to compel people who are prejudiced against those with disabilities, and to force other corporations who would otherwise be slow to react to the bargaining table. If WCAG won't serve, make something better. Be a part of the solution.

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:39

Hello,

I have emailed you before, and as I am sure you remember I am the blind autistic. I totally disagree with the scam that is going on, and really don't think that websites need to totally follow the standards.

First off What the fuck with moving the text out of the image. That is what an alt tag is for, and that is enough for a screenreader. In fact if you have an image with an alt tag and then the text outside the image it is almost redundant and very annoying. I personally love alt tags, and don't want the use of them to be converted to the stupid WCAG standard.

It shouldn't be required to make it fully accessible unless you are a government website, and if you want to make it look pretty but still follow the standards just make an accessibility link.

If you haven't read this you might be interested. This is from a guy that worked at Freedom Scientific one of the largest companies that produce a screen reader.

http://chrishofstader.com/stop-the-ada-trolls/

If you read this on the show please just call me Dave as if the blind community figures out it is me I will be knocked to oblivion as that is how the blind community works. To be fully honest I am embarrassed to be blind because of the community.

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 23:44

By Carin van Vuuren, Chief Marketing Officer at Usablenet

2013 was a big year for digital accessibility '-- the practice of removing or minimizing the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from having equal access to information and functionality.Today, almost every business has an online presence, which means website accessibility is quickly proving to be an increasingly important issue to address. As the definition of an accessible website is becoming clearer, businesses need to take both legal factors and customer satisfaction into consideration when planning how to make systems (e.g. websites or applications) more functional for individuals with disabilities.

SUBSCRIBE FREE to Website Magazine - 12 Issues The Necessity to Embrace AccessibilityThere are a host of factors from legal, business and ethical perspectives that should motivate brands to create accessible websites.

First, companies have a legal responsibility to provide services to everyone who uses the Web, regardless of ability. In the United States, there are key legal considerations that companies need to address. Primarily, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to all facets of public life and prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities and telecommunications. ADA regulations extend to the Internet. The U.S. Department of Transportation, for example, now requires airlines to make their travel sites more accessible to people with disabilities.

To stay ahead of the curve, digitally focused businesses need greater understanding of the experiences of assistive users. Discover several techniques and technologies that progressive enterprises are using today to serve their audiences better at wsm.co/assistiveweb.

Two other legal obligations that companies need to address when creating an online presence stem from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG2) and the Telecommunications Act. Published by the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Accessibility Initiative in 2008, the WCAG2 offers recommendations for companies to make their websites accessible to people with poor vision, hearing loss, limited movement and other disabilities. If a site does not meet the guidelines set forth by the WCA, then the website owner could be sued for discrimination. Finally, Sections 255 and 251A2 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act require telecommunications equipment manufacturers, educational organizations and service providers to ensure that their products and services are accessible and usable by people with disabilities.

While legal factors often require businesses to create an assistive website, companies should also be driven by a desire to deliver customer satisfaction, as the Association of Corporate Counsel reported an increase in 2013 regarding the instances of disabled individuals who complained that they couldn't access certain company websites.

How Does Assistive Work With the Original Website Code?The most efficient way to create an assistive site is by building a dynamic text-only site. However, a big mistake that businesses make when implementing text-only sites is by simply taking a page and making it text-only, which does not imply accessibility. Text-only is also not just content related, but rather requires that all functionalities be available in ''text-only'' mode. Developers must also apply the guidelines set forth by ADA, WCAG2 and the Telecommunications Act to ensure that their pages are in compliance with Web accessibility standards. There are two main ways for Web developers to make sites fully accessible.

The first option is to adjust the code on the original site. While this approach does make the original site accessible, it requires a lot of work for the developer, especially with large sites that were developed with JavaScript and Ajax.

(Editor's Note: Brands can use a free service like the WAVE Web Accessibility Tool to get suggestions on how to make their pages more accessible.)

The second option is especially useful for large sites that have a wealth of content and pages. Rather than going back on every page to make each one accessible, developers generate dynamic text-only pages alongside the original ones. When a change on the original site is made, it will be reflected in the text-only version. It ensures that all of the features and functions on the assistive site are the same as on the original version.

Why Service-Based Industries Need AssistiveWhile the factors listed above apply to all sectors, the most important industries to implement assistive sites are federal organizations, educational institutions and those that explicitly provide services to the public. In addition, businesses that offer consumers the ability to transact on a website, also need to make sure the website is accessible to all users.

Amtrak (a publicly funded railway service), for example, makes it a priority for customers who are blind or have low vision to access online information and book reservations.

Amtrak's first step toward embracing accessibility began in Oct. 2012 when it announced the launch of a virtual online assistant, ''Ask Julie.'' Julie answers customer questions in her own voice and quickly directs customers to the appropriate Web page or customer service contact. Travelers turn to Julie first for help booking tickets, locating baggage information, routes and train status. When Amtrak launched its assistive site in Dec. 2012 (in advance of government-mandated site regulations) one of the first things they did was extend Ask Julie to the assistive site.

Amtrak sought to eliminate obstacles faced by visually impaired users by implementing a text-only site that provides a variety of reading options for clarity (such as color scheme). The company's assistive plan also included outlining a comprehensive step-by-step browsing and booking process; building in readily available information and support lines; and offering the opportunity to tailor customizable resources for added assistance while traveling. Delta is another travel company that converted its Web pages into a friendly format for users with disabilities. The text-only pages it produces have the graphics and styling elements removed, fully accommodating individuals with visual impairments (see images).

Embrace Assistive: It's Your ResponsibilityWhen considering website design and strategy, all businesses need to look at their current sites and ask the question: would this page create challenges for a disabled individual? If your site offers services or products that will require users to complete transactions, the answer is probably yes.

Businesses have to take responsibility for customer welfare. Although implementing an assistive site may incur costs that do not have an immediate financial benefit for the company, it reflects a positive social message that will pay off over the long-term. Businesses that devote the time and resources to create fully accessible experiences will benefit their customers, themselves and the community at large.

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 23:49

Law360, New York (March 3, 2014, 5:32 PM ET) -- When companies think about their obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act, most think about low-tech solutions like wheelchair ramps, elevators and handicapped parking spaces. New developments involving higher-tech devices, however, may soon require companies to rethink their online and in-store experiences for customers.For example, a slew of recent class actions allege that card readers used by many retailers to process debit card transactions violate the ADA. Other lawsuits allege that various consumer-facing websites violate the ADA. In light of these cases, companies trying to...

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 06:55

Epic Records

Manitoba's, one of the last punk rock dive bars in New York's East Village, owned byformer Dictators frontman"Handsome Dick" Manitoba, could be headed for a premature end. Its would-be executioner is not rising rents or gentrification, but the hefty cash settlement of a lawsuit with its origins in "a small wrinkle in the interplay between State and Federal law."

According to a statement from Manitoba and wife/co-owner Zoe Hansen, they were "forced to reluctantly settle a case with a private individual for a cumbersome amount that threatens the future of the establishment." In order to "keep the lights on, the beer cold and the jukebox playing," they are attempting to crowdfund $25,000 viaIndieGogo.

