The Tech Elite Are Moving Left - What I am reading 4/2/2016

Week 2 begins at the new job, and it's a new week in the world of news - let's see what we find:

Wired - Flaws in Samsung’s ‘Smart’ Home Let Hackers Unlock Doors and Set Off Fire Alarms -

The security research community has been loudly warning for years that the so-called Internet of Things—and particularly networked home appliances—would introduce a deluge of new hackable vulnerabilities into everyday objects. Now one group of researchers at the University of Michigan and Microsoft have published what they call the first in-depth security analysis of one such “smart home” platform that allows anyone to control their home appliances from light bulbs to locks with a PC or smartphone. They discovered they could pull off disturbing tricks over the internet, from triggering a smoke detector at will to planting a “backdoor” PIN code in a digital lock that offers silent access to your home, all of which they plan to present at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy later this month.

The simple rule is if it is connected to the internet it can be hacked.  Plan your life accordingly.

Router Freak - Cisco ASA as DHCP Server with Multiple Internal LANs -

Not really anything anyone besides me cares about.  Well me and the good people at router freak, but these are the kind of thing I used to deal with.

Tech Crunch - The tech elite are moving left this election cycle -

This election cycle, the tech elite are almost exclusively backing liberals: Tesla’s Elon Musk donated to Hillary Clinton, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gave handsomely to the San Francisco Democratic Party organization, and Microsoft’s Bill Gates gave to three Democratic congressmen.

...

I think the more likely explanation is that the nation’s new industrial titans are pro-government.

Google, Facebook, and most Internet titans are fueled by government projects: the Internet began in a defense department lab, public universities educate a skilled workforce and environmental policies benefit high tech green industries. The CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick, is a fan of Obamacare, which helps his entrepreneurial drivers keep their health insurance as they transition between jobs.
In other words, the Democratic party is good for emerging industries and billionaires recognize it. Donald Trump is a candidate known to go after major figures in tech; a trend that may further the Democrats friendship with new industrial titans.

Perhaps more importantly, I’ve argued that the modern emerging workforce of Silicon Valley, urbanized professionals, and “gig economy” laborers all represent an entirely new political demographic redefining the Democratic party to be more about education, research and entrepreneurship, and less about regulations and labor unions. 

I am not sure why this is considered surprising.  Silicon Valley has always been overwhelmingly Democrat.  While there are some outlier donations to the GOP and the occassional crank who espouses Ayn Rand and Ron Paul as saviors of the American way of life I am 100% positive that the data would show that at least in my lifetime Democrats have dominated in that area.  Jeez just look at who their congressperson is.