April Glaser

As president-elect, Donald Trump has continued to use his Android device as his primary means for both keeping in touch with associates and expressing his displeasure with news outlets and “Saturday Night Live.” But experts say that, as president, Trump really needs to use something a whole lot more secure.

We’ve asked the transition team what kind of smartphone Donald Trump intends to use when he assumes the Oval Office on Jan 20 and have yet to get a response. Trump won’t have to figure this out on his own. There’s even an agency specifically tasked with supporting the president’s telecommunications needs, the White House Communications Agency. And the Secret Service, which has to protect the president, is likely to weigh in as well. As to whether government agencies can force Trump to give up his current phone, it’s complicated. Trump may resist technical security measures imposed on him by the Secret Service. However, by law, their protection of the president is mandatory and cannot be declined.

While the president-elect railed against companies like NBCUniversal and Amazon for being too big and threatened antitrust action during his campaign, the advisers President-elect Trump named to help oversee his Federal Communications Commission and Justice Department transitions have a history of being very pro-industry and anti-regulation, particularly when it comes to mergers.

That’s good news for AT&T’s $85 billion bid for Time Warner, despite what President-elect Trump said on the campaign trail. The merger is currently under review by antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, where a decision will probably not be reached until President Trump is in office. Jeff Eisenach, who President-elect Trump officially named to help transition the FCC, has supported major media mergers proposed in recent years. When Comcast was considering a Time Warner takeover in 2013, Eisenach wrote, “The best thing that could happen for U.S. consumers would be substantial consolidation in the cable business.” And when AT&T wanted to purchase T-Mobile in 2011, Eisenach likewise argued in favor of the merger, pointing out, "The wireless market is extremely competitive.” Mark Jamison, the person Trump named to help with the FCC transition, also argued in favor of the AT&T and T-Mobile merger. Of Trump’s three new advisers for the transition of the Justice Department — J. Patrick Rowan, Jessie Liu and Ronald Tenpas — none specialize in mergers and acquisitions, but all three have extensive experience in helping large, private companies navigate the US regulatory landscape. Rowan has helped counsel at least one sale of a US telecom company to a foreign buyer.

Here’s what American technology companies would have gotten had the Trans-Pacific Partnership been finalized.

• The TPP’s e-commerce chapter included the world’s first set of international trade rules that would have barred governments from blocking how companies share data across national borders.The Internet works by freely moving data across the world.
• In many of the participating countries it is not currently illegal to break the digital rights management, a digital lock that technology companies can add to their products to prevent piracy, tinkering and repair.
• Six of the twelve participating countries would have expanded their copyright terms an additional 20 years.
• Tech companies also were in favor of the TPP’s ban on “forced localization,” or laws that require a company to keep its citizens’ user data stored within its borders.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says US regulators didn't pay proper attention to Microsoft’s purchase of LinkedIn, which he sees as a grab for data, not an acquisition of a social network. Salesforce entered Microsoft’s territory when it acquired Quip, a word processing app, earlier in 2016. “Microsoft wants to maintain their monopoly, and doesn’t want innovation in that area,” said Benioff. “So they’re going to say, ‘Now we’re going to integrate all this LinkedIn stuff into Office, so why would you want Quip?’”

Benioff said he pressed the Federal Trade Commission to review Microsoft’s LinkedIn deal for potential antitrust violations, but the agency decided not to investigate. Benioff, of course, made his own play for LinkedIn but failed to reach a deal. The European Commission, however, is looking into it. In Oct, the antitrust authority at the European Commission sent questionnaires to Microsoft’s competitors as they review the merger. Benioff contends the acquisition is anticompetitive because Microsoft can hinder access to LinkedIn’s data, making it harder for competitors.

You can bank online and shop online, but you can’t vote online. After all, transferring thousands of dollars with a click of a button should require more security than ticking a box on an electronic ballot, right? Wrong.

Online banking works by heavily verifying users’ identities, but, by law, voting in American elections has to be anonymous, which greatly complicates verifying voter identification. And although shopping online seems to work fine, billions are lost in the U.S. each year from Internet credit card scamming. But customers aren’t held financially responsible for fraudulent internet transactions, as banks don’t want to discourage online shoppers. American elections can’t afford to absorb that kind of risk. Results need to be tallied fast and, most importantly, be absolutely, verifiably correct. Five states do currently allow for military and overseas voters to submit their ballots through an online portal: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Missouri and North Dakota. None are swing states. But until there’s some radical new discovery in computer security, experts across the board say Americans’ best best is to record paper ballots for the foreseeable future. The convenience is just not worth the risk.

It’s still unclear who is responsible for Oct 21’s massive Internet outages, according to President Barack Obama. The attack was comprised of hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Internet-connected devices that sent junk traffic to Dyn, a major domain name service provider. The attack took down major sections of the Internet across the United States for hours. Basic security flaws found in webcams and other Internet-connected recording devices were compromised in the attack, according to Chinese device manufacturer Hangzhou Xiongmai Technology, which admitted its products were partially to blame. A recall of Hangzhou Xiongmai products has been initiated. But other IoT device makers were targeted, too. Still, no one seems to know who perpetrated it. And it may take weeks to find out. "We don't have any idea who did that,” said President Obama.