The lawsuit in question was filed by Luigi Girotto, 50, a resident of the affluent suburb of Rye, NY. As reported by Ben Fractenberg for DNAinfo New York, Girotto has sued dozens of businesses for failing to comply with regulations required by theAmericans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Girotto has been confined to a wheelchair since injuring himself skiing, and claims that on a trip to the East Village with his son, the lack of a ramp forced him to sit in the car while his son patronized Manitoba's. Girotto then went to Casmir, a neighboring restaurant which also lacked wheelchair access, and subsequently sued them as well.

DNAinfo reports:

(Girotto) said he has not profited from any of the lawsuits and all the money won goes to the attorneys who represent him at The Weitz Law Firm in Florida and the spinal cord injury foundation JustADollarPlease.

''I don't require small businesses to do major renovation work, but they need to make it accessible,'' Girotto said, adding that he would be satisfied if businesses had a portable ramp they could bring outside when someone in a wheelchair needed to enter.

B. Bradley Weitz, the managing attorney at The Weitz Law Firm, was described by Forbes as running a "lawsuit mill." In 2013, he and his colleague, Adam Shore, were rebuked by U.S. District Judge Sterling Johnson, Jr. for "charging excessive fees, practicing shoddy law, and possibly concocting the mysterious (plaintiff), who repeatedly failed to show up in court to prosecute his own lawsuit." The New York Times reported that Weitz and Shore "typically (charge) $425 per hour for a total of $15,000 per case" and "had filed as many as 10 cases in a single day."

Girotto's lawsuit sought only $500 in damages, plus attorney's fees. Yet, Manitoba's is raising $25,000 to cover the costs of the settlement.

Reason's Brian Doherty has written extensively on the vagaries of the ADA, which can be an "expensive headache to millions without necessarily improving the lives of its supposed beneficiaries." ReasonContributing EditorWalter Olsonplayedparty pooperon the feel-good law's 20th anniversary, noting that the Act has lined the pockets of lawyers while affecting very little change in the lives of the disabled:

"One reason for the law's immunity from criticism is that it is defended as a matter of identity politics: if you're against it, then you must be against the people it protects."

Olson also lamented that emotional reactions to the law make it appear "rude...to mention the money-driven ADA 'filing mills' in California, Florida and other states under which complainants roam the land filing hundreds of similar complaints against local businesses which their lawyers then convert into assembly-line cash settlements."

In the meantime, Manitoba's fights for its continued existence as the still living embodiment of New York's punk rock history, ensuring its potential crowdfund supporters that "Not one penny goes into the owner's pockets, or is being used to pay bills. All of it goes to settling this claim and keeping the bar open." (emphasis theirs)

Though Manitoba's makes its home on Avenue B, below you may choose to rock out to the Dictators' tribute to the East Village, "Avenue A," if so inclined:

Anthony L. Fisher is a Writer/Producer for Reason.com and Reason TV.

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Archived Version

Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:17

Christine Lagarde was the sole candidate for the post of managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

Despite facing charges of negligence in France, Christine Lagarde was selected Friday to serve as the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a second five-year term.

Lagarde was the sole candidate nominated for the post of managing director at the multilateral lending institution.

''It has been a very enthusiastic experience for me and I am looking forward to actually continuing to serve the membership: to focus on country specific issues and make sure that we are as country-tailored and specific as we can,'' said Lagarde following the announcement.

Lagarde made headlines in December 2015 when her lawyer announced she would face trial over allegations of negligence in France. Lagarde is accused of failing to challenge a controversial payout to business tycoon Bernard Tapie when she was finance minister in France under then-president Nicolas Sarkozy.

Tapie, a close associate of Sarkozy, received US$433 million in compensation after he accused a state-owned bank of fraud. France's last court of appeal, the Court of Cassation, eventually ordered Tapie to repay the compensation.

As head of the IMF, Lagarde was involved in bailout negotiations with Greece that demanded the country implement harsh austerity programs in exchange for emergency loans.

RELATED:Greece Passes New Austerity Measures, Recieves New Debt Loan

The IMF is the object of much derision in developing countries, particularly in Latin America, where the organization has often imposed painful structural adjustment programs blamed for devastating economies and causing poverty to skyrocket.

Right-wing Argentine President Mauricio Macri recently announced he would submit his country to its first IMF audit in nearly a decade.

IN DEPTH:World Bank and the IMF in Peru

Lagarde took over as head of the IMF in 2011 following the resignation of Dominique Strauss-Kahn amid scandal. She became the first woman to lead the organization, which is based in Washington, D.C.

She will officially start her second term on July 5.

The IMF said the decision to reappoint Lagarde was reached by consensus among its executive board.

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 15:19

Image copyrightEurovisionImage caption The Grand Final of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Stockholm on Saturday 14 May 2016 New rules have been announced for the Eurovision Song Contest in the biggest change to voting since 1975.

In previous years each country's jury and public votes were combined and announced in one go.

Now the votes will be split with each country's jury vote cast first, and votes from viewers in all countries combined and announced at the end.

Organisers say this will create a "dramatic finish" as the winner will only be revealed at the very end.

In previous years the winner has been known for up to 20 minutes before the end of voting.

"This format change will inject a new level of excitement into the finish of the Eurovision Song Contest," said Martin Osterdahl, executive producer for this year's show.

Image copyrightThomas Hanses/ EBUImage caption Mans Zelmerlow won the Eurovison Song Contest last year for Sweden and will host this year's ceremony The new voting system is a "big step forward", according to Jon Ola Sand, executive supervisor of the Eurovision Song Contest, that will "make a better television show as well as a more exciting competition".

He added: "It is fitting that this change to the contest's iconic scoring sequence will be debuted in Stockholm, where the famous douze points system was introduced in 1975."

The same voting system will be used in the semi-finals.

For those wanting to know how their country has voted, the televoting and jury scores from each participating country will be available after the show on the official Eurovision website.

The grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Stockholm on Saturday 14 May.

Each country participating will now be able to score the maximum 12 points from each the five-member juries and the voting public - instead of combining the jury and public televote.As with every year, only the top 10 countries in each vote receive points (1-8, 10, 12). The new system means that even if a song is marked down by the jury, it will not affect the public vote. This means the jury cannot sway the public vote and vice versa.For example, Poland's busty butter-churning act of 2014 was voted in the bottom five by the UK jury, but scored the highest with the British public. However when the scores were combined, it did not score enough to get into the overall top 10 and so it received no points from the UK at all.Now after the jury votes have been counted, the televoting points from all participating countries will be combined, providing one score for each country. These televoting results will then be announced, starting with the country receiving the fewest points from the public and ending with the country that received the highest number of points. Organisers hope the new system will create a more exciting show where in previous years the winner has been known before voting has finished.Now the actual winner will not be known until the final moments of the voting as the audience learns what the public think. A song ranked fifth with the judges and 200 points behind the leader may race to the top if it is ranked higher with the voting public.While it is technically true a country may never score "nil points" again as double points are on offer, it may still be the case a country may not be rated by either the jury or the public.A video explainer of how the new voting system will work is on the Eurovision website.

