The May 19, 2026, SMUG meeting focused on basic computer security. Literally every day, there are news stories about new or “new and improved” techniques used by rogue agencies, hostile nations, or ex-partners to defraud, defame, or otherwise make your life miserable. “Zero-day” flaws in many computer and device operating systems can cause you all kinds of unexpected grief.

Most successful computer attacks rely on one thing: the average person with a smartphone, tablet, or computer gives next to no thought to computer security. The average user often ignores privacy controls, fails to update their devices, and uses the same simple password for everything, assuming they think about passwords at all. They never think to lock their device, and assume that, as an obscure individual, they are not worth the attention of a hacker, a foreign government, or a terrorist. This inattention is precisely why “average computers” are the most common victims of computer crime and privacy breaches.

Among the highlights of the evening: the presenter’s Internet went out in the middle of the Question & Answer session. This resulted in the loss of the entire Q&A session. However, we do have a possible answer to one question. One member said that, when they position various application windows on their desktop, the windows don’t stay where they are put. A member wrote in with an Apple Support video that shows how window tiling works on new Macs:

Apple has an extensive library of support videos on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@applesupport

Notes on Basic Computer Security

There were notes, with lots of text, and you didn’t have to write your own. As promised, here are the notes.

Video of the May 2026 meeting: Basic Computer Security

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Transcript of the meeting on: Basic Computer Security

This transcript was generated automatically by Zoom, and Zoom is sometimes (often?) creative. Use your browser’s find function to search for particular words or phrases.

19:04:15 I do have a request for our new president.
19:04:18 And you, maybe the two of you, since you’re geographically near.
19:04:23 One another could figure out…
19:04:26 how to get that… our, uh…
19:04:28 Discussion boards seem to work properly.
19:04:31 Uh, it is working properly.
19:04:33 Oh, it is.
19:04:33 Yes, um, that was something I should have mentioned.
19:04:37 I could not figure out why it wasn’t working, and I was gone for 10 days when I came back.
19:04:43 I wrote to the people and they said, oh, it’s just this, that, and the other thing.
19:04:48 And I checked all the things they said.
19:04:51 And… that didn’t change anything.
19:04:53 And I went back an hour later to do something else on the website,
19:04:58 And it was working. So, I think they screwed up and they fixed it when…
19:05:03 After I complained.
19:05:06 Well, thank you for doing that. I will check it after our meeting.
19:05:10 I haven’t checked it today, but the last time I looked, it was working.
19:05:14 And…
19:05:16 I cannot…
19:05:18 Figure out how to…
19:05:20 Show my desktop.
19:05:26 Share.
19:05:27 Okay, let’s try this desktop.
19:05:34 And…
19:05:37 Uh, and we’re not going to start with questions, because that’s later on.
19:05:42 The.
19:05:45 Some of the illustrations I’m going to use are taken from
19:05:50 Macs, some of them are taken from Windows, uh, they’re not taken from Windows.
19:05:53 Some are taken from iPads, some are taken from phones.
19:05:57 Because as the Mac.
19:05:59 And iOS and iPad operating systems.
19:06:03 take on more of a similar feel.
19:06:07 In terms of how they look, it doesn’t really make any difference which operating system you’re talking about. It probably looks the same.
19:06:13 And I’m using a variety of sources.
19:06:16 And then Connelly and Basic Computer Security, because
19:06:20 Your iPhone is actually a Unix computer that you carry around in your pocket.
19:06:24 Your iPad is a Unix computer that you carry around.
19:06:28 In your hand, I guess.
19:06:30 and your Mac is whatever you happen to have. If you have a desktop that sits on your desktop,
19:06:35 If you have a laptop, it’s a laptop, but they’re all Unix computers.
19:06:38 The Unix operating system
19:06:40 was developed in the 1970s. It started work in the 19…
19:06:46 60s.
19:06:48 He considers.
19:06:50 January 1st, 1970, to be the.
19:06:54 birth of.
19:06:56 Unix, and that’s because the clock inside of Unix starts at that point.
19:07:00 Most of what you do on a Mac, you’ll never know that the Unix is there, but there’s Unix underneath it.
19:07:06 And Unix is an incredibly powerful operating system.
19:07:10 Most of the internet runs on Unix.
19:07:13 And, uh, this particular illustration that I used on the website and such,
19:07:18 This was done with Google Gemini.
19:07:21 I said I wanted puffins to be befuddled by computer security,
19:07:27 And if you look at the blow-up of the picture,
19:07:30 It’s kind of out of focus in the back here, but it says,
19:07:33 Cybersecurity for birds, and I’m really proud of the fact that it says that, because that.
19:07:39 That just appeals to my sense of humor.
19:07:43 Computer security is a lot like learning how to get potty trained and how to wear clothes in public and so on and so forth. You just learn
19:07:53 That to be out in the world, there are certain expectations.
19:07:56 Uh, you should be washed, you should be dressed.
19:08:00 Uh, you should wear a coat if you need a coach, you should wear a hat.
19:08:04 And when you’re out interacting with the world,
19:08:08 You have to obey traffic laws, you shouldn’t jaywalk, you…
19:08:12 drive on the correct side of the road, you pay traffic rules, use your turn indicators, a whole bunch of things that you
19:08:18 have to do in order to.
19:08:20 be out in the public.
19:08:23 And using a computer is a lot like that because
19:08:26 When you take your…
19:08:28 computer, a phone out in public,
19:08:31 You are…
19:08:34 dealing with dozens of people, or sometimes thousands of people.
19:08:39 If you go into QFC, you might only see 50, 60 people, you might…
19:08:44 See 500 if you go to Walmart. When you take out your phone, even though you’re just doing something that you think is simple.
19:08:52 Thousands of people might be able to see what you’re doing.
19:08:57 And there are ways to prevent that, but you have to be aware
19:09:00 That it’s not just an appliance. It’s not like your refrigerator.
19:09:04 You plug in your refrigerator, and your refrigerator knows how to refrigerate things.
19:09:08 It does not know how to microwave things.
19:09:11 It does not know how to play football.
19:09:14 On TV, it doesn’t know any of those things, it just knows how to refrigerate.
19:09:18 And it doesn’t go anywhere. And unless you’re standing right in front of it, and you open the door,
19:09:22 It has limited interaction with the rest of the planet.
19:09:25 your phone, your computer, that’s not the case at all.
19:09:29 So, you want to be prepared for the fact that you’re dealing
19:09:33 with the entire world.
19:09:36 Um, so, when you’re getting ready to go outside, you get showered, you get dressed, do you.
19:09:43 have breakfast, and do all those things, and you went to do the same things with your…
19:09:48 iPhone, your iPad, or your Mac, because at that point, you’re dealing with a lot more people.
19:09:55 The kinds of threats that you face.
19:09:58 Um, believe it or not, children.
19:10:00 Adult family members, visitors to your home,
19:10:04 All are threats to your computer, to your iPhone, to your iPad, they can accidentally delete things, they can modify things.
19:10:11 They can use your computer when you’re not looking to look at porn. They can do all kinds of things that can cause you all kinds of bad problems.
19:10:19 Most malware, which is bad,
19:10:22 code that does a harmful thing.
19:10:25 Most malware attacks that I’ve seen successful on Macs have been from people
19:10:30 who visit porn sites.
19:10:32 So, if you’re not in the habit of visiting porn sites, you probably have less of an exposure.
19:10:38 than most other people.
19:10:40 On 1 thing that you can do to help.
19:10:44 yourself deal with.
19:10:46 Internal threats from children and family members and such.
19:10:50 is every user of your machine
19:10:53 should either have their own computer, or their own phone, or their own iPad,
19:10:57 Or they should have their own account.
19:10:59 On the Mac, you can set up dozens of accounts on the computer.
19:11:03 So if you’re sharing it with your spouse,
19:11:05 Your spouse should have their own.
19:11:08 Account that they log into.
19:11:10 And that way, they don’t mess with your stuff, and you don’t mess with their stuff.
19:11:15 Your machine was set up to do this out of the box.
19:11:18 It’s a little bit harder to do on an iPad,
19:11:22 And it’s really difficult, it’s impossible to do on a phone. Phones are designed to be used by individuals. They’re not really designed to be used by groups.
19:11:31 You can set up.
19:11:34 multiple accounts on iPads, but it’s usually done so that a parent.
19:11:38 can have control over a child’s account. It’s not really a full
19:11:43 user experience. But, um, that’s one way to get rid of the… to reduce the threats.
19:11:49 If everybody in your house has their own little box on your computer,
19:11:52 They really can’t mess you up that much.
