SMUG Meeting, October 19, 2021
Meeting notes by Kathleen Charters
Q&A
Which new computer to purchase? Apple released new MacBook Air, low end MacBook Pro – very similar; Mac mini, iMac all use M1 chip fast low power; Lawrence bought Mac mini and uses it for SMUG demonstrations; M1 chip MacBook Air replaced older version and solved problems, iMacs set up at Costco, colored, fast, screen bright and crisp; a step up from what came before, screen is 24 inch all the way to the edge and brighter and machine has a lot of power; yesterday 14 inch MacBook 2 screen sizes; M1 Pro (twice as fast as MacBook Air, most users do not need to compile programs), and M1 Max; if OK with size of MacBook Air lighter and fast; Mac mini customizable screen and keyboard; see iMac at Costco; new laptops – SD card port for photos, HDMI port, 4 USB-C ports; MacBook Pro Max demo of multiple screens running off of a laptop but not a common need;
Laptop vs desktop – iMac and Mac mini do not take up much space and cheaper than a laptop; if do not need portability get more power from desktop; Mac mini needs added items; iMac comes with everything built in; laptop is more expensive since has to shrink everything; if need amazing amounts of power the new MacBooks will do rendering movies and compiling massive databases (numerically intensive); Chrome is memory and CPU hog and is the most demanding thing most people do; not necessary to have a fast machine for word processing; consider expense and what capability you need
Lawrence bought a new MacBook for Kathleen with 16 GB; the video of his granddaughter is crisper
Low end MacBook Pro with M1, loves it after 11-year-old white MacBook taking minutes to boot up; new machine boots up in 10 seconds, very happy with it but would like new machine for working with iMovie; waiting for iMac with bigger screen that does not take up much desktop space; get more RAM because cannot change mind later
What makes it fast and energy conserving is all on one chip, so you cannot add to it; if you want more memory, you must buy a new machine
New machines can go up to 64 GB, but very expensive: rare to need this
Go play with the iMac at Costco
What is the oldest MacBook Pro running on Monterey released next Monday? There are different kinds of machines; anything from 2015 is supported, and so things from 2013 are supported. It depends on the T1 or T2 security chip and the video card as to what is supported
Search for “macOS Monterey” to see what is supported
The size is 8-10 GB and may time out if you try to download it on Monday; see what is patched to see what hackers will take advantage of for those who do not upgrade to the current OS. Use this to break into other machines; take security seriously
Safari message on compromised password – is this legitimate? Quit out of the browser. It comes from JavaScript injection; not legitimate since not built into Safari. Go into Safari and clear the cache to get rid of it, so do not answer the prompt and download something malicious; Safari has the capability to show compromised passwords, but it does not give a notification message
Exception iPads will give a list of what is compromised
Bought iPad Pro 12.9 inch
Sign-in sheet sent in the meeting message and in the chat window
Zoom option to blur background; called “Blur”
Zoom – please get up to date to version 5.8.1 since major changes are coming soon; can have breakout rooms; may create discussion groups
Zoom has a history of poor security, so it has been making updates to improve security
Think about what you want to have for next month’s meeting topic
Topic: E-mail part 2 on M1 Mac mini
Notes from Apple’s presentation
Monterey release October 25
HomePod Mini’s now come in colors – can play music in every room and acts as an intercom; anything you ask Siri, you can ask HomePod
AirPods new version – not quite Air Pod Pros, have spatial audio
MacBook Pro 14 and 16-inch announced
Image of Apple M1 chip with memory (RAM) on either side; M1 Pro; uses Apple ProRes – movie standard for compression
Image of Apple M1 Max chip 4 chips 64 GB RAM
Comparison of the federal government’s total computing power in 1971 is equal to a single iPhone’s computing power today
CPU performance vs. power, M1 15 watts = less than half of 8-core; 70% less power used by new machines; pay for the extra power
14-inch and 16-inch look the same, small bezel, small part taken up by camera, menu bar design does not encroach on screen space; example of 5 screens and a camera connected by the multiple ports
Brought back MagSafe power connectors. If the power cord is pulled out does not pull the machine off the desk
Touch Bar replaced by mechanical scissor keys, more traditional, and a solid feel
New ports: SD card slots, USB-C, HDMI
More about email
Is this real or fake?
What looks real is the email address, but spear phishing for confirmation of the email address
Gmail tells you things are dangerous and puts them in Spam Folder; attempt to con you out of money – put in money to be made rich
Classic – your mailbox password will expire in 2 days; personal email does not have an expiration – corporations and government agencies have a password change policy
Google connecting to a new device sign-in from Moscow, St. Petersburg (cannot be both places); mistake in punctuation; some things are correct, and other things are not real
NewsBreak application for iPhone for personalized news
Headline misleading – people may be inept, not malicious
Text message from Wells Fargo saying the account is locked, but the address is suspicious
Fraudulent e-mail with a bill for a web VPN protection plan to get to open .PDF to insert malware when opening the .PDF
Be suspicious of the content of e-mail; spammers go through the address book and try to leverage the name of someone you know to get people to do things
What is legitimate?
