Wayne Rash

If you ever wondered whether Apple was waging a political battle while the government was waging a legal battle in its effort to gain access to a terrorist’s cell phone, the events of this week make it clear. The reasons, of course, are also clear. Apple believes it has a better chance of prevailing in […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook has released a lengthy document explaining why the company is refusing to cooperate with the FBI as ordered by a California federal judge last week. In addition, Cook has released a series of statements explaining the same thing. The FBI, meanwhile, has released a series of statements explaining that the agency […]

A surprise filing by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Apple may be treading on weak legal grounds in its efforts to resist a court order that it help investigators unlock an Apple iPhone 5C used by Syed Farook in a mass shooting Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Calif. The filing on Feb. 19 was […]

Apple CEO Tim Cook has launched a high-profile battle against the U.S. Government opposing an order to effectively bypass iOS security so that the FBI can get to the contents of an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the killing of 14 county workers Dec. 2, 2015 in San Bernardino, Calif. Unfortunately, the […]

I can’t say I wasn’t warned. I was part way through installing Microsoft Office 2016 on my primary workstation when I got a message that said, “Stop, you should wait to install Office 2016.” The error message went on to say that if I decided to continue anyway, my copy of Microsoft Visio Standard 2013 […]

A few days ago I reported on the theft of some outdated employee information from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The data, which included names, titles, email addresses and office phone numbers of employees, was of limited use to someone attempting identity theft. However, the less known fact is […]

The announcement by the Obama administration that it would request a cyber-security budget increase of about 30 percent to $19 billion in Fiscal Year 2017 reflects a long-unfilled need in responsible management of the U.S. government’s information technology infrastructure. A fact sheet released by the White House outlined a Cybersecurity National Action Plan, known as […]

A hacker group with ties to Palestinian activists and expressing sympathy for Islamic State extremists has published a list of about 9,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security as well as a partial list of employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Examination of the lists, which were posted on an encrypted server, reveals […]

When the European Commission announced on Feb. 2 the agreement with the United States on how the two U.S. and European Union member nations would handle international data transfers while protecting their privacy, it was hailed as a breakthrough. But even at the time there were questions about exactly what was agreed to, how it […]

The free flow of petabytes of data transmitted by the largest corporations and private citizens will continue across the Atlantic Ocean as the result of a new “safe harbor” agreement reached Feb. 2 between the United States and the European Union to protect data transfers between the United States and EU member nations. The agreement […]

As you have probably heard by now, Google is apparently planning to change the way it flags websites according to their perceived security level. To do this, according to media accounts, Google’s Chrome browser will display a red X adjacent to the Web address in the browser’s address bar. The existence of this marking is […]

Ever since the original iPhone came out in 2007, Apple has had a predictable upgrade process. Every year in early autumn, Apple would announce a new phone and a few weeks later would make it available—in plenty of time for holiday shopping. Then the company would announce and release a new iPad. In the late […]