19:11:56 Um, you also have threats from people who come into your house.
19:12:01 Occasionally, like, housekeepers, repair people.
19:12:04 Visitors, they may snoop around on your machines.
19:12:09 Or they may actually cause damage to information on the machines,
19:12:14 Generally speaking,
19:12:15 And I can’t emphasize this enough,
19:12:17 If you are not right in front of your computer or your phone or your iPad,
19:12:23 You should either log out, or you should lock it.
19:12:25 To lock your phone, all you need to do is press the power button that locks it.
19:12:30 To lock your iPad, same thing. Press the power button and it locks it. You don’t have to turn it off.
19:12:34 Just press it and it locks it out.
19:12:37 On your Mac, you can just log out.
19:12:39 And if you do that.
19:12:41 They really can’t get in.
19:12:44 Uh, so that’s something that you should just be in the habit of doing.
19:12:47 At work,
19:12:49 I was evil, and if people in my
19:12:54 Area of responsibility.
19:12:55 did not lock themselves out of their computers. I changed their default language to Chinese.
19:13:02 Because that kind of told them that they.
19:13:05 Should have locked their machine.
19:13:07 There was one person I could not do that because she was Chinese.
19:13:12 And in her case, I changed it to Urdu, which is a
19:13:15 language they use in the Middle East.
19:13:17 But.
19:13:19 It did teach people to lock their machines.
19:13:23 Uh, because again, somebody can sit down.
19:13:25 And if somebody sits down at your machine, and it’s unlocked,
19:13:29 If they send a message, it’ll look like it comes from you, and if they send something that you don’t like,
19:13:34 It can cause you representational harm, or they can delete files that are important to you.
19:13:41 You really want to lock up your devices.
19:13:45 Other threads are banks and stores and vendors, a vendor in this case can be a grocery store, it can be a fruit vendor, it can be a restaurant.
19:13:57 Um, and also websites that you visit. All of these vendors.
19:14:03 and stores and whatnot can be hacked,
19:14:06 and your data can leak.
19:14:07 Your data is leaking and it’s not through anything that you personally did.
19:14:12 You have an account with your bank, your bank,
19:14:16 hires themselves out, hires an outside consultant to come in and do.
19:14:21 assessment of their floors or whatever.
19:14:23 And that outside consultant,
19:14:26 breaches the bank’s security.
19:14:28 You can lose personal information.
19:14:30 through no fault of your own. There is a
19:14:35 A site called Have I Been Pwned, P W.
19:14:38 ND, which is a hacker term meaning you’ve taken over something.
19:14:41 Have I been pawned on that website, I’ve…
19:14:45 I was looking at it a couple weeks ago, https://haveibeenpwned.com
19:14:47 And at that point, I had been pawned
19:14:50 a good 200 times, which are data breaches that
19:14:54 other vendors had had that
19:14:57 potentially exposed my information.
19:15:00 And.
19:15:01 That’s something that you cannot control.
19:15:04 But you can control
19:15:07 Um, the amount of damage they can do by making sure that every email account you have.
19:15:13 Every web account that you have,
19:15:15 has a unique
19:15:17 Uh, either account name and password, or just the password alone.
19:15:21 I tend to use the same account name all the time.
19:15:24 Because when I go on to some place, I don’t really want to remember who the heck I thought I was.
19:15:29 But every account that I have has a unique password.
19:15:32 The reason why unique passwords are important.
19:15:37 is, I’ll give you an example of this woman
19:15:40 who she was… she was a lawyer.
19:15:44 And she had all kinds of accounts, and she got tired of keeping track of them, so…
19:15:49 She started using the default account for things that she did not think were important.
19:15:54 She put herself in for a drawing,
19:15:57 for… it was to raise funds for some charitable cause.
19:16:02 She put herself in for the drawing.
19:16:04 And she used that default account name.
19:16:07 The nonprofit really couldn’t afford really big security, they got hacked.
19:16:12 And once the hackers had her username and account,
19:16:16 They compromised every single thing she had that she used that.
19:16:20 password for every single thing she had. And unfortunately, one of the things that she
19:16:26 had used that password for.
19:16:29 was a bar association in a state that she had.
19:16:32 Credentials in, but she didn’t use that often.
19:16:35 You can be credentialed in multiple states.
19:16:38 Well, this one state, she was credentialed there because of one case. She forgot about it.
19:16:44 They got those, uh… they took control of her account, and they sent out things that caused
19:16:49 Her and her business, reputational Harm, so.
19:16:53 You don’t ever want to reuse a password.
19:16:57 And depending upon what it is, you also might want to use a unique account name.
19:17:02 You will find that a lot of people, they get into the habit of using their email message as their email address,
19:17:09 As their account name.
19:17:12 Two problems with that. One is that if you use your email address as your account name,
19:17:17 Millions of people have your email account, banks and.
19:17:20 And people that are on mailing list, they’ll all have your email account. So they already have one of the two things you need to get into the account.
19:17:27 The other problem with the email address is that if you have an email address with Comcast, for example,
19:17:34 And that works fine in San Diego, but then you move up here, and Comcast is no longer.
19:17:40 Your provider, your email address doesn’t work anymore.
19:17:45 So there are difficulties in using your email address,
19:17:49 as your account name.
19:17:51 But everybody does it, including me.
19:17:54 I’m just saying that you should be aware that the fact that there are problems.
19:17:57 Other threats are disgruntled relatives, business partners, or neighbors actively trying to cause you harm.
19:18:06 Sometimes you can’t really do much about those threats.
19:18:10 You know, if you have a relative who wants to trash your reputation,
19:18:14 You’re kind of stuck.
19:18:16 Um, but what you can do is not say in a public forum.
19:18:21 Anything that you wouldn’t say to someone face-to-face.
19:18:24 An example of that is…
19:18:27 If you send a text message and saying, yeah, Jan.
19:18:30 Jan’s a real pain in the butt, and I wish she’d moved to some other state.
19:18:34 You send that text message to your cousin, your cousin sends it to Jan, and now Jan knows what you said about her.
19:18:41 So you really don’t want to say anything.
19:18:44 that you wouldn’t tell somebody face-to-face.
19:18:46 Text messages, email, video recordings.
19:18:49 Web postings can all be copied and pasted and used against you. And you find this out every time we have a political campaign,
19:18:56 Which now seems to be all the time, where somebody finds some web posting or Twitter thing that somebody posted along,
19:19:04 Time ago, and now they’re using it against them in a campaign.
19:19:08 Um, and that’s a threat that you can control just by
19:19:12 Not being a, uh…
19:19:16 I’m not saying nasty things about people.
19:19:20 Other threats. Something to note in the United States, it’s a little bit different in Europe. Europe under the EU has very different
19:19:28 Federal and state governments in the United States are governed by privacy laws.
19:19:34 Companies are not.
19:19:36 So, when I was a federal government employee,
19:19:39 I had very stringent rules on what I could do with.
19:19:45 personal data. If you, as a member of the public,
19:19:48 wrote to me and asked a question,
19:19:51 I could send you an answer.
19:19:54 But I was not allowed to tell anybody that you’d ask the question without a court order, because that’s a private thing between
19:20:02 The public and the government.
19:20:04 If you’re a corporation and you write to the corporation, the corporation can do anything it wants to with it because there are no privacy laws.
19:20:11 That cover corporations in the United States.
19:20:14 In the EEU, there are very strong privacy laws.
19:20:18 Covering corporations.
19:20:20 And you’ll find that Apple and Microsoft and Google
19:20:24 tend to follow the EU’s policies because it’s too much of a pain.
19:20:29 To have one set of rules for the EU and another for the United States. So they tend to
19:20:36 grandfather us in. Most companies don’t do that.
19:20:41 I will mention one particular bank that twice.
19:20:44 In the past, oh, 15 years.
19:20:47 has been cited by the federal government and fined lots and lots and lots of money, for example.
19:20:52 by taking information that they harvested off the web,
19:20:56 and creating bank accounts for these people without the people even knowing.
19:21:02 That they… that it happened.
19:21:03 That is a violation of your privacy. They couldn’t get them on that because we don’t have any privacy laws covering corporations.
19:21:10 What they did is they went after them for
19:21:12 violating bank policy laws.
19:21:14 And that’s our difference between the United States and the rest of the planet.
19:21:19 But generally speaking,
19:21:20 Don’t put anything of value, either monetary or reputational.
19:21:27 On a site you don’t trust.
19:21:29 So, for example, if you think that this.
