Author: Joe Mullin

On the same day that five key states voted in the presidential primaries, startup lobbying shop Engine took a close look at where the candidates stand on important tech issues like privacy, net neutrality, and patent reform. If your views on those issues align with Engine's, you won't find their 2016 Candidate Report Card an encouraging read.

After taking a look at the candidates' records in four policy areas, Democrat Hillary Clinton got the highest overall grade: a B+. Her challenger Bernie Sanders got a B, while Republican candidates ranked lower: C+ grades for Marco Rubio and John Kasich, a D for Ted Cruz, and straight F's for Donald Trump.

Candidates were ranked on "privacy and security" based on whether they understood the importance of strong encryption and supported reforming privacy and surveillance laws. Bernie Sanders (the only candidate who has suggested leniency for Edward Snowden), got a B. Both Sanders and Clinton (B+) have a "relatively nuanced approach" to the encryption debate. Trump (F), Kasich (C-), and Cruz (C) have made statements "that show little understanding of what encryption is and its role in protecting user safety and security." Rubio earned a D for his promises to double down on NSA surveillance.

Working a call center job is a rite of passage for many geeks; back in the day, our own Lee Hutchinson manned the lines as a contractor for computer manufacturer Gateway. The job was, naturally, soul crushing.

But what's it like when you want to work the phones for a presidential candidate—say, Donald Trump?

We found out this week, when New Yorkers who e-mailed the Donald Trump campaign as volunteers were told to attend one of two "Call Center Training Sessions" at the Trump Tower in Manhattan. In fine print at the bottom, the volunteers were told they'd need to sign a non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, to be part of the campaign.

AUSTIN, Texas—During the first season of HBO's Silicon Valley, the megalomaniac CEO of the search giant Hooli offers protagonist Richard Hendricks (Thomas Middleditch) $10 million for his still-nascent startup, Pied Piper.

The initial script called for a much bigger offer, but show creator Mike Judge thought that was over the top.

Judge said, "that's too much, no one is going to buy that it's $100 million," Middleditch said at a South By Southwest panel on Saturday featuring Judge, writer and producer Alec Berg, and several of the show's stars. "So we turned it down to $10 million, and then during season one the news came out about Snapchat turning down that offer of five or six billion, so, egg on our face, I guess." (The offer from Facebook was actually $3 billion.)

Users of the Adblock browser extension may see something today they're not used to when they surf the web: ads.

The ad-blocking giant, which claims to have 50 million users, will still remove advertisements from the web. But instead of showing the "peaceful, blank spaces you're accustomed to not noticing," Adblock will replace publishers' ads with banners supporting Amnesty International.

The Amnesty ads, which mark March 12 as the "World Day against Cyber Censorship," are a cause that Adblock believes is worthy enough to, well, advertise. The company says the messages, from US whistleblower Edward Snowden, Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, and Russian punk band Pussy Riot, are a one-day exception to its business as usual.

Two rivals in the unusual business of selling foam arrows have failed to settle their dispute over patents and trademarks, and the lawsuit between them is moving forward rapidly.

Defendant Jordan Gwyther has said that the litigation could threaten the future of his favorite hobby: live action role-playing, or "LARPing." Gwyther and his fellow LARPers recreate medieval battles, wearing armor and using foam weapons to stage fights in local fields and parks.

Gwyther runs a community website for LARPers called Larping.org and has a side business selling foam-tipped arrows that are popular with LARPers. He got sued in October by a company called Global Archery, which claims that Gwyther's arrows business violates two patents it owns and also illegally uses its trademark. Last month, Gwyther, strapped for cash, went public with the dispute. He made a video asking for support on GoFundMe.

A year and a half after he was indicted, a Romanian man who broke into the e-mail of a family member of two former presidents is set to be extradited to the United States.

