The Republican's Alt-America - Week 1

Image via Rolling Stone

A couple of responses regarding the latest anti-American action by the Republican Party and their leader Trump:

THE TECH INDUSTRY’S RESPONSES TO TRUMP’S IMMIGRATION EXECUTIVE ORDERS, FROM STRONGEST TO WEAKEST ★ 

Aaron Levie, CEO of Box:

On every level — moral, humanitarian, economic, logical, etc. — this ban is wrong and is completely antithetical to the principles of America.

That’s a proper response.

TIM COOK ON IMMIGRATION EXECUTIVE ORDER: ‘IT IS NOT A POLICY WE SUPPORT’ ★ 

Tim Cook, in a company-wide email:

I’ve heard from many of you who are deeply concerned about the executive order issued yesterday restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. I share your concerns. It is not a policy we support.
There are employees at Apple who are directly affected by yesterday’s immigration order. Our HR, Legal and Security teams are in contact with them, and Apple will do everything we can to support them. We’re providing resources on AppleWeb for anyone with questions or concerns about immigration policies. And we have reached out to the White House to explain the negative effect on our coworkers and our company.

Good for him for stating his opposition, but it could have been stronger, and should have mentioned Trump by name. 

This ban hits particularly close to Apple’s heart: Steve Jobs was the biological son of a Syrian immigrant. Tim Cook should call that out, repeatedly.

Via the excellent tech web site, Daring Fireball.

In another DF post:

ANDROID CENTRAL ON TRUMP’S ‘OLD, UNSECURED ANDROID PHONE’ ★Alex Dobie, writing for Android Central:

So there you go. Trump’s personal Android phone is more than likely a Samsung Galaxy S3, released in 2012, and which last received a software update in mid-2015, with firmware based on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean.As noted in the intro, we don’t know for sure that Trump is still using this specific Galaxy S3. The two NYT reports conflict on whether he turned it in, or is still using it to fire out tweets from the White House. But if he is, and it’s the same consumer GS3 model he was apparently using as of February 2016, it’s safe to say it’s a good three years out of step with the latest Android security updates. Many Android security scares have come and gone since the GS3 got its last update in August of 2015.

It’s ridiculous if he’s actually still using that old phone. It’s a national security risk.

Trump himself is a security risk. The old Samsung phone is just accessory after the fact.