19:21:32 If you think, for example, the, uh…
19:21:35 The, uh, Straight Mac user group site,
19:21:37 doesn’t have good security,
19:21:39 Well, probably he shouldn’t tell me anything that might cause you harm.
19:21:44 You just, you want to be.
19:21:47 aware that that is a threat.
19:21:52 Foreign governments, foreign businesses, terrorists, and people who hack others’ websites in somebody’s basement.
19:21:59 Also can be a threat.
19:22:01 Now, you might think that you, as an individual living in Sequim or Port Angeles, or wherever you happen to live,
19:22:08 That you’re not a target, but you are, because if they can get.
19:22:12 $100 from you, that may not break you.
19:22:17 But if they do that to a million other people, that’s a lot of money.
19:22:20 And that’s what most of these scams on the internet are aimed at. They’re not interested in trying to
19:22:27 Empty your bank account of tens of thousands of dollars. That’s good for
19:22:31 And then lying in the local paper.
19:22:33 They’re interested in getting 5, 10, $50, $100.
19:22:36 But from thousands or tens of thousands or millions of people.
19:22:41 So, even though you may not think of yourself as a target, you are.
19:22:49 The most likely threats.
19:22:52 Are ones that you make yourself either.
19:22:55 Things that you don’t do that you should have done, or things that you.
19:23:00 put places that you shouldn’t have,
19:23:02 And they cause problems. So either you or your immediate family make errors that
19:23:08 caused most of the problems. As an example,
19:23:12 If you know that you shouldn’t click
19:23:14 On attachments that you get from unknown…
19:23:18 senders, and you do that,
19:23:20 Basically, you created the threat, because when you accept that
19:23:25 unknown document. You might also be accepting the fact that it has malware with it that can compromise.
19:23:32 your machine. So, yes, they made a threat,
19:23:35 But unless you actually do something to accept it, it’s not going to harm you. If you just delete it, it’s not going to harm you.
19:23:42 So we want to make sure that you…
19:23:46 that you are fairly careful in what you do, and be aware that for people running.
19:23:52 Macs and iPhones and iPads.
19:23:53 Most of the threats are from things that you accepted.
19:23:59 intentionally or unintentionally.
19:24:04 And, um, getting back to my metaphor, before you go anywhere with your Mac, and that includes firing it up and just reading the news.
19:24:12 Make sure that you’ve taken care of it.
19:24:15 That you’ve brushed its teeth and all that sort of stuff.
19:24:18 Um, and the first thing you can do is make sure that you automatically install updates.
19:24:23 I have heard any number of people say, oh, I wait for a new update, so it’s been out for a couple of weeks before I try it.
19:24:31 There’s one woman who told me this.
19:24:34 She said that she always waited a couple weeks. When I checked her machine, her machine was a year and a half out of date.
19:24:40 This guy who is an IT professional said that he usually waits at least a month, and he marks it in his calendar.
19:24:47 So they’ll do the update a month later if he hasn’t heard anything back.
19:24:52 His particular machine was two and a half years out of date.
19:24:56 The easiest way to stay up to date is to.
19:25:00 Turn on automatic updates.
19:25:02 And your Mac and your iPad, this one on the…
19:25:06 On the left, that’s an iPad notification that there’s an update.
19:25:09 And the one on the right is the max saying that there’s an update out there.
19:25:14 It’ll put a little red circle there with the number of messages it has, and usually that message is that
19:25:21 You have an update to the operating system.
19:25:24 And if you set it up so that it automatically does the update,
19:25:29 It will just automatically do the update. A lot of people will say, well, I have it set up to do automatic updates and it never seems to do that.
19:25:36 But a lot of people also turn their machine off if they’re not using it, so they’ll.
19:25:41 have their machine… they’ll have their laptop turned on when they’re using it, and then when they’re done, they’ll close it up.
19:25:47 If it’s not turned on, it can’t do the update.
19:25:52 And so you have to remember to just sometimes, if that’s the way you have it.
19:25:57 Just to remind yourself, when you’ve powered up,
19:25:59 Just check to see if there’s an update.
19:26:02 Um, and it’ll either do it right now, if you ask it to, which is what I usually do.
19:26:07 Or you can have it wait and do it at night. If you wait and have it done at night, you have to make sure
19:26:13 The device, whether it’s a phone or an Apple watch or an iPad, or your Mac,
19:26:19 You have to make sure that it’s on power. It needs to be
19:26:23 powered, and then you can say, update it tonight, and it’ll do it at night time.
19:26:31 Another thing to note about updates.
19:26:33 If you have an Apple Watch, the Apple Watch is essentially a companion to your iPhone,
19:26:40 So, you don’t have to do it this way, but I always update the phone first.
19:26:44 And then I update the watch second.
19:26:47 Because that way the phone knows everything it’s supposed to know before it actually talks to the watch.
19:26:52 Tells it to update it.
19:26:55 This is an update on the iPad, looks pretty much the same as it does on the Mac.
19:27:01 The composition’s different. Oh, you’ll notice on this Mac one, it says, review Apple Account Phone Number.
19:27:07 You can also get notices like that, that it’s been a while since you’ve done whatever you want to check to see if your phone number
19:27:14 is, uh, correct, so that.
19:27:16 You have another way of being contacted if there’s a problem.
19:27:19 But in this case, there’s a software update, and it wants you to look at the phone number.
19:27:24 It’ll do the same thing on the iPad.
19:27:27 And you can tell it to update it and update now or update.
19:27:31 Uh, later on.
19:27:34 In addition to updating your operating system, you should also update your apps.
19:27:39 If you get an app from the App Store, either on your.
19:27:44 Mac or your iPhone or iPad, or watch for that matter.
19:27:48 If you get them from the Apple App Store,
19:27:52 it’ll automatically update those applications if you tell it to. But again,
19:27:57 Just like the Mac, your iPad needs to be turned on, your iPhone needs to be turned on, your Mac needs to be turned on.
19:28:05 For this, uh, thing to work.
19:28:07 Um, and if it is, it’ll just automatically keep those things up to date. And if it’s not, you can go into
19:28:14 The app updates, go into the app.
19:28:18 The app that says apps,
19:28:20 And in the preferences, it’ll be something that says, uh, look for the…
19:28:24 updates, and you can say update now, and it’ll update things.
19:28:27 You’ll notice this one on the left where it’s an iPad. This is an iPad that I hadn’t used.
19:28:33 in a couple weeks, and it was, um, just.
19:28:36 sitting, and I told it to update, and there were 22.
19:28:40 Things that needed to be updated.
19:28:42 And it just cheerfully went and updated them, because I told it to.
19:28:47 Um, some things about…
19:28:50 Lawrence, where do you get to that? How do you…
19:28:52 How do you get to that?
19:28:55 The app, it says apps. It’s a blue icon has got.
19:29:01 compass on it, and it’s the App Store.
19:29:06 application on your Mac, on your iPhone, on your iPad.
19:29:08 Ah, okay.
19:29:09 It has preferences, and if you go in to look at the preferences,
19:29:12 One of them is turn on automatic updates. I think it’s on by default.
19:29:17 But the other thing is, you can tell it if it does have things to.
19:29:20 be updated, you can just press this little
19:29:23 update all in a little update all of those things.
19:29:26 Okay, thanks.
19:29:29 One way to keep track of updates, and I recommend this to a lot of people and.
19:29:34 Hardly anyone ever does it.
19:29:36 Apple has a mailing list called Apple Security Announce,
19:29:40 Every time they have a security,
19:29:45 Announcement and the security announcements just for operating systems, it’s not for applications. https://lists.apple.com/mailman3/lists/security-announce.lists.apple.com/
19:29:50 But every time they have a security update,
19:29:53 They’ll send you an email to tell you that it’s out there. And I highly recommend
19:29:59 that you do this. They don’t come that often.
19:30:03 In a busy month, you might get two emails.
19:30:06 And in many months you won’t get anything at all.
19:30:08 And it doesn’t cost you anything, you just go to that website, you type in your address, and it…
19:30:14 emails you updates. It’s absolutely.
19:30:17 free service, and…
19:30:19 The emails themselves are just text. There’s no graphics, there’s no advertisements. It just says, hey, there’s an update, too.
19:30:26 Such and such, you will get an update for every operating system, so even if you don’t have an Apple Watch, you might get an update saying there’s an update to an Apple Watch, but.
19:30:35 That’s about the only thing that might.
19:30:38 um, bother you.
19:30:41 Um, going back to my
19:30:43 Sing about getting properly dressed.
19:30:46 If you shop only from vetted, reputable vendors, that’s one way to keep yourself safe.
