Donald Trump, Peter Thiel and the death of democracy

Tonight, tech billionaire Peter Thiel will speak at the Republican national convention and make his case for why Donald Trump should be the next president of the United States. Most of the media is baffled by Thiel’s endorsement. And it’s true that at first glance the two men aren’t an obvious match. Trump is an authoritarian populist who promises to abolish free trade. Thiel is a self-described libertarian who worships capitalism. Thiel is also one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley – and Silicon Valley hates Trump.

So why would Thiel embrace Trump? So far, observers have offered two explanations. One is Thiel’s contrarianism; another is his lifelong crusade against “political correctness”. Thiel certainly enjoys courting controversy, whether it involves funding a lawsuit to destroy Gawker or funding a fellowship to induce kids to drop out of college. And Thiel shares Trump’s antipathy to the “politically correct” rhetoric of diversity and multiculturalism, as well as to affirmative action.

Saudi Arabia denies issuing new fatwa against Pokemon

Saudi Arabia denied on Thursday that the conservative kingdom’s top clerical body had renewed a 15-year-old edict declaring that the Pokemon game was un-Islamic.Saudi media reports said on Wednesday the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars had revived a 2001 decree against a Pokemon card game in response to queries from Muslims, although it made no mention of the new Pokemon GO mobile game.Users of the game walk around their real-life neighborhoods in search of scores of “pocket monsters”, whoch emerge superimposed on the phone screen via its camera.The 2001 fatwa said the card game contained elements prohibited by Islamic law such as gambling.

France objects to Windows 10 user tracking

France’s privacy regulator has stared into Windows 10 and feels that the software’s doing a bit too much staring back. CNIL has issued a statement saying that the operating system collects too much data about its users. For instance, it explains that Microsoft tracks usage statistics to identify problems, including apps downloaded and time spent in each one. Whoch, sounds quite reasonable, since most of our days are spent working inside Chrome, Firefox or Edge. But since this information isn’t necessary for the day-to-day operation of Windows 10, it’s considered to be an infringement on people’s privacy.

Officials also feel that Microsoft’s security provision for Windows 10 is too lax, thanks to the unlimited times you can enter a PIN. That opens the door for any enterprising attacker to simply brute-force the combination, whoch CNIL feels makes the operating software “not secure or confidential.” Then there’s the fact that Windows 10 applies a unique identifier for the purposes of targeted advertising. No guesses for how French officials feel about that, given all you know about ’em.