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Archived Version

Fri, 19 Feb 2016 20:38

The oil and gas industry may have thought it hadkilled the electric car, but sales -- boosted by generous government subsidies -- rose dramatically between 2010 and 2014, and energy giants are worried the thing may have come back to life.

Time to kill it again.

A new group that's being cobbled together with fossil fuel backing hopes to spend about $10 million dollars per year to boost petroleum-based transportation fuels and attack government subsidies for electric vehicles, according to refining industry sources familiar with the plan. A Koch Industries board member and a veteran Washington energy lobbyist are working quietly to fund and launch the new advocacy outfit.

Koch Industries, the nation's second-largest privately held corporation, is an energy and industrial conglomerate with $115 billion in annual revenues that is controlled by the multibillionaire brothers -- and prolific conservative donors -- Charles and David Koch. James Mahoney, a confidante of the brothers and member of their company's board, has teamed up with lobbyist Charlie Drevna, who until last year helmed the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, for preliminary talks with several energy giants about funding the new pro-petroleum fuels group.

Late last year, Mahoney and Drevna flew into San Antonio to explain the need for a new group to executives at two Texas refining giants, Valero Energy and Tesoro Corp. Then, in late January, Mahoney moderated a seminar on ''Changing the Energy Narrative'' at the brothers' twice-a-year retreat for mega-donors in California. The panel drew a mix of CEOs from big energy companies and other wealthy attendees who, in conjunction with the Koch brothers, bankroll numerous conservative advocacy groups. And last month, Mahoney and Drevna had further conversations with Koch executives about the new project, sources say.

Neither Mahoney nor Drevna returned multiple calls seeking comment about the new group. A Koch spokesman also didn't respond to a request for comment.

It's not clear when the still-unnamed group will be launched, but energy industry sources predict it's likely to be up and running by this spring or summer, and that Koch Industries -- or a Koch foundation or allied nonprofit -- will be the lead financier.

''The fact that Jim Mahoney is leading the effort appears to indicate that this is being driven by the business side of Koch,'' rather than the political operation that helps oversee the brothers' conservative advocacy empire, said one refining industry source familiar with the early plans for the new group.

Once launched, the new group is expected to use paid and earned media to push its pro-petroleum transportation messages, and do research to bolster the cause.

''I think they (are) approaching all the major independent refiners,'' added a second industry source, who requested anonymity because he had not been authorized to speak about the private discussions. The group's broad mission will be to ''make the public aware of all the benefits of petroleum-based transportation fuels,'' he explained, adding that ''the current administration has a bias toward phasing out'' these fuels.

The source also stressed that the new initiative is partly attributable to ''electric vehicles and the subsidies for them."

"They're worried about state and community subsidies," he added. "In 20 years, electric vehicles could have a substantial foothold in the U.S. market.''

The fledgling Mahoney and Drevna efforts seem to signal an expansion of Koch-backed drives against subsidies and tax breaks for alternative fuels to the transportation sector, at a time when support may be on the rise in Washington and some states for boosting electric vehicles.

Industry analysts and conservatives familiar with Koch world say the new initiative seems to fit the playbook that advocacy outfits backed by the Koch network have deployed in recent years to fight solar and wind power, battles that are fueled by ideology mixed with bottom line concerns.

''The Kochs have invested heavily in a pugnacious defense of fossil fuel consumption,'' said one conservative energy analyst. ''They've done this in the electricity sector, and as the debate shifts to transportation they're behaving true to form.''

Other energy analysts point out that electric vehicle usage is likely to accelerate before long, which could catch a number of energy companies off guard.

''Electric vehicle adoption started slowly, but it certainly is going to follow an exponential growth trajectory,'' said Varun Sivaram, an energy and environment fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ''Once electric vehicle adoption hits a critical mass, I think it will take refiners, petroleum producers and automakers by surprise.''

More broadly, some veteran energy lobbyists note that attacks on electric vehicle subsidies could backfire.

"Producers and refiners need to be careful in going after clean energy subsidies and incentives -- unless they're being paid for by the petroleum industry," said Don Duncan, a former top lobbyist for ConocoPhillips (which has now split in two). Duncan added that attacks on clean energy subsidies potentially ''could again refocus the debate on subsidies and incentives enjoyed by producers and refiners."

Electric vehicles make up just 1 percent of the U.S. market, but some analysts see them rising to as much as 5 percent by 2025. Much of the impetus for boosting electric vehicles to curb climate change is coming from the government in the form of tax breaks and subsidies, and that's a key reason why Koch and some refining industry allies are riled up.

Not long after the Obama administration took office, it set an ambitious goal of having 1 million plug-in electric vehicles on the road by last year. But only some 400,000 have reportedly been sold in the U.S. to date. In a new effort to spur the electric car and driverless car markets, Obama early this month called for a $10-a-barrel oil tax, a proposal that has little chance of passing Congress.

For Koch and other large refiners, the impact of a growing electric vehicle market could be significant down the road. Koch Industries' refining, pipeline and exploration operations contribute a healthy chunk of its $115 billion in annual revenues.

In their early forays to find financial backers, Mahoney and Drevna have turned to some old allies. Koch Industries has teamed up with Valero and Tesoro before. In 2010, Valero and Tesoro were the leading donors behind a multimillion-dollar California ballot initiative that was aimed at killing new state standards to reduce carbon emissions. Koch was also a big donor to the ballot campaign, which was defeated by environmental groups and other liberal interests.

The new group's formation comes in the wake of other discussions in Koch circles, going back to 2013, about building a stronger pro-fossil-fuels message. At a donor retreat in mid-2013, discussions were held about the need to do more to bolster traditional fuels, according to an April 2014 email that Koch operative and fundraising honcho Kevin Gentry sent to scores of donors.

In that email, Gentry alluded to the importance of a new initiative that would ''drive the national narrative around energy and the tremendous benefits of reliable affordable energy for all Americans, especially the less fortunate.'' Gentry indicated that the energy initiative would be mounted by Freedom Partners, the fundraising hub for the Koch donor network which officially hosts the semiannual donor retreats.

To be sure, the Koch brothers and their network allies have long backed several nonprofit groups that have spent millions of dollars to fight alternative energy, notably wind and solar power projects, and poke holes in climate change science and regulations. The Koch brothers have repeatedly voiced skepticism that fossil fuel use contributes to global warming, and have long maintained that subsidies and tax breaks for alternative energy don't fit with their free-market libertarian ideology.

In a twist, Koch interests held talks more than a year ago with Securing America's Future Energy, a group focused on reducing American dependence on foreign oil, about making a sizable investment, say two sources familiar with those talks.

SAFE, which was launched in 2006 with major funding from FedEx CEO Fred Smith, never received any Koch money, a spokesperson said.

The group seemed an odd choice for a Koch investment: One of its key priorities is promoting alternative transportation, including electric vehicles.