19:30:54 And the App Store, all of the apps on Apple’s App Store for the watch, for the iPhone, for the iPad, for the Mac,
19:31:00 All of those apps have to be from identified direct developers.
19:31:05 They have to actually register with Apple.
19:31:08 They have to have created the app according to Apple’s design principles, which among other things,
19:31:16 They have to be.
19:31:18 They have to follow the sandbox model. A sandbox model
19:31:21 It’s from the old.
19:31:24 adage about, um, stay out of my sandbox.
19:31:27 My sandboxes for me and me alone.
19:31:30 If you create an app and it stays in your sandbox, it can’t interfere with other apps.
19:31:35 That’s the whole point. Data can’t leak from one app to another.
19:31:40 Problems can’t leak from one app to another.
19:31:42 You’ll notice on the Mac that if something ever crashes,
19:31:45 When it crashes, the only thing that usually crashes is that app. It doesn’t take the whole thing down.
19:31:51 Uh, if any of you have ever used Windows, quite often when it crashes, it takes on everything, but…
19:31:55 On the Mac, it just crashes one particular app.
19:31:59 And one of the things that the vetting process does also is if an app crashes a lot, Apple yells at them and says, fix that.
19:32:06 As it’s not supposed to do that.
19:32:10 Um.
19:32:11 So they… Apple validates that the apps are designed the way they’re supposed to be.
19:32:16 That they operate in the sandbox, and that they come from valid
19:32:21 developers. An example that came to mind was that.
19:32:26 Several years ago, when
19:32:29 When security people said, you should have a VPN for your
19:32:33 for your iPhone, you should have any VPN for your iPhone.
19:32:36 A whole bunch of VPNs appeared on the App Store.
19:32:39 And they were allegedly from different vendors. Apple did some research, and they all came from.
19:32:45 Just a few vendors in China.
19:32:48 And those few vendors in China where,
19:32:50 owned by the Chinese army.
19:32:53 And Apple revoked the security certificate.
19:32:55 When Apple revokes the security certificate,
19:32:58 Even if that app is on your phone, it doesn’t work anymore.
19:33:03 So that’s another reason why it’s a good idea to get.
19:33:07 your apps from the Apple Store, because if there’s a problem,
19:33:10 They can prevent it from causing you problems.
19:33:14 Um, if they revoke the certificate,
19:33:18 The program won’t launch. It’s just dead space.
19:33:25 And a lot of this just says things that I just told you about, that they’re sandbox and, uh, that is supposed to be.
19:33:33 are updated rather than tar, but…
19:33:35 TAR is a different word entirely.
19:33:40 Things that you don’t need to worry about. I saw this, um…
19:33:45 meme recently and it tickled my fancy.
19:33:48 I heard the government is putting chips inside of people, and this other woman says, I hope I get Doritos.
19:33:55 You really don’t have to worry about.
19:33:58 The government’s sticking chips into your body.
19:34:01 I don’t remember which… there was one anti-government protester
19:34:05 Who claimed that the.
19:34:07 Federal government injected a chip in his butt.
19:34:12 And exactly why the federal government would do that wasn’t clear, but.
19:34:17 Um, he, um, he killed a bunch of people and.
19:34:21 He is no longer with us.
19:34:23 But, uh, no, the government doesn’t go around putting chips in people, that’s not something you need to worry about.
19:34:28 Another thing that I see people worried about is they’re worried about radiation from their phones and.
19:34:35 You know, that it’s going to do something bad with them.
19:34:38 Something people don’t realize is even cars
19:34:42 radiate.
19:34:44 Cars radiate radio waves.
19:34:46 If you’re old enough to remember the old days when you’re driving down the road and a plane passes over.
19:34:52 And it screws up your car radio.
19:34:54 That’s because the radios back then were not terribly well shielded, and neither were the cars.
19:35:01 The cars, the engine in your car generates radio waves.
19:35:06 the engine. Doesn’t need the radiator, it doesn’t need the radio, it’s just the engine.
19:35:11 It’s electromagnetic radiation,
19:35:13 And it can be generated by the engine alone. So if you drive a car, you’re going to expose yourself
19:35:19 to radio waves. Even if you turn your radio off. So, don’t worry about radio waves coming from your phone,
19:35:26 It’s supposed to… don’t… don’t worry about.
19:35:30 Um, people broadcasting and sending signals into your brain, and
19:35:34 Forcing you to wear an aluminum cap.
19:35:36 Um, especially in the summertime that you will not allow, like the aluminum cap.
19:35:41 And they’re not going to inject you with chips.
19:35:45 There are other things that you don’t need to worry about.
19:35:47 I have seen a lot of computer security things that look like this next slide.
19:35:55 This is a map, and it says most people live outside this circle, more people live outside this circle than inside it.
19:36:04 That statement is 100%.
19:36:06 True. It’s also completely useless.
19:36:10 And a lot of computer security stuff that I see.
19:36:14 posted is true, but useless.
19:36:18 So…
19:36:20 You want to be a little bit skeptical when you see somebody complain about, you know, this could.
19:36:25 pose a threat to this, that, and the other thing.
19:36:28 Another thing that people worry about are robots.
19:36:32 And this slide kind of expresses my feelings about robots.
19:36:36 It’s a fake captcha where it says… it gives you choices.
19:36:40 I’m not a robot. I’m not a robot myself, but I’m not judging those who are.
19:36:45 Defying robot.
19:36:47 I’m not a robot, but I know you are, so this feels a bit hypocritical.
19:36:51 I reject the binary assumptions underlying this statement. I’m not a robot, but I’m willing to convert.
19:36:58 Okay, this is kind of my feeling about the robot apocalypse. I’m not really worried about.
19:37:05 Robots.
19:37:07 If you saw, there’s a robot in China that completed a half-marathon.
19:37:12 Things like that. Okay, they are not going to really affect anything that I do.
19:37:19 That robot in China costs tens of millions of dollars.
19:37:22 to around one half marathon.
19:37:25 And I can go out and find a teenager who can do that for far less than millions of dollars.
19:37:31 I’m not really worried about that.
19:37:33 I am worried about artificial intelligence, but it’s not so much that I think the artificial intelligence is going to take over
19:37:40 things from me, I’m afraid it’s going to put…
19:37:42 perfectly good people out of work for no good reason.
19:37:45 If you look at what they’ve done with artificial intelligence, they’re trying to replace
19:37:51 Receptionists, they’re trying to replace…
19:37:54 Uh, call center operators are trying to replace
19:37:56 customer service people, the kinds of people that when you’re having a problem with a company,
19:38:01 You want some human being to talk to. They’re trying to get rid of those people.
19:38:06 That I do worry about, because.
19:38:09 You know, I don’t really… if you remember when call trees first came out with voice answering machines.
19:38:15 Press 1 to do this, press 2 to do this, and then you go throughout.
19:38:20 89 levels of the…
19:38:22 of the maze, and you’re back where you started with nothing accomplished.
19:38:26 That’s what they’re trying to do with.
19:38:28 With artificial intelligence, and that bothers me a great deal, but…
19:38:33 Robots, I’m not going to worry about robots.
19:38:36 Things that you should worry about.
19:38:39 are bad passwords.
19:38:41 At the top is how…
19:38:43 People tell you to make passwords.
19:38:45 Dollar sign S, lowercase as 1 1
19:38:48 Lowercase age, capital C, 7 star.
19:38:53 lowercase A, C, and a carat.
19:38:56 That’s the kind of thing that people say makes a good password. The trouble is.
19:39:00 It’s hard to remember, and it’s hard to type.
19:39:02 And if it’s hard to remember, and it’s hard to type,
19:39:05 What do people do? They write it on a sticky and they put it on their monitor.
19:39:10 Or, it’s written on a piece of paper on the top of their desk, or they get really frustrated,
19:39:15 And they changed the whole thing, and they just say,
19:39:18 Enter, or something else really simple.
19:39:21 A good password is the one that I have here in red,
19:39:24 And these red triangles are actually, that’s where a space is, so it’s…
19:39:29 Pandas space R, space, pour space politicians, exclamation point.
19:39:35 That is a fantastic password. It’s 28 characters long, really almost impossible,
19:39:42 for anything to break. It’s easy to type,
19:39:46 Which means you’ll actually do it.
19:39:48 And it has special characters, because the space itself is a special character, and so is a…
19:39:54 So that’s a really, really good password.
19:39:57 But the ones that, for years, they’ve been telling you that this one at the top, that’s a good password,
19:40:02 It’s not a good password, you will not remember it, you will not remember to type it correctly,
19:40:07 It’s hard to type and you’ll end up compromising it by either changing it to something way too simple,
19:40:15 Or you’ll put a sticky on your…
19:40:17 on your monitor, and then everybody can see what your password is.