Romania's top court approved the temporary extradition of Marcel Lehel Lazăr, also known as "Guccifer" and "Micul Fum," according to a report by IDG News. Lazăr allegedly broke into the e-mail account of an unnamed family member of both former president George H. W. Bush as well as George W. Bush, intercepting images including family photos and self-portraits painted by George W. Bush. The hack exposed other deeply personal information about the family, including family e-mails planning a possible funeral for the older former president, written when he was hospitalized in late 2013.

The Romanian suspect, a former cab driver, will face charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to a protected computer, aggravated identity theft, cyberstalking, and obstruction of justice. He has been charged in the Eastern District of Virginia. The Romanian court decision allows him to be extradited for up to 18 months to face the charges.

A South Carolina high school teacher resigned from her job last week, after being told she would face disciplinary proceedings because a student grabbed racy pictures off her phone.

Now local news outlets are reporting that the 16-year-old boy who distributed her pictures will face felony charges. The teen has been charged with violating the state's Computer Crimes Act and "aggravated voyeurism," Union Police Chief Sam White told TV station WSPA. The student's phone contained other sexual pictures as well, White added.

Last month, the student opened Arthur's unlocked phone, found partially-nude pictures of her, and then took photos of the teacher's pictures with his own phone. He then distributed them to other students. Arthur said she took the pictures as a Valentine's Day present for her husband.

The US Chamber of Commerce sued Seattle yesterday, objecting to that city's recent passage of a law allowing Uber and Lyft drivers to unionize.

It's the latest round in a growing battle over whether workers in the on-demand app economy should be treated as employees or independent contractors. The Chamber of Commerce lawsuit (PDF) says they're contractors and therefore can't unionize under the National Labor Relations Act. The Chamber claims that the Seattle law also violates the Sherman Antitrust Act.

"If allowed to stand, Seattle's Ordinance would threaten one of the most vibrant, cutting edge sectors of the economy," Chamber lawyers write. With 40,000 local governments in the US, thousands of "separate and independent collective bargaining regimes" could "undermine the flexibility, efficiency, and choice that accompany independent driver arrangements."

The Samsung v. Apple saga is headed toward a fourth jury trial that's slated to begin in San Jose federal court at the end of this month. Lawyers for both companies have been filing a rapid succession of briefs, seeking to hammer out the final details of a trial that will recalculate damages for some Samsung phones found to infringe Apple patents.

US District Judge Lucy Koh has now weighed in on the parties' requests, publishing an order (PDF) on Wednesday barring Samsung's most surprising request. The company had asked (PDF) for Apple to be barred from mentioning that Samsung is a Korean corporation.

"Throughout both of the prior trials in this case, Apple has taken every opportunity to remind the jury of Samsung’s 'foreignness' by consistently referring to SEC as 'Samsung Korea,' 'Korean Samsung,' the 'Korean parent,' 'the Korean company,' and the 'Korean bosses' of 'Samsung America,'" Samsung lawyers wrote. "In fact, Apple’s counsel has rarely referred to SEC without mentioning Korea." They pointed out Koh herself had cited research about jury bias against foreign patent litigants. "Apple has no legitimate basis to offer any evidence or argument that evokes racial or national origin prejudice." Samsung lawyers also asked for Apple to be barred from referencing "the nationality or country of employment of Samsung witnesses."

In 2014, no company filed more patent lawsuits than eDekka LLC, a Texas-based company with just one asset—US Patent No. 6,266,674. Fully 168 patent lawsuits came to a sudden halt in October, when US District Judge Rodney Gilstrap stopped the litigation campaign in its tracks.

eDekka's patent, which had been used to sue a wide array of online retailers, described nothing more than "the abstract idea of storing and labeling information," Gilstrap found. Those were "routine tasks that could be performed by a human" and didn't meet the standard for getting a patent. Gilstrap ruled the patent invalid.

Lawyers for eDekka appealed Gilstrap's decision, and the shell company's appeal brief was initially due in December. It asked for and received an extension until February 26. Instead of filing a brief blasting the lower-court results, though, eDekka's lawyers simply filed a short document asking to withdraw its appeal. Yesterday, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit granted the motion.