While the full dimensions of the Mahoney-Drevna initiative aren't clear, some sources believe there could be some overlap with other advocacy outfits backed by the Koch donor network. ''The new organization may be doing work that's now being done by the Institute for Energy Research,'' a Koch-backed think tank, according to one source.

Although IER in recent years has issued several statements and papers attacking electric vehicle subsidies as part of a broad pro-fossil-fuels agenda, the new initiative is expected to expand the focus on electric vehicles and sell its message to a bigger audience through ads to generate more political backing.

Serendipitously, Drevna became a ''distinguished senior fellow'' at IER last May, after he left his perch running the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers. The month after Drevna came aboard, the think tank posted a new paper attacking subsidies for a leading player in the electric car market: Elon Musk's Tesla Motors.

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Thu, 04 Feb 2016 23:39

A team of astrophysicists at the University of Hawaii have created somewhat of a stir within the scientific community after the discovery of trace amounts of Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) on a meteorite found in the Nevada desert in 2010.

The team of researchers who analyzed hundreds of meteorite fragments in search of microbacterial data found the presence of Tetrahydrocannabinol in trace amounts, the principal psychoactive constituent of cannabinoids, a class of diverse chemical compounds that are found in a variety of plants, but most famously in the cannabis plant.

The study, that is funded in part by a NASA grant for research in astrobiology, is the first documented find of a psychoactive organic compound originating from outside of the Earth's atmosphere, a discovery that could revolutionize our modern view of psychotropic agents and their ''cosmic'' origins, admits astrophysicist James Han, head of the research team.

The discovery was clearly unexpected, admits the astrophysicist specialized in astrobiology.

''These findings will have a profound impact on the science of astrobiology as a whole'' admits the scientist, visibly perplexed by the discovery.

''If psychoactive elements are found outside of this planet's atmosphere, what does it say about the rest of the universe? If these chemical substances, that change brain functions and result in alterations in perception, mood, or consciousness in mammals as well as humans, find their origin in outer space, what role then has cometary impacts played on the human species? Or on life on the planet as whole? This discovery ultimately leaves us with more questions than answers''acknowledges the professor.

''It also gives a whole new meaning to the term getting high'' he told local reporters, with a pinch of humor.

Traces amounts of Tetrahydrocannabivarin (THCV) were also found in a meteorite fragment in 2009 by a research team from the University of Mexico but the findings were dismissed at the time because of the ''controversial nature of the discovery'' and a wave of skepticism from the scientific community. Further analysis of the sample could now shed some light on this latest finding, believe experts.

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Sun, 14 Feb 2016 00:29

National legalization of marijuana may be drawing a smidgeon closer. The National Cancer Institute (NCI), one of the federal government sponsored agencies, has just updated the FAQs on its website to include recent studies on marijuana showing that it can and has killed cancer cells.

These are the findings of studies NCI have included:

Cannabinoids may inhibit tumor growth by causing cell death, blocking cell growth, and blocking the development of blood vessels needed by tumors to grow. Laboratory and animal studies have shown that cannabinoids may be able to kill cancer cells while protecting normal cells.Cannabinoids may protect against inflammation of the colon and may have potential in reducing the risk of colon cancer, and possibly in its treatment.A laboratory study of delta -9-THC in hepatocellular carcinoma (liver cancer) cells showed it damaged or killed the cancer cells. The same study of delta-9-THC in models of liver cancer showed that it had anti-tumor effects. Delta-9-THC has been shown to cause these effects by acting on molecules that may also be found in non-small cell lung cancer cells and breast cancer cells.A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in estrogen receptor positive and estrogen receptor negative breast cancer cells showed that it caused cancer cell death while having little effect on normal breast cells. Studies of metastatic breast cancer showed that cannabinoids may lessen the growth, number, and spread of tumors.A laboratory study of cannabidiol in human glioma cells showed that when given along with chemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC may make chemotherapy such as temozolomide more effective.These studies are considered by the NCI as preclinical. They were all done using animals. According to them, no clinical trials of cannabis use for the treatment of cancer in humans have been published.

Read: Gov't Admits Marijuana Kills Cancer

The NCI has included findings on peripheral benefits for cancer patients from marijuana:

Delta-9-THC and other cannabinoids stimulate appetite and can increase food intake.Cannabinoid receptors have been studied in the brain, spinal cord, and nerve endings throughout the body to understand their roles in pain relief.Cannabinoids have been studied for anti-inflammatory effects that may play a role in pain relief.The NCI is one of the National Institutes of Health.

Infowars is reporting that the National Institute on Drug Abuse, another of the agencies of the National Institutes of Health, has referred to marijuana studies, including one that showed ''marijuana can kill certain cancer cells and reduce the size of others.''

The big news here is not these studies. These and many more are contained on PubMed, the U.S. National Library of Medicine that is also part of the National Institutes of Health. They are there for all of the world to see.

The news is that after decades of the demonization of marijuana by a federal government that supports pharmaceuticals and GMOs, there is a breath of change. But if you want to prevent or treat cancer with marijuana, be prepared for arrest and imprisonment in most states of this union.

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 22:58

There has been a seismic shift in the dietary landscape in recent years.

Where once fat was the much maligned enemy, now scientists are turning their attention to sugar.

It is now widely accepted that more must be done to encourage people to reduce their sugar intake.

So much so that dietary guidelines in the UK and US have been altered to reflect the changing scientific evidence.

The World Health Organization recommends no more than 10 per cent of a person's daily energy should come from added sugars, or those found naturally in juices and honey.

That equates to around 50g or 12 teaspoons a day.

While the links between a high-sugar diet and obesity are well documented, in light of the mounting evidence, experts are turning their attention to the other ways sugar can affect the body.

In a recent study, a team at the University of New South Wales in Australia, found sugar is as damaging to the brain as extreme stress or abuse.

Here research associate, Jayanthi Maniam and profressor of pharmacology, Margaret Morris discuss their findings.

Sugar is just as damaging to the brain as extreme stress or abuse, experts in Australia have warned

We all know that cola and lemonade aren't great for our waistline or our dental health.

But our new study has shed light on just how much damage sugary drinks can also do to our brain.

The changes we observed to the region of the brain that controls emotional behaviour and cognitive function were more extensive than those caused by extreme early life stress.

It is known that adverse experiences early in life, such as extreme stress or abuse, increase the risk of poor mental health and psychiatric disorders later in life.

The number of traumatic events - accidents; witnessing an injury; bereavement; natural disasters; physical, sexual and emotional abuse; domestic violence and being a victim of crime - a child is exposed to is associated with elevated concentrations of the major stress hormone, cortisol.

There is also evidence that childhood maltreatment is associated with reduced brain volume and that these changes may be linked to anxiety.

Looking at rats, we examined whether the impact of early life stress on the brain was exacerbated by drinking high volumes of sugary drinks after weaning.

As females are more likely to experience adverse life events, we studied female Sprague-Dawley rats.

To model early life trauma or abuse, after rats were born half of the litters were exposed to limited nesting material from days two to nine after birth.