19:40:20 Lawrence?
19:40:21 Those are the things. Pardon?
19:40:23 Canada on an emoji be in a password? Is that acceptable? No.
19:40:27 No, no, no.
19:40:28 So what are those… how did you get those upside-down triangles?
19:40:32 Those are just to tell you where the space is. That’s just a regular space. I’m just saying that that’s.
19:40:38 There’s a space there. That doesn’t mean that they’re…
19:40:41 Oh.
19:40:42 There’s a triangle there, there’s a space there.
19:40:43 It’s a standard way to indicate when you’re doing coding where a space is.
19:40:48 A lot of people think that, uh…
19:40:51 A zero is the same as nothing. To a computer, there’s a character for nothing. It’s called null.
19:40:58 And when you… when I write things with spaces, people tend to just say,
19:41:03 Oh, and they’ll write P-A-N-D-A-S-A-R-E without the space. Nope.
19:41:08 There’s a space there.
19:41:11 So if you write, pandas are poor politicians.
19:41:14 That is a good… with those spaces.
19:41:17 That is a great password. It’s long, it’s easy to type, it’s fast to type,
19:41:22 You’ll probably remember it.
19:41:25 Um, so that’s what you should worry about, is you should worry about.
19:41:30 poor passwords that you have that are too short,
19:41:33 Or they’re too hard to remember, and you keep on forgetting them.
19:41:37 Um, on my bank.
19:41:39 If I type my password in wrong three times, it logs me out. Well, actually, it never logged me in.
19:41:45 But it just says goodbye.
19:41:47 Because it knows that hackers try repeatedly. So, you know,
19:41:51 Come up with something that I can correctly type the first time is a good thing.
19:41:57 Um, the other thing that I just… I think I’ve mentioned this before.
19:42:01 I will not bank with a financial institution
19:42:04 that tells me my password doesn’t have the required characters.
19:42:09 Because a lot of banks, they won’t accept a space as a character.
19:42:14 So if it’s telling me that the space is an illegal character.
19:42:18 That means the bank is reading my password.
19:42:24 That makes it useless as a password if they know what my password is.
19:42:29 Because that password is between me and the bank. It’s not for their use.
19:42:34 I don’t want them reading the password.
19:42:36 So if it tells me that my…
19:42:39 Password has an illegal character, it means they’re reading my password, and I won’t do business with them.
19:42:44 And I can mention names, but I shouldn’t do that.
19:42:48 And something that I’m going to put up on the web, but there’s a bank in town that does that.
19:42:51 And I’m never gonna use that bag.
19:42:56 Another thing that you should watch out for is spam.
19:43:00 And how do you tell spam?
19:43:02 Spam is dangerous because spam means it’s, what’s the name, commercial unsolicited.
19:43:11 email or messaging, or whatever, I can’t remember what.
19:43:14 The definition of spam is, spam is any kind of message that ends up in your instant message on your phone,
19:43:19 or in your email that you didn’t request.
19:43:22 But how can you tell spam from stuff that’s legit? One is,
19:43:28 Who it’s sent to. If you have a message that says.
19:43:32 The IRS wants more information on your tax return.
19:43:36 And you look at who is it addressed to, and you see a whole bunch of addresses,
19:43:41 That’s not for the IRS. First of all,
19:43:43 IRS does not send you email like that. They send you a letter through the post office.
19:43:49 Second, if you get something that’s supposed to be from any government, and it lists a whole bunch of addresses,
19:43:54 It’s obviously not for you. This is a piece of spam that was sent out by some hacker.
19:44:00 who’s trying to hit a whole bunch of people with one email message.
19:44:03 But it’s not from a bank, it’s not from the government, it’s not from
19:44:09 DMV, because they don’t send
19:44:12 mass messages out to lots of people.
19:44:15 Another way to tell it’s spam, if it’s in a language that you don’t normally read.
19:44:21 This is in Cyrillic. I don’t read Cyrillic, so I don’t even have to read the message. I know that.
19:44:27 It’s not for me, and I can mark it as spam.
19:44:33 And I can tell that just by seeing how it’s written.
19:44:37 A trick that you can do if you have a lot of messages and you want to go through them in a hurry,
19:44:42 Make… start your messages in alphabetical order.
19:44:45 Because at the top of the list, you’re going to see here that there are a bunch of people who have things like emojis, like they have
19:44:51 apples and cucumbers and spaceships and so on and so forth, that they stick.
19:44:56 in their subject line.
19:44:57 And at the bottom, you’ll have a whole bunch of foreign languages.
19:45:01 And you can just go through and just mark all those and call them spam.
19:45:05 You don’t even need to read them, because I have yet to see one of those things that.
19:45:11 wasn’t spam. I will tell you something that is embarrassing.
19:45:16 Um, the…
19:45:17 Chief Finance Officer for my agency, once upon a time.
19:45:22 sent out a message to everybody in the agency saying they had to get their budgets in in time.
19:45:28 And they stuck dollar signs.
19:45:31 In the subject line. Well, that’s what spammers do when they’re trying to tell you that you got free money or something like that.
19:45:37 So pretty much everyone just marked the message as spam.
19:45:42 You do want to make sure you don’t kind of sabotage yourself.
19:45:47 And, uh, don’t… don’t write messages that look like spam.
19:45:50 But one way to tell it’s spam is if it’s in a foreign language and you don’t speak that language.
19:45:55 I get a lot of messages in Japanese, but I’m a Japanese historian.
19:45:59 That’s normal, but Russian, nope.
19:46:04 Um, spam also will have things that you just know have nothing to do with you. This is, uh
19:46:10 A instant message that came through.
19:46:12 saying that this is Emily from Glassdoor, and she’s recruiting to my area.
19:46:17 She’s probably not with Glassdoor and one dead giveaway,
19:46:22 is the address that it came from. It doesn’t say it came from Glassdoor. Glassdoor is a recruitment company.
19:46:28 This comes from fully corout dot hair.
19:46:32 Uh, definitely not from Glassdoor. Not to mention the fact
19:46:36 That I’m not looking for a job with them.
19:46:40 Here’s another piece of spam.
19:46:42 This is, it says for the, it’s from Temu. Temu is a
19:46:46 Kind of the Chinese equivalent of Amazon.
19:46:50 And your background and resume have been recommended by multiple recruitment agencies, blah blah blah blah blah.
19:46:55 Well, all of that is junk, but you’ll also notice it was sent with from Jessica
19:47:01 Well, something or other, at iCloud.com.
19:47:04 It didn’t come from Temu.
19:47:06 So, even if I had been interested in the message, this tells me that it’s spam.
19:47:11 And you’ll notice down at the bottom,
19:47:13 That way, if you press this report junk,
19:47:16 Don’t just delete the message, press that button, because if you report junk,
19:47:22 It flags that
19:47:25 account is account that is sending out spam.
19:47:28 And that helps prevent other people from getting spam.
19:47:32 As well as it deletes the message. But don’t just delete the message, it reported as junk first.
19:47:36 And then you can kill it off.
19:47:39 Um, this one says, uh, my team has been trying to reach you regarding the PlayStation 5 you won for our raffle.
19:47:46 If you didn’t participate in a raffle, this is definitely spam.
19:47:50 And also, you’ll notice that it’s coming from loverdelicate.com.
19:47:55 Probably not some place you’ve ever been to or want to.
19:48:00 Um, these pieces of spam, by the way, these are all things that I’ve received at one time or another.
19:48:05 This is Christy, who’s going to give me…
19:48:08 $100,000 because she won the Power Bowl, and she’s sending off…
19:48:11 Message to 200 random, uh…
19:48:14 Individuals. You don’t need to know anything about this at all, you just know it’s spam, so.
19:48:19 This one, this one I’m quite fond of.
19:48:26 My call filter on my phone, this one’s from Verizon.
19:48:29 Said that potential spam detected.
19:48:32 And what cracks me up is a type of spam that tries to infiltrate your organization
19:48:38 It’s called spear phishing.
19:48:41 And this particular phone number… phone call came from Spearfish, South Dakota, which I just thought was
19:48:47 hilariously.
19:48:49 Funny. But yes, that’s bad.
19:48:54 And, uh, this vehicle registration agency, uh, is regarding my overpayment.
19:49:01 But you’re looking, and the address, it’s not a government site, it’s Dorff23.com, so.
19:49:07 That’s not from a government agency, if it has a comm address.
19:49:11 And this one says, uh, Netflix, you need to update your membership with us.