Hold the mouse over the link in Apple Mail, and Apple Mail will list the URL – look at where it goes if you click on it
May be confusing – Apple Mail -> View Menu -> Message Menu -> All Headers
How the message got to you, reply to, various machines it went to, at the bottom tells you where it came from via …; may be a bulk mail service for the business; can unsubscribe from the mailing list
View Menu -> Message -> raw source = all text (even a picture); good to use if suspicious about an e-mail
New message => forward it and will see the headers at the top, some things can be faked, but spammers are lazy and most do not bother to fake the header information
Have at least 2 email accounts, use one for subscriptions and vendors; use another for family and friends; if something appears in the wrong account, be suspicious; if you have 2 accounts and something in one is suspicious, send it to the other account and see what the header looks like
Can sort Spam by from and see foreign language at the beginning and end of the header; emoji in the subject line is often used by spammers; can set up a filter to put these messages in Spam folder; if says composed in far past or future it is most likely from a spammer passing through a machine with a dead battery
Chrome Gmail – designed to work with a browser rather than an email client
Apple Mail – accounts, new account, add a Google Mail account so you can see both in one mailbox
Gmail does not sort by date, shows up in sequence; can see by having Google do it; from Apple.com, use Google search engine to search through messages
Google does not use folders, and can show all messages
Google is great about killing off Spam
Inbox
Other categories, e.g., catalogs, forums subscribed to, ads, promotions; see if go through a vendor name and will see everything sent and can remove from InBox into a folder; can flag with a specific color
Settings -> filters
Adorama subscription can be unsubscribed
Several options are available in Google at the top; if you call it spam, Google will move it; if it threatens, it is a crime; three dots show choices to report spam, report blatantly illegal phishing will go to Google security team; Apple Mail does not have this
All Google mail is a page on a web server – select Show Heading; copy to clipboard, send to someone who will investigate (Security officer, police if a crime); Google creates a new tab to show the original as a security measure, so the sender never knows you did something with it
Q&A
Received 100 newsletters from different people, unsubscribe lists all newsletters, then 3 weeks later same thing happened: EU will prosecute for this due to privacy laws; there are no privacy laws in Britain and the U.S.; used by scammers to subscribe you to things since they know this is a valid email address; several former presidential staff sent out messages to raise money and kept it = fraud, FBI can investigate
If from a vendor you know and unsubscribe they should unsubscribe; if you do not know the vendor mark as spam and over time will increase spam score based on collective knowledge; if spam score high enough will put in spam folder; spammers send mass messages as blind cc; suspicious: $, emoji, etc. increase the spam score; do not open them. Periodically delete the contents of the junk mail folder
If consistent, can set up an Apple Mail rule to send to the junk folder
Be careful with unsubscribe, so do not receive more spam from people who do not follow the rules
iMessage spam – Apple takes effort to keep spam out of instant messaging; no hard and fast rule
Must educate others about how this works
AT&T messages – how to know if fake?
Apple iMessages are sanitized; green = SMS and may be suspect, blue is iPhone to iPhone and goes through Apple data system with good security controls; can send to trash without opening it by swiping to the left
Never open a .PDF on an iMac or iPad since this can compromise a device; Adobe is lax on security; Apple is good about security
SMS (green) comes through the phone system with no vetting; be suspicious of green messages
Use e-mail for international messages to avoid phone charges
If you leave the machine open or the phone on and hooked up to power will get the latest version as a silent update; do this 1-2 times a week; Safari will not let you go to a blacklist site; it has a blanket Apple blacklist of any North Korea site due to problems
It is your machine/device, and you have to protect it
Security measures and a better experience to have mail sorted into folders
Do not print out every message – there are better ways of managing email
Next month topic
macOS Monterey
Discussion: iOS 15.1 coming out – integration between Monterey and iPad as extension of Mac screen; new uses of e-mail; custom e-mail address for specific vendor, and can delete Alia to get rid of subscription/traffic based on alias for a special purpose; this is available in Apple Mail now, but hard to figure out
new FaceTime feature for invitation via email, but may have to be on a specific version of iOS; and may go to a Webpage for FaceTime expansion; bandwidth requirements unknown
Google Hangouts is less bandwidth-intensive
The new version of Zoom works better, and security is improving
Clarification:
Mark something as spam rather than Unsubscribe if not familiar with the company, since the risk of telling spammers your email address is real, and then you get more spam