Changes to the brain region that controls emotional behaviour and cognitive function were more extensive than those caused by early life stress

They then returned to normal bedding until they were weaned.

The limited nesting alters maternal behaviour and increases anxiety in the offspring later in life.

At weaning, half the rats were given unlimited to access to low-fat chow and water to drink, while their sisters were given chow, water and a 25 per cent sugar solution that they could choose to drink.

Animals exposed to early life stress were smaller at weaning, but this difference disappeared over time.

Rats consuming sugar in both groups (control and stress) ate more calories over the experiment.

The rats were followed until they were 15 weeks old, and then their brains were examined.

As we know that early life stress can impact mental health and function, we examined a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is important for both memory and stress.

Four groups of rats were studied '' control (no stress), control rats drinking sugar, rats exposed to stress, and rats exposed to stress who drank sugar.

We found that chronic consumption of sugar in rats who were not stressed produced similar changes in the hippocampus as seen in the rats who were stressed but not drinking sugar.

Early life stress exposure or sugar drinking led to lower expression of the receptor that binds the major stress hormone cortisol, which may affect the ability to recover from exposure to a stressful situation.

Another gene that is important for the growth of nerves, Neurod1, was also reduced by both sugar and stress.

Other genes important for the growth of nerves were investigated, and just drinking sugar from a young age was sufficient to reduce them.

The rats were exposed to high sugar intakes during development, and the impact of the sugar is worrying as it may affect brain development, although further work is required to test this.

In this study, combining sugar intake and early life stress did not produce further changes in the hippocampus, but whether this remains the case over time is unclear.

These findings suggest future work should consider possible long-term effects of high sugar intake, particularly early in life, on the brain and behaviour, the scientists conclude

The changes in the brain induced by sugar are of great concern given the high consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, with particularly high consumption in children aged nine to 16 years.

If similar processes are at play in humans to what was found in our rat study, reducing the consumption of sugar across the community is important.

The fact that drinking sugar or exposure to early life stress reduced the expression of genes critical for brain development and growth is of great concern.

While it is impossible to perform such studies in humans, the brain circuits controlling stress responses and feeding are conserved across species.

People who were exposed to early life trauma have changes in the structure of their hippocampus. In humans, those consuming the most 'western' diet had smaller hippocampal volumes, in line with data from animal models.

Taken together, these findings suggest future work should consider possible long-term effects of high sugar intake, particularly early in life, on the brain and behaviour.

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Fri, 19 Feb 2016 13:23

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Thu, 18 Feb 2016 22:51

Bank fraud can follow you to the grave.

That's what prosecutors in Brooklyn, New York, said in the case of two men who worked as personal bankers at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and are accused of stealing $400,000 from inactive bank accounts. At least eight account holders were dead.

Jonathan Francis, 27, and Dion Allison, 30, were charged with crimes including conspiracy and second-degree grand larceny. The men and their conspirators made more than 350 ATM withdrawals from about 15 accounts, according to an indictment unsealed this month.

Francis and Allison ''preyed'' on such accounts, New York City Police Commissioner William J. Bratton said in a statement. ''Not only did they raid their victims' savings, they also failed to conceal their deceitful tracks,'' he said.

Francis and a third alleged conspirator were arraigned this month. A fourth person remains at large. Francis and Allison pleaded not guilty, according to Oren Yaniv, a spokesman for Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson.

From about August 2012 to October 2013, while Francis and Allison were employed as personal bankers at a JPMorgan Chase branch in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, the men electronically accessed ''dormant'' accounts with high balances, state prosecutors said in a statement.

Social SecurityThe men targeted accounts with no activity but regular Social Security direct deposits, according to prosecutors. They created ATM cards for the accounts and withdrew money, prosecutors said.

One told investigators he used the log-on IDs of co-workers when they walked away from their desks, and that he knew the accounts belonged to elderly people, Assistant District Attorney Adam Zion said in the statement .

Victor Knapp, a lawyer for Allison, said it was premature to say whether his client would fight the charges. Allison left the bank about two years ago and moved to Georgia, Knapp said. The former personal banker ''has had no criminal background whatsoever'' and is a ''family man,'' the attorney said in an interview.

Not GuiltyDouglas Rankin, a lawyer for Francis, said his client is ''not guilty of these charges and was not involved in any conspiracy to take any money.'' Francis has left the bank, he said.

JPMorgan Chase has been ''working closely with the authorities and the Social Security Administration since notifying them of this incident,'' Lauren Ryan, a spokeswoman for the bank, said in an e-mailed statement.

''We will continue to do so to ensure that the funds are reimbursed to our customers or their estates or returned to the government,'' Ryan said.

The charges follow two other cases this year involving allegations of theft by former employees at the bank. Last month, former JPMorgan Chase broker Michael Oppenheim admitted he stole more than $22 million from accounts of wealthy customers.

Oppenheim pleaded guilty Nov. 5 in Manhattan federal court to securities fraud and embezzlement. He admitted to using the money to gamble on sporting events, pay his bills and trade stocks online.

Stolen DataIn April, former JPMorgan employee Peter Persaud was arrested and accused of stealing customer data. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said he was caught trying to sell the information for thousands of dollars to an undercover informant.

Persaud told the informant he expected to be paid $7,500 more after one account was supposedly emptied, prosecutors said. The case is pending and Persaud has pleaded not guilty.

The case is People of the State of New York v. Francis, 8014-2015, Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Kings (Brooklyn).

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 15:29

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 14:56

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 07:08

Video will begin in 5 seconds.

More videoRecommendedKeep Sydney Open protests lockout laws

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Replay videoImmunisation rates low in parts of AustraliaImmunisation rates are so low in some parts of the country that the potential spread of disease will not be prevented according to the latest national figures. (Vision courtesy ABCNews24)

PT0M28S620349The federal government's 'no jab, no pay' law has sparked a rush on vaccines as parents fear missing out on welfare benefits.

Under the vaccination policy, which came into effect on January 1, parents will lose the Family Tax Benefit Part A supplement and childcare subsidies if their child is not up to date with their immunisations.

State and territory health departments report they are being inundated with calls from GPs and health nurses about how to implement catch-up schedules, particularly for children who have never been vaccinated, as parents flock to immunisation providers.

"No jab, no pay": Parents to lose childcare subsidies if their child is not up to date with immunisations. Photo: Wayne Taylor

Meanwhile, health departments are sending out increased vaccine supplies, a spokesman for federal Health Minister Sussan Ley confirmed.

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Statistical data measuring the effect of the 'no jab, no pay' policy on immunisation coverage won't be available until April.

"While it is too early to provide meaningful figures, there appears to have been strong interest in the supply of vaccines for children under five years of age," said NSW Health director of communicable diseases Dr Vicky Sheppeard.

Dr Sheppeard said for example there had been an increase in the supply of vaccines given at two, four and six months old to protect against pneumococcal disease from an average of 24,000 doses a month in the preceding months to 29,000 doses in January.

Anticipating an increase in immunisations, the federal government made specific vaccines available to catch up older children who hadn't been immunised at the recommended ages. "There has also been strong interest in these vaccines," Dr Sheppeard said.