19:49:17 But it’s, again, it’s not from Netflix, it’s from somebody else.
19:49:22 And this is also another one that’s a dead giveaway.
19:49:26 If you get a message and there is no sender and no subject,
19:49:30 You really don’t even need to read any further, because it’s probably just spam.
19:49:36 And this one, it says that my…
19:49:38 Account is expired, well, no.
19:49:41 No company would send out a message like that.
19:49:44 And if they did, they’d probably follow it up with one saying, oops, we screwed up.
19:49:50 One of my favorite ones is this one says I have an outstanding toll.
19:49:55 And I have to go to EasyPassNY.com, not a gov,
19:50:00 In order to pay it, but the area code at the top.
19:50:04 The country code at the top is 63, which is the Philippines.
19:50:07 I really doubt that New York
19:50:10 sends their toll…
19:50:12 summonses through instant messages, and I’m pretty sure that if they did,
19:50:16 It wouldn’t be from the Philippines.
19:50:20 So when you see spam on your
19:50:24 In your email, or in instant messages,
19:50:29 Click, saying that it’s junk.
19:50:32 Because that tells Apple, that tells Google, that tells Microsoft, whoever account you have it with.
19:50:38 It tells them that this is suspicious and you’re flagging it.
19:50:46 And after you’ve said it was.
19:50:49 junk, then you can delete it. Or you can press this handy little thing here that says delete and Report Junk, and it does it all in one
19:50:56 fell swoop. But it’s a two-step process, and you never want to just delete junk, you always want to report it first.
19:51:06 This is not spam.
19:51:09 And… it… this was sent out by, uh…
19:51:13 You might recall that a tanker truck
19:51:17 Overturned on an overpass west of Port Angeles last year.
19:51:22 And it fell into the river.
19:51:26 And someone dictated a message, I’m guessing, in the sheriff’s office,
19:51:31 And it says, this is a message from Clallon County Sheriff’s Office.
19:51:34 Please listen carefully to all instructions,
19:51:37 Thank you, murderer, murderers should use extreme caution.
19:51:41 As has that, workers will be in the area, voluntary water restrictions remain.
19:51:46 In effect for the city of Port Angeles, slaughter utility customer.
19:51:51 Terrible, terrible, terrible message.
19:51:53 That is not spam, though. That was sent out by the Sheriff’s Department.
19:51:58 But they didn’t do a particularly good job of.
19:52:03 Making it look like it wasn’t spam.
19:52:05 And it was just reporting that that tank truck fell in the river, and if you lived in
19:52:09 Port Angeles, you should make sure that.
19:52:14 It was, it threw in some.
19:52:17 toxic information… toxic.
19:52:20 substances in the river, and they had water restrictions.
19:52:23 This is also not spam, is from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office,
19:52:28 This came after that first one, and it says that…
19:52:32 Um, there is tsunami advisory has been issued. You’ll notice that they learn from their mistake.
19:52:37 And this one looks like it’s from the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office,
19:52:41 And this was after there was an earthquake.
19:52:44 And, uh, there was a tsunami warning for the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
19:52:48 So, this, again, was not spam, and this is how it should have looked.
19:52:52 First time.
19:52:55 Generally, what I’m saying when it comes to things that are sent to you, do not invite bad guys in.
19:53:04 On a PC, you can actually compromise it just by reading a message.
19:53:08 On a Mac, it’s a little bit harder, but you still don’t really want to read
19:53:12 spam messages. If you can tell it’s spam message, just mark it and make it go away.
19:53:18 You do not want to open up attachments that seem suspicious.
19:53:23 One of the few ways that you can actually compromise a Mac is that if you haven’t been doing
19:53:28 Your updates, opening up a PDF can compromise an iPhone or an iMac.
19:53:33 It has to be several versions out of date, but
19:53:37 It can still compromise them, so.
19:53:40 Don’t open up any attachments that you don’t recognize, don’t open up email messages.
19:53:45 from people you don’t know,
19:53:47 If you think it’s spam, just.
19:53:51 Market is spam.
19:53:55 I’m not going to get too much into privacy things, but privacy settings on your Mac and in your iPhone can cover a lot of things. For example,
19:54:05 You can have privacy settings for paired devices, like.
19:54:08 Uh, you can restrict
19:54:11 things like earbuds and mice and other things.
19:54:17 You can restrict speech recognition.
19:54:20 You can restrict your journals so that only your journal talks to you and not to other people.
19:54:25 You can have sensitive content warnings, so…
19:54:29 Um, if you… you can make it so it’s G or PG, it doesn’t use that as a rating symbol, but.
19:54:36 Things like that. You can restrict.
19:54:39 analytic information going back to Apple.
19:54:42 You can restrict Apple’s advertising, they’ll still send you advertising, but it won’t be…
19:54:48 It won’t be targeted directly to you.
19:54:51 In Apple Intelligence, you can either
19:54:53 uh, use ChatGPT or not, it’s up to you, and I recommend that you not.
19:55:00 Uh, wired accessories.
19:55:02 On an iPad, you can actually hook up a mouse to an iPad.
19:55:05 Or you can hook up a keyboard to an iPad.
19:55:08 And on your Mac, you can hook up
19:55:12 I mouse to your Mac,
19:55:13 All of those could carry bad things with them, so.
19:55:18 If you plug something into your machine, you might need to go in and authorize that device
19:55:25 To talk to your machine. Why is this bad? As an example.
19:55:28 There was a company several years ago, probably about 10 years ago, when.
19:55:32 USB devices were just getting
19:55:35 I started… they had a mouse that had…
19:55:38 uh, a 32 K.
19:55:40 It’s not much now, but at the time, it was big, hot stuff.
19:55:44 32K USB memory stick embedded in the mouse.
19:55:47 So when you plug the mouse in, not only did you get the mouse, but you also got this
19:55:52 32K is storage, so you could store whatever the heck you were going to store on it.
19:55:56 This struck to me as a really bad idea.
19:56:00 So I…
19:56:02 wrote a small script just as a test. I wrote a small script that I put on the mouse,
19:56:06 And on a Windows machine, my little script,
19:56:10 Would, as soon as you plugged into the
19:56:11 It would turn the screen black, and it said, you’ve been compromised.
19:56:16 And it took me all of 15 minutes to write that script.
19:56:20 It didn’t do anything harmful, but it scared the crap out of people.
19:56:25 And we had purchased… our agency had purchased, like, dozens of these mice,
19:56:30 And we sent them all back because.
19:56:32 My simple demonstration…
19:56:35 Didn’t cause any harm.
19:56:36 But it’s very, very easy for somebody to have compromise Windows machines. On the Mac, it didn’t do that for a variety of reasons, but…
19:56:45 On Windows, it was definitely scary.
19:56:46 Anyway, all of these privacy things, settings are on your iPhone, your iMac,
19:56:54 Your iPhone, your Mac, your iPad.
19:56:57 And you should pay attention to them.
19:56:59 As an example of things that you should pay attention to.
19:57:03 are things like locations.
19:57:06 Do I have 1 for the location settings.
19:57:09 I was wondering why my iPhone was not giving me elevation. Normally, if you bring up the compass on your iPhone, it’ll give you the elevation.
19:57:17 Well, one day when I was being paranoid, I told the compass that it could not use my location.
19:57:24 And in retrospect, that’s kind of stupid, because
19:57:27 Compasses are all about location.
19:57:29 When I turn back on location, it could tell me the…
19:57:33 Um, my elevation.
19:57:35 Uh, which was really handy when I took this train trip the last couple weeks.
19:57:39 Because I want to know how high we were when going through various parts of Colorado.
19:57:44 So you can turn on things that can track location, and on my.
19:57:48 iPhone, the things that track location are Apple Maps,
19:57:52 Google Maps, and…
19:57:55 A couple other things. One is a scientific tool.
19:57:58 That measures gravity, and you don’t really care about it, but.
19:58:04 Very few things track location.
19:58:07 Things that try to track location include games.
19:58:10 Now, why would you have a gang track location? And the answer is, it’s of no benefit to you, but it’s of great benefit
19:58:18 to advertisers. If the advertisers know that a clump of people in this state
19:58:23 is playing their game.
19:58:25 then they can flag those people to send ads to them, or…
19:58:31 solicitations to buy this new game pack that gives them more.
19:58:37 capability, or whatever.
19:58:39 Games don’t need to know your location.
19:58:42 in the, uh, Zoom…
19:58:45 wants to know, can it use your camera? You actually have to authorize that.
19:58:50 And the answer is yes, you want it to use the camera.
19:58:52 Can it use your microphone? Yes, you want to be able to use the microphone.
19:58:56 Should a game…
19:58:58 use your camera and a microphone? The answer is probably not.
19:59:01 So you went to look at
19:59:04 The location settings, the privacy settings on your phone,
19:59:07 on your iPad, on your Mac,
19:59:09 Because a lot of stuff in there just doesn’t make any sense.
19:59:12 And so like AP News, should AP News tracking your location?
19:59:19 Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. Probably mostly no.
19:59:23 But if you do a lot of traveling to the east and west coast,
19:59:26 If you’re on the East Coast, you might want East Coast news, so it sees you’re on the East Coast, it’ll give you East Coast news.
19:59:31 If you’re on the West Coast, it gives you West Coast news.
19:59:34 It just depends upon what it is you’re doing. But a lot of things,
19:59:37 No, you don’t want them to know where you are.
19:59:43 Another thing that it’s a more… it’s more critical for iPads and iPhones, not so much for.
19:59:51 For.
19:59:53 Max.
19:59:56 Track settings. The track settings will try and track all kinds of settings, like…
20:00:02 What language do you have? What equipment do you have? A whole bunch of things will ask you.
20:00:07 Can they track you when you add, uh,
20:00:11 when you launch a.
20:00:13 An application, uh, for the first time on your iPhone or your.
20:00:16 iPad, it’ll say, can we track you? I always say,
20:00:21 No. And sometimes, like Facebook will come up with this little plea. Oh, please let us track you, we can…
20:00:27 We can provide you with a richer experience.
20:00:31 And my answer is that…
20:00:32 My answer is really not printable, but I don’t really want to give, uh, have Facebook give me a richer experience.
20:00:39 So, I just say, no, they can’t track me.
20:00:43 There’s really… I can’t think of anything off the top of.
20:00:48 My head’s where I want them to track me, so.
20:00:50 You can pretty much just say, no.
20:00:55 Accessory settings, I already told you about the mics, mouse that’ll ask you when you plug something in.
20:01:01 Um, can I plug something in?
20:01:04 And now we get to the question part.
20:01:07 As for why, I made this, um…
20:01:10 illustration in Google Gemini.
20:01:13 And I was trying to come up with something I thought was humorous,
20:01:16 And the idea of puffins trying to use a…
20:01:20 A laptop, and trying to get past the fingerprint.
20:01:24 Uh, to log in. I thought that was.
20:01:26 I thought that was sufficiently lardhearted and.
20:01:30 ludicrous that, uh…
20:01:33 Um, it made a good photo.
20:01:34 And if you look in the background, it actually looks sort of like the Orcas Islands off in the distance, but
20:01:40 That was just an accident.
20:01:44 And I’m going to stop sharing my screen.
20:01:47 Any questions?
20:01:49 I had one question.
20:01:51 Yes.
20:01:52 Um, is there any danger in sharing your calendar
20:01:56 with your family members across the devices in your house.
20:02:01 Um, Kathleen and I…
20:02:05 Um…
20:02:07 Kathleen had a complex calendar. She had five degrees,
20:02:12 So, all in different subjects, she had.
20:02:16 associations in the Methodist Church that I didn’t have.
20:02:20 In healthcare that I didn’t have,
20:02:22 In computer science that I didn’t have.
20:02:23 So we ended up each having our own separate calendars.
20:02:27 Because I kept on getting appointments for her,
20:02:31 that were driving me crazy.
20:02:33 So we had a shared calendar,
20:02:36 for things that we both were interested in. Like, if she was going to go on a trip or.
20:02:39 We were going to go out to dinner or something like that.
20:02:42 We had a separate shared calendar. We did that one.
20:02:45 in Google Calendar.
20:02:47 Uh, rather than an Apple Calendar. The Apple Calendar is mine, her Apple Calendar was hers, and we didn’t share them.
20:02:53 Simply because our lives were complex.
20:02:57 If you have a simpler.
20:03:00 family arrangement, um, if it’s on.
20:03:03 If it’s on your phone and your spouse’s phone and your child’s phone, probably not going to be a problem unless they’re just a lot of…
20:03:11 Traffic. At which point you might want to have a separate
20:03:15 calendar that’s a shared calendar.
20:03:18 The shared calendar, we just went in and created a Google account. We both subscribed to that.
20:03:22 calendar on the Google account, we could add things to that shared a calendar, and we could both see it.
20:03:29 And that was only for things that we wanted the other person to know about.
20:03:33 Was there any reason you chose the Google Calendar over the Apple calendar?
20:03:38 Well, with the Apple Calendar, we would have had to create another Apple ID, and your Mac.
20:03:42 Oh, really?
20:03:43 Yes, your Apple ID is tied to your calendar.
20:03:47 Her Apple ID is tied to her calendar.
20:03:49 Yes, we can share the calendars, but then…
20:03:51 Everything got shared. And with the… you can’t have… you can’t be logged into two Apple IDs at the same time.
20:03:59 But it’s real easy to be logged into your Apple Calendar and a Google Calendar at the same time, so that’s why we went that way.
20:04:06 Gotcha. Okay, thank you.
20:04:08 But I would be getting, like,
20:04:10 You know, uh, turn in your first draft of your journal article.
20:04:16 Well, I wasn’t writing a journal article, she was. Or I would have one, uh…
20:04:22 rebuild the sanctuaries website.
20:04:24 She wasn’t rebuilding the sanctuary website. What did she care about that?
20:04:29 So it just, it was driving us both nuts.
20:04:35 I have one, Lawrence.
20:04:36 Yes.
20:04:37 When you were talking about privacy settings, right after restrict Apple ads,
20:04:43 You said something about ChatGPT.
20:04:46 And I missed it.
20:04:47 Oh, the Apple Intelligence.
20:04:50 One of the things that I really like about Apple Intelligence, Apple Intelligence is coming for a bad rap in the.
20:04:56 in the news because they say it’s too limited.
20:04:58 But one of the things that I like about Apple Intelligence is when you’re using Apple’s AI,
20:05:05 As much of the process as possible takes place on your device, takes place on your iPad,
20:05:10 takes place on your phone, takes place on your Mac. It doesn’t go anywhere else. And so nobody else knows about it.
20:05:15 All right.
20:05:17 If it does make a request, like you want to know something that.
20:05:22 That your phone doesn’t know.
20:05:24 And it asks Apple, it sends an encrypted message.
20:05:28 that’s anonymized. It doesn’t… it’s not tagged to you, so it goes out and gets that information, comes back, and uses it.
20:05:35 ChatGPT is a commercial firm,
20:05:38 And you can optionally go into Apple Intelligence and turn it on.
20:05:43 But the danger is, everything you keep, you send to ChatGPT, it keeps.
20:05:49 Everything. And I don’t want them to keep.
20:05:53 I don’t want it to know what I’m doing.
20:05:55 So I, I do not turn that on.
20:05:59 And… but that’s under your control. You can turn it on on your Mac, you can turn it on on your… on your…
20:06:04 iPhone or your iPad, but I personally will turn it off.
20:06:09 A lot of people, though, don’t have that same concern that I do.
20:06:14 And so that’s why it’s listed in the privacy.
20:06:16 Under Apple Intelligence, you can turn it on or off.
20:06:20 Okay, so it’s under the Apple Intelligence.
20:06:23 Part of the privacy settings.
20:06:26 Well, actually, there’s an Apple Intelligence part of the settings panel all by itself.
20:06:32 Right.
20:06:31 But it’s also listed in privacy because it’s the same thing. But if you set it one place or the other,
20:06:37 It’s basically the same thing.
20:06:39 They just list it in two different places.
20:06:42 You have to just turn both off, or just one?
20:06:44 No, no, if you do it in 1 place, that’s enough.
20:06:46 Okay, thank you.
20:06:47 And it’s off, it’s off by default.
20:06:52 Oh.
20:06:51 If you want to use ChatGPT, you actually have to turn it on.
20:06:56 Okay, I’m not aware I turned it on, but I did go there.
20:07:00 Today, and it seemed to work.
20:07:03 On my phone.
20:07:04 With ChatGPT or Apple Intelligence.
20:07:07 Well, I put it into Safari ChatGPT, and it came up in Safari.
20:07:11 Yes, but that means you’re just going to the regular ChatGPT site. It’s not using Apple intelligence.
20:07:17 Okay, got it. Thank you.
20:07:22 Any other questions? I realized I was talking a lot.
20:07:25 Yes.
20:07:26 Privacy, uh, privacy…
20:07:29 Question, uh, you said that, uh, banks had their own
20:07:34 Privacy regulations, rules.