The director of public health for the NSW North Coast, Paul Corben, said a lot of parents were seeking immunisation advice and vaccines since the 'no jab, no pay' policy had become law. "Across the state we're all fielding a lot of inquiries," he said.

Mr Corben said he was not sure the policy would sway hard-line anti-vaccination parents.

"Who it does sway are the people who are ambivalent or perhaps a bit complacent. It's an added incentive [to get their children immunised]," he said.

Immunisation providers in known anti-vaccination hot spots such as the North Coast are reporting at least five families a week are coming in to individual practices to bring their children up to date.

"Now the 'no jab, no play' law has come into effect, local immunisation providers are getting a massive increase in parents bringing their kids in to catch up on the schedule," said Heidi Robertson from the Northern Rivers Vaccination Supporters group.

Australia's national immunisation target is for 95 per cent of children to be immunised, but immunisation data released this week revealed that some pockets of the country still have shockingly low vaccination rates. Mullumbimby has one of the lowest rates of in Australia, with less than half of children under five fully vaccinated.

"That doesn't reflect what is happening right now," Ms Robertson said. "I have a feeling in a year or two we'll see an increase in vaccination levels here."

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 05:40

In the course of the South Carolina contest, he had a fight with the Pope and implied George W. Bush lied his way into the Iraq War. Bush is probably more popular than the His Holiness in this very Protestant state, but even an attack on St. George did nothing to stop The Donald winning on Saturday.

"Clinton vs Trump is the race America deserves," tweeted the mysterious and all seeing Matt Drudge. "EPIC. WILD. NASTY. FUN." But is it the race America needs? Hell no. And it's up to the moderates to stop it.

The campaign Americans evidently do not want is a rematch of Clinton vs. Bush. While the Democrats settled for Hillary in Nevada, the Republicans narrowed the contest down to the brash Trump, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz -- so at least one party is moving on from the 1990s.

Jeb Bush bowed out with considerable grace. The man had offered a kind of candidacy-by-numbers: raise big money, scoop endorsements, emphasize experience. But he failed to exploit the popular mood for change, colored by anger at the very patrician, Wall Street, mainstream conservatism that the Bush family represents. Jeb's big-money politics proved arcane in this new era.

A friend said to me: "He's wasting all this money on TV. The only people who watch TV nowadays are too old to stay awake during his commercials."

Social media has counted for a lot this year; charismatic performances in debates, a great deal. There were times in those televised contests when Bush withered beneath Trump's stare with a terrified smile. You wanted to hug him. But not vote for him.

Trump, by contrast, remains compelling. There is a theory that some mainstream Republicans are pushing that he's just a lucky man.

Winning roughly a third of the vote in New Hampshire and South Carolina isn't too hard: Pat Buchanan did something similar in 1996. And it means that two-thirds of the rest of the state-by-state vote is waiting to coalesce around an alternative. That will eventually happen, say the optimists, it's just taking an unusually long time to effect.

The problem with this theory is that: A) as other candidates quit the race, some of their votes will transfer to Trump and B) absolutely everyone has to get behind Marco Rubio pretty much right now to effect this sudden and overwhelming counterrevolution.

Will John Kasich, who believes he can do better in the north of the country, drop out anytime soon? Or Ted Cruz? It's hard to see what Cruz's path to the nomination is after the latest result.

He did well among evangelicals and/or those described as "very conservative" -- but to be in third place with 99% of the vote counted in a Southern, deeply religious state like this is devastating. Nevertheless, he's got a fabulous organization and quite a bit of money. He probably will hang around.

At least Cruz is a kamikaze conservative that we can all understand. If the moderates do not make a concerted effort to get behind Rubio and beat Trump, the long-term consequences for orthodox conservatism could be huge.

For 50 years, it has functioned according to a coherent, logical alliance between social, economic and military conservatives -- embodied somewhat in the late Justice Antonin Scalia, whose intellectual justification of tradition reflected a movement motivated by both faith and reason.

Yet in the past few months, a Republican front-runner has emerged who has praised Planned Parenthood, pushed elements of a big spending agenda and questioned the neoconservative agenda. There's a case for saying that some or all of these were in need of analysis and revision. But Trump has taken a wrecking ball to the American conservative movement that threatens to leave it in pieces.

It's a revolutionary moment and, unless I'm very much mistaken, conservatives are not supposed to be the revolutionaries. They exist to bring order to chaos, rationality over passion. Trump seems to exist to "mix things up." He is "nasty" and "fun" -- although more the former than the latter. His enthusiasm for torture is unpleasant to say the least.

"Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party," as they say -- and so they should. In the next few days, egos have to be laid aside, more people have to drop out and Rubio needs to gain enough support to actually win a primary.

It might seem a little absurd to pour all of one's hopes into a candidate who hasn't even won anything yet, but in these odd times, Rubio is starting to look like the only real alternative to Donald Trump.

To be clear: A Trump nomination does not necessarily spell defeat for the Republican Party in November or anarchy for America in the future. But it would represent a departure from conservative tradition and the emergence of a new, raw politics that could change the GOP beyond recognition.

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 05:35

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 04:40

[See NewsBusters for more.] Only CBS This Morning on Thursday covered the ongoing saga of a liberal University of Missouri professor who called for ''muscle'' in an attempt to suppress free speech. ABC and NBC have not been interested in the case of Melissa Click and her caught-on-camera rant against a student journalist who filmed her in a public space. CBS's Anna Werner interviewed the professor, who has been suspended and is facing additional discipline. She wondered, ''Were you appalled by your behavior when you watched the video?'' In the footage from last fall, Click screams at a young journalist who walks up to her at a protest, ''Hey, who wants me to help get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here! Help me get him out!''

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 03:54

[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]

On the 19 February 2016 edition of CNN Newsroom, Jeffrey Toobin somehow thought it was necessary to point out that Justice Antonin Scalia's 120 Supreme Court clerks '-- many of whom were waiting for his casket to arrive at the Court '-- consisted of "an overwhelmingly white, male group." Toobin made this statement as the camera zeroed in on eight individuals who all appeared to be white, as they stood vigil in front of the Court. However, moments later, a different camera shot showed a middle-aged Asian male clerk lined up with three female clerks, along with a clerk who appeared to be African American.

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 03:44

Tim Cook speaks during the Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection, in Palo Alto, California on Friday.

Apple's chief executive, Tim Cook, warned of the ''dire consequences'' in sacrificing the right to privacy in an impassioned speech on Friday as Barack Obama sought to repair a deep rift with the technology industry.

Speaking moments before the president at a White House-organised cybersecurity summit aimed at fostering greater cooperation '' and sharing of private information '' with Silicon Valley, Cook said technology companies had a duty to protect their customers.

The highest-profile tech executive at the meeting, Cook said privacy meant the difference between ''life and death'' for many people.

Related:White House warns tech world that Sony-style hacks 'could become the norm'

Cook's remarks arrived as many in the tech community have expressed concerns about government attempts to weaken encryption '' standards for protecting the privacy of data online. In the wake of revelations from the National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden, Apple and its competitors have moved to strengthen encryption and faced a backlash from government officials.

The Apple boss, who last year publicly acknowledged he is gay, added that ''history has shown us that sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences''.

The leaders of Apple's fellow giants in the tech industry '' including Facebook, Google and Microsoft '' were not in attendance at the White House summit, in a sign seen by many as a snub to the president. But Cook had strong words in an address that directly preceded remarks from Obama.

''We still live in a world where all people are not treated equally. Too many people do not feel free to practice their religion or express their opinion or love who they choose,'' he said.

''A world in which that information can make a difference between life and death,'' Cook said. ''If those of us in positions of responsibility fail to do everything in our power to protect the right of privacy, we risk something far more valuable than money. We risk our way of life.''

''Fortunately, technology gives us the tools to avoid these risks. It is my sincere hope that by using them and by working together, we will.''

Cook said Apple was ''committed to working productively'' with the government to protect citizens but reiterated his support for the toughest possible technological solutions for protecting people's personal data.

Obama announced new rules ahead of the meeting, pushing for greater cooperation between private companies and the government on information sharing. ''We have to work together like never before,'' Obama said at Stanford, ''to meet the challenges of this information age.

''When people go online, they shouldn't have to forfeit the basic privacy we're assured as Americans,'' Obama said.

But the White House has clashed repeatedly '' and increasingly '' with the major firms and smaller players in the industry since Snowden's revelations began. Apple, among others, has sought to reassure its customers by introducing strong encryption protocols to protect their communications, a move US and UK officials have said will help criminals and terrorists.

Last year the FBI director, James Comey, attacked the use of encryption by Apple and others. ''Criminals and terrorists would like nothing more than for us to miss out,'' he said.

''Our customers' trust means everything to us. And we've spent decades earning that trust,'' Cook said. ''We know hackers are trying everything they can to steal your data.''

''We have the ability to protect people from this growing threat, but we must get this right.''

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 03:27

"You will be hunted. You will be tracked. And if you raise your weapon to a man like me, we'll return fire with superior power," says St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office Captain Clay Higgins in a video directed to members of the Gremlins Gang.

An investigation into the Gremlins Gang was launched a year and a half ago in Louisiana. Ten accused gang members are already under arrest, but 7 are still wanted.

They've been accused of murder charges, theft, and drug related crimes. But in many cases, the victims wouldn't cooperate with investigators.

Now, the gang is apparently on the move.

Accused gang members were most recently spotted in St. Landry Parish.

Capt. Clay Higgins of the St. Landry Parish Sheriff's Office said, "The Gremlin street gang is all bad. And the fact that they're so extremely violent, every day that they're lose is a danger to the community."

According to KATC-TV, Capt. Higgins joined other law enforcement in a video in hopes his strong message will encourage residents to turn in the remaining suspects and put them behind bars, saying, "During that time, maybe they'll find redemption. Right now, that's between them and God. They're not getting it from me."

h/t KATC-TV

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Sun, 21 Feb 2016 03:20

See more in the cross-post on the NewsBusters blog.

Mary Poppins actor and 1960s television show host Dick Van Dyke joined Hardball host Chris Matthews just after the doors opened Saturday afternoon for the Nevada Democratic caucuses and before serenading Matthews with a tune from the famous 1964 film, he touted his support for ''New Deal Democrat'' Bernie Sanders.

Right from the beginning of the segment, the star-struck Matthews exclaimed ''my God'' and how he ''thought I would never meet you, sir'' before joking about his Sanders support: ''Mr. Van Dyke, what made you come out '-- come out, not come out the other way, but come out so much for Bernie Sanders?''

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Sat, 20 Feb 2016 23:32

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Fri, 19 Feb 2016 23:58

BRUSSELS '-- Round-the-clock negotiations between British Prime Minister David Cameron and his fellow European Union leaders yielded a deal late Friday night that they hope will keep Britain from becoming the first country to leave the 28-member bloc.

The United Kingdom is expected to hold a referendum on the matter in June. A British exit '-- popularly known as ''Brexit'' '-- is strongly opposed by all E.U. leaders, Cameron included, and it could have disastrous consequences for the future of a body that has defined Europe's post-war order.

[What's a 'Brexit'? A guide to Britain's E.U. drama.]

Cameron said after the deal was announced that the agreed package of E.U. reforms was ''enough'' for him to recommend that Britain remain in the union.

''I do not love Brussels; I love Britain,'' he said at a late-night news conference. But staying in the E.U. gives his country ''the best of both worlds,'' he said.

David Cameron spent the night arguing with European Union partners about concessions on the UK's membership of the bloc, as the British prime minister tries to secure changes ahead of a planned referendum on it as early as June. (Reuters)

He indicated that he would announce a date for the referendum '-- widely expected to be June 23 '-- following a meeting with his cabinet members back in London on Saturday morning.

European Council President Donald Tusk told reporters: ''I deeply believe that the United Kingdom needs Europe, and Europe needs the United Kingdom. To break the link now would be totally against our mutual interest.''

''We have done all we could not to let that happen, but the final decision is in the hands of the British people,'' said Tusk, a former Polish prime minister. ''Let me finish by saying I love Britain and I love Brussels.''

European leaders who gathered this week in Brussels, the E.U. headquarters, were reluctant to give Cameron the sort of wide-ranging concessions he previously said he needed to sell continued E.U. membership to his increasingly populist-minded voters. A deal that was supposed to be celebrated at an ''English breakfast'' Friday morning instead was left undone through more than 24 hours of nearly continuous talks in which both sides struggled to bridge wider-than-expected gaps.

A breakthrough finally came as European leaders dined over veal fillets and polenta late Friday evening. In the end, Cameron received concessions that amounted to far less than the fundamental renegotiation of Britain's relationship with the E.U. that he had promised. But he was expected to declare victory nonetheless.

Still, it remains an open question whether Cameron received enough to sway his electorate, which polls show is nearly evenly divided on the question of whether to stick with the E.U. Brexit advocates insist that the country is being weighed down by its ties to the continent, and particularly by the open borders to European immigration that are required under E.U. treaties.

The most controversial element of Cameron's renegotiation demands was a proposal to limit government benefits for workers who move to Britain from elsewhere in the E.U. Eastern European countries, which are the source of much of that migration, waged a tough battle to water down any changes.

The deal was originally supposed to be sealed Friday over breakfast, with E.U. leaders gathered around a table piled high with bacon and beans.

But as negotiations that began on Thursday afternoon hit a series of snags overnight, plans for breakfast were pushed back to an English brunch. Then lunch. Then high tea. Late Friday, the presumably famished leaders finally sat down to dinner '-- and launched into another long night of talks.

Seated around the elaborate ballroom table, Cameron wore white shirt-sleeves alongside his suit-jacket-clad counterparts. The mood appeared jovial, though that masked some of the bitter division that defined the negotiations.

Cameron is expected to use the fraught nature of the talks to demonstrate that he battled to the end with European counterparts to get the best possible deal for Britain.