20:07:39 that U.S. corporations are not bound by the same kinds of rules that EU corporations are.
20:07:45 That’s correct.
20:07:46 Okay, so what I’m…
20:07:49 Wondering about is, uh…
20:07:55 organizations like hospitals and
20:07:59 My health, the online…
20:08:03 access to everybody’s…
20:08:05 individual accounts everywhere.
20:08:09 What?
20:08:07 Yes, those are not, those are not covered by privacy law, but they are covered by HIPAA.
20:08:12 Right.
20:08:14 Right.
20:08:13 Which is a health information, privacy protection act.
20:08:18 Right.
20:08:18 Now, it sounds… health insurance privacy protection act.
20:08:24 Okay.
20:08:23 That sounds like it’s a Privacy Act, but it’s really not. It’s really…
20:08:28 a health regulation.
20:08:29 And I mention that because
20:08:33 Under HIPAA.
20:08:35 The various vendors have access to your information simply because you gave access
20:08:40 To the doctor, so for example, if the doctor sends it out for.
20:08:45 lab tests, the… they’re not… they are not required to tell you what lab they send it to.
20:08:52 In Europe, they have to.
20:08:55 Because it’s not really a privacy regulation, it’s a health insurance.
20:09:01 Regulation.
20:09:04 Mm-hmm.
20:09:04 I realize I’m seeming to be picky, but
20:09:08 it’s really not a privacy regulation, in spite of the fact that that’s in the Act.
20:09:15 You can keep information away from your relatives.
20:09:19 You can keep information away. Well, as an example, this couple I know.
20:09:23 They’ve been living together for something like 30 years, and under Washington state law,
20:09:27 That’s considered a common law marriage.
20:09:29 But they could not visit their, um…
20:09:33 Their partner in the hospital because they were not married.
20:09:37 And…
20:09:38 they’re stuck. Now, that was…
20:09:41 A year and a half ago, they’re now married because they’ve decided that that was a stupid.
20:09:47 thing not to do.
20:09:54 What’s your thought on, um…
20:09:57 the app Copilot.
20:09:59 Copilot is Microsoft’s artificial intelligence agent.
20:10:05 I have used… I happen to.
20:10:08 Among other things, have two Windows machines, and please don’t ask why, but…
20:10:13 I use Copilot, but I use it
20:10:16 Mostly for…
20:10:18 Things that it was that Microsoft is doing already.
20:10:22 For things like grammar and checking, I have a tendency to
20:10:25 Not put articles in, I’d be writing something.
20:10:28 And I’d say the…
20:10:29 I’d say something, group went someplace and Copilot will pop up and say,
20:10:36 The group went someplace, but again, it’s under my control.
20:10:39 I use Copilot for that purpose. I’ve used it to make some illustrations.
20:10:45 But I tend to.
20:10:47 I tend to use.
20:10:50 Google Gemini for illustrations, that puffin.
20:10:56 illustration that I had today was done with, uh,
20:11:00 Google Gemini.
20:11:01 Copilot is okay.
20:11:04 But, uh, again.
20:11:05 Everything you feed into Copilot.
20:11:09 Microsoft uses, so…
20:11:10 I don’t give it anything confidential.
20:11:16 Okay, thanks.
20:11:22 question and this is Sidna. I still haven’t figured out how to sign in.
20:11:28 when we attend the meetings.
20:11:31 Oh.
20:11:31 I…
20:11:33 I can actually show my screen, and I’ll show you how to do that.
20:11:38 Okay.
20:11:42 And we will make this go away because we don’t need this right now.
20:11:48 Um…
20:11:49 I sent the link out in the, um…
20:11:53 Chat window, and if you click on that link, you double-click on that link, it comes to this form,
20:11:59 Oh.
20:11:58 And what you do on this form, you just fill in
20:12:03 The.
20:12:05 Yeah.
20:12:04 Your email address.
20:12:07 Your name first and last. The reason why is that sometimes people’s email addresses don’t tell me what their name is.
20:12:13 So, your first and last name, and then you check this little box, which meaning? Now, today, it’s only one meeting, so that’s only one box to check, but.
20:12:22 The, uh, the.
20:12:25 The address for this form is in the chat.
20:12:28 Uh, window and you just double-click on it and it brings up this form in your browser.
20:12:34 And it works… it works on, um…
20:12:34 Oh, okay, okay.
20:12:36 It works on a phone, it works on iPad, it works on your…
20:12:40 On your Mac.
20:12:41 Okay. Thanks. I think I did it.
20:12:45 Okay.
20:12:45 I’m going to do it.
20:12:48 Double click.
20:12:50 Any other questions?
20:12:52 No.
20:12:59 Um, something I went to…
20:13:01 tell you about thinking.
20:13:05 Our church, my church,
20:13:07 is thinking about putting in some larger monitors in our fellowship hall.
20:13:13 And if they do, I’m thinking about either having a meeting sometime this
20:13:19 This.
20:13:20 summer either at my church or at the library. Haven’t really talked to the library yet to see what they have.
20:13:27 Uh, it would probably be on a Saturday, and it’d be in the afternoon, and…
20:13:31 The reason why a Saturday afternoon is that people tend to be freeze on Saturday,
20:13:37 And a lot of people don’t like driving at night, so if we were going to have a meeting, it would be.
20:13:42 Probably in the afternoon.
20:13:44 I was thinking about, in addition to having an in-person meeting,
20:13:47 We also might have a swap meet. I have some equipment that I don’t need.
20:13:53 And I don’t want to sell it or anything like that. I would like to just give it away.
20:13:59 And.
20:14:01 If we had an in-person meeting, that’d be a place where you could bring stuff that you no longer wanted.
20:14:08 The good news, bad news about this, if nobody wants the equipment, then you still have to take it back with you.
20:14:15 You can’t just.
20:14:17 abandoned it at my church or at the library, they wouldn’t like that.
20:14:20 But that’s a thought that I have.
20:14:23 If you have any thoughts on my thought, please.
20:14:28 Write to me. And the other thing is, um, what would you like to do for our next meeting?
20:14:35 I’d like to talk about allergies. I was listening to the recordings because I have to edit them to put them up.
20:14:41 And I sniffle a lot, because I have really bad allergies. So, if any of you have a.
20:14:46 Cure for allergies, I’d appreciate that.
20:14:52 Can we send you suggestions?
20:14:54 Absolutely.
20:14:56 I’m… by the way, you sent me a question asking if I could talk about
20:15:02 passkeys. I’m reluctant to because…
20:15:06 They’re not scary, but explaining why they’re different than passwords.
20:15:11 tends to make people’s mind go poof.
20:15:14 So, if I can if I can come up with a…
20:15:18 A good way of explaining that, uh…
20:15:21 Well, we might talk about passkeys because passkeys are…
20:15:25 Our.
20:15:26 That’s the way to go for the future.
20:15:33 You’re so patient and informative.
20:15:37 Lawrence, and I just thank you so much for what you do.
20:15:41 Well, thank you for the…
20:15:42 Really appreciate you.
20:15:43 Thank you.
20:15:45 We’ll second that.
20:15:48 Keep in mind that I’m really an historian.
20:15:53 I just got employed for
20:15:56 30-some years is computer techie.
20:15:59 Um, one reason why.
20:16:01 I started, I started a career in, in, uh, computers is that
20:16:07 I bought a home computer when they first came out in 1977.
20:16:14 And I started off with.
20:16:19 Programming a mainframe, because my…
20:16:21 My girlfriend, later my spouse, talked me into it.
20:16:24 So I grew up with the history of modern computing.
20:16:28 And I use them as communications tools, and I spend a lot of time explaining to people
20:16:34 how computers work. And that…
20:16:37 Ended up being my job that I got paid for, but, uh.
20:16:42 I really am an historian. If you ever want to talk about war crimes, I know a lot about that.
20:16:48 Oh my gosh.
20:16:49 That’s what I did my master’s on, was the Tokyo war crimes trial in 1946 through 1948.
20:16:56 Yes.
20:16:58 And strangely enough,
20:17:00 Very few people have ever wanted to talk to me about it. I just don’t understand why.
20:17:07 Anything else?
20:17:09 Mm-hmm.
20:17:11 Well, I thank you, and have a pleasant evening, and I’m sorry about the, uh, internet outage.
20:17:18 Thank you, Lawrence. See you next time.
20:17:20 Yeah, good night, Laurence.
20:17:20 Good Lawrence, thank you. Bye.
20:17:21 Thank you. Thank you, Lawrence.
20:17:23 Good night.
20:17:23 It’s great.