Experts said there was undoubtedly an element of theatrics involved in the through-the-night negotiations.

''The negotiations have to be difficult to create the sense of having gained something big,'' said London School of Economics political analyst Tony Travers.

But already on Friday, British Euroskeptics were lining up to proclaim the long and protracted talks as Exhibit A in their portrayal of the E.U. as a hopelessly dysfunctional institution that is beyond hope for serious reform.

[Europe wants Britain to stay in the E.U., but not at any cost]

Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-E.U. U.K. Independence Party, wrote on Twitter that Cameron has ''gone from talking about fundamental change to holding out a begging bowl for minor concessions.''

Indeed, the changes agreed on Friday would not fundamentally alter the E.U. But the stakes are high, nonetheless: Cameron has long said he believes that Britain should stay in the E.U. only if the union can be reformed to better serve British interests. The prime minister will now have to take the concessions won this week, and make the case to British voters that they should stick with the union in a referendum widely expected this June.

European officials have uniformly said they want to keep Britain in the club. But they have also bridled at what many regard as a British attempt to blackmail the union into giving the United Kingdom a special deal.

In a case laid out last year, Cameron proposed four changes: an exemption from Europe's vow to pursue ''ever-closer union''; protections for members that do not use the euro; a national veto over E.U. legislation; and, most controversially, permission to limit benefits paid to immigrants from within the E.U.

All four measures would loosen the bonds of continental integration, and each proved a difficult sell to reach the unanimous agreement that the E.U. requires. The French pushed back against attempts to weaken financial regulations. Eastern Europeans called foul on benefit restrictions. The Germans fretted that abandoning ever-closer union could scupper the European project.

[Has Prince William entered Britain's debate over leaving Europe?]

Other variables also came into play, as well. Before signing off on a deal, Greek negotiators reportedly sought a promise that the E.U. would not shut the country's northern border to refugees. Such a move, which several E.U. members have advocated, could effectively trap thousands of asylum seekers in Greece and prevent them from reaching the countries in northern Europe where they hope to settle.

Despite the obstacles, some E.U. leaders were outspoken in arguing that the E.U. would suffer if Britain ends up bolting from a union that has been decades in the making.

''We all, of course, pursue our national interests. But we should also bear in mind that should Britain leave, we all get nothing,'' said Estonian prime minister Taavi Roivas as he arrived for the Friday talks.

European leaders are mindful that a British exit could be just the start of a broader unraveling, with Euroskeptic forces in their own countries likely to be emboldened if one of the cornerstones of the E.U. project departs.

Even before the negotiations were complete, Cameron was facing defections. One of the most senior members of his cabinet, Michael Gove, will join the ''out'' campaign, the BBC and other media outlets reported Friday evening.

In his news conference late Friday, Cameron described Gove as one of his ''oldest and closest friends'' who has wanted to get Britain out of the E.U. for about three decades. He said he was ''disappointed but not surprised'' by Gove's decision.

Most of the government's other top officials were expected to stick with the prime minister and support the ''in'' campaign. But some leading Conservatives have yet to show their cards, including London Mayor Boris Johnson, who would give ''out'' a charismatic potential leader if he ends up siding with Brexit.

In any case, Cameron told reporters, politicians may not significantly sway the vote. ''In the end, this isn't the politicians' show,'' he said. ''It is the people's show.''

Although the referendum is expected to be held June 23, the prime minister technically has until the end of 2017 to hold a vote that he promised during last year's general election.

Read more:

Spring could bring a fresh surge of refugees. But Europe isn't ready for them.

In supposed no-go zone, British Muslims, Christians say no to fanatics

Even Europe's humanitarian superpower is turning its back on refugees

Karla Adam and Daniela Deane in London contributed to this report.

Griff Witte is The Post's London bureau chief. He previously served as the paper's deputy foreign editor and as the bureau chief in Kabul, Islamabad and Jerusalem.

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LAS VEGAS -- For Hillary Clinton, these are high roller stakes in Nevada after losing New Hampshire in a landslide and essentially tying in Iowa.

She has decided to stay in Nevada through the caucus on Saturday. CBS News spoke to her at her Las Vegas campaign office.

SCOTT PELLEY:What do you think Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have tapped into? It's a powerful thing.

PlayVideo

CBS Evening NewsClinton: Trump, Sanders succeeding because "people are angry"In an interview with Scott Pelley for the "CBS Evening News," Hillary Clinton explains why she thinks candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald T...

HILLARY CLINTON:Look, I do think, Scott, people are angry. People feel here government's not working for them. The economy's not working. The political system is not working. But I also see in the eyes of the people I'm meeting with, "Okay, tell me something I can believe. Don't over-promise. Tell me what I can believe you will do for me and my family." And that's what I've tried to do.

PELLEY: Your resume checks almost every box in terms of experience, but that doesn't seem to be what the American people want in this election.

CLINTON:You know, I think at the end of the day, voters understand they are selecting someone to be both president and commander-in-chief. And I'm proud of the experience that I have that will enable me on day one to do all aspects of the job. I know how to go after what Republicans stand for and to defeat them because I believe with all my heart every one of the ones running on the Republican side would be really bad for America.

PELLEY:What's your tax plan? Who gets a tax increase? Who gets a tax cut?

CLINTON:Well, first, I am not raising taxes on the middle class. Period. I'm going after income $5 million or more that I think have too many opportunities to game the system and escape paying the taxes that they should. I'm going after corporations that are gaming the system. I wanna have a sensible corporate tax policy.

PELLEY:Senator Sanders said that he would raise taxes on any family that made $250,000 and above. Is that your level, $250,000?

PlayVideo

CBS Evening NewsPoll: Clinton over Sanders by 8% nationally, tied in NevadaA new CBS News poll ranks Hillary Clinton ahead of Bernie Sanders by eight points nationally. But in the Nevada race, the two are running neck-in...

CLINTON: Well, I've said I will not raise taxes on anybody $250,000 or below. But here's the problem with Senator Sanders' plan. His numbers don't add up. There is no way for him to fulfill the promises he's making without raising taxes on the middle class.

PELLEY:You know, in '76, Jimmy Carter famously said, "I will not lie to you."

CLINTON: Well, I have to tell you I have tried in every way I know how literally from my years as a young lawyer all the way through my time as secretary of state to level with the American people.

PELLEY:You talk about leveling with the American people. Have you always told the truth?

PlayVideo

CBS Evening NewsHillary Clinton gets personal about her motherScott Pelley spoke with Hillary Clinton about the remarkable life of her mother Dorothy Rodham, who ran away from an abusive home at the age of 1...

CLINTON:I've always tried to. Always. Always.

PELLEY:Some people are gonna call that wiggle room that you just gave yourself.

CLINTON:Well, no, I've always tried --

PELLEY:I mean, Jimmy Carter said, "I will never lie to you."

CLINTON:Well, but, you know, you're asking me to say, "Have I ever?" I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever have. I don't believe I ever will. I'm gonna do the best I can to level with the American people.

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