Tag: Security

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Questions and Answers

by straitmacvp

For our October meeting, we had no planned program, but instead an extended Question and Answer (Q&A) session on almost anything concerning Macs, iPhones, iPads, Apple TV, etc. And we recorded it:

For a larger view, click on the YouTube logo.

URLs of items mentioned in the meeting:

Take Control Books: https://www.takecontrolbooks.com/

A discount code for Take Control Books is posted on the Discussion Boards.

Google begs Apple to change Messages: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/08/new-google-site-begs-apple-for-mercy-in-messaging-war/

Good luck with that.

Guide to Apple TV+: https://9to5mac.com/2022/10/14/apple-tv-plus-tv-shows-movies-guide/

This is exceptional: short, capsule summaries of the series or movies, complete with a video clip or trailer.

Use your iPhone as a white noise generator: https://www.theverge.com/23131327/how-to-iphone-white-noise-background-sounds-ios-15

Hidden in plain sight.

Notes from the meeting will follow.

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Questions and answers

by straitmacvp

One of our members suggested I post a link to Macworld’s 911 column. This has been an ongoing series where subscribers to the magazines ask common questions, and Macworld posts answers. The answers are well written, and (usually) very good. Here is a recent collection:

https://www.macworld.com/article/228117/your-top-questions-to-mac-911-and-some-answers.html

Sometimes the advertising gets in the way, but the writing is down to earth.

A tip: if you ever try to do something on your Mac or iPad or iPhone and can’t figure out how, back off a bit and try to think of the task more generically. In other words, don’t try and obsess over what you are trying to do at that particular moment but, rather, think of what other people might do with whatever tool you are using. Sometimes you may find that you are using the wrong tool, and another tool is a better choice. Or you might decide this is the right tool, but you are approaching the problem from the wrong perspective.

Such as: someone wrote to me a few weeks ago convinced that they had a virus. Their Mac wasn’t working, and everything was very slow. The answer was less scary and less intrusive: the hard disk was full. Not absolutely crammed, but too full to work reliably. (To even use a web browser, you need several gigabytes — sometimes tens of gigabytes — worth of free disk space). Copying stuff off to another drive freed up space, and the computer was faster and more reliable.

Administrivia

Urgent Western Digital MyBook alert

by straitmacvp

Many users have a Western Digital MyBook external drive, either for storing data or for use as a Time Machine storage unit. These units were routinely sold at Costco, BestBuy, Amazon, and other retailers, and offer lots of storage space at a low price.

However, while we recommend that everyone immediately erase and reformat any storage device they buy, before putting it to use, and not install any software that comes with the device, most people don’t do any of these things. This is proving to be a problem, as hackers have found a way to reach across the Internet to the MyBook drives, and use the custom software to wipe out all data.

You can find a discussion of the problem here:

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2021/06/mybook-users-urged-to-unplug-devices-from-internet/

What to do if you have a MyBook

If you own a Western Digital external drive, it is probably a MyBook. While the current alert is only for the MyBook Live and MyBook Duo models, the underlying software for all MyBooks is pretty much the same. Unless you are absolutely, positively certain you did erase and reformat the drive before using it, and you did not activate Western Digital’s software, you should:

  • Buy another external drive compatible with your Mac. If your Mac has USB 3.0 ports, an external USB 3.0 drive should work, regardless of manufacturer. Do not get a USB 1.1 or 2.0 drive.
  • Use Disk Utility (in your Utilities directory) to erase the drive, and then reformat the drive. Depending on which version of macOS you are using, exactly how this is presented may differ, but after erasure, you want to make sure the drive is formatted as macOS Extended.
  • After preparing your new drive, copy everything off your Western Digital MyBook to the new drive.
  • Once everything is copied, use Disk Utility to erase and reformat the MyBook. At that point, you can use the MyBook for whatever you want, including using it as a Time Machine storage.

In the words of the Mandalorian, “This is the way.” There is no simpler shortcut: you need to transfer everything off your MyBook to another drive, and completely erase and reformat your MyBook. You need to do this right now.

Note that the article mentions Western Digital considers these devices “obsolete” and they are no longer covered by Western Digital warranty or product support. It is entirely up to you to protect yourself.

Administrivia

Terms and Conditions game

by lcharters2014

At the last meeting, we talked about, among other things, Apple’s changes to their App Store and how they helped protect your privacy. To take the most controversial change, Apple changed the rules for iPhones and iPad applications, forcing the apps to explicitly ask to track your behavior.

Facebook has launched a massive lobbying and advertising assault on Apple, claiming this is anti-consumer, as it doesn’t allow Facebook to carefully craft advertisements and promotions to the user. Apple has pretty much ignored Facebook’s assault, focusing on explaining the change and pretending Facebook doesn’t exist.

But there is another avenue for privacy breeches that users often overlook: Terms and Conditions. Almost nobody reads these, but even worse, many people don’t pay any attention to the Terms and Conditions dialog boxes. So — someone wrote a game to show you how Terms and Conditions has, itself, evolved into a shell game.

https://termsandconditions.game/

Don’t be surprised if you get middling to low score.

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Apple event: Spring Loaded

by straitmacvp

Apple has sent out an invitation to attend, virtually, an event on April 20, at 10 a.m. PT. The only thing they’ve released is this logo,

Apple event: Spring loaded
Apple event: April 20, 2021

which is obviously designed to look like a spring coiled into something similar to the Apple logo.

There is also a link to a page on Apple’s website,

https://www.apple.com/apple-events/

which says nothing at all, other than inviting you to stop by on April 20 at 10 a.m.

Speculation

  • A new iPad Pro. The current iPad Pro has face recognition, several cameras, a nifty pen (that they call a Pencil and you have to pay extra to get it, but it is nifty), speech synthesis, lots of storage and RAM, etc. There isn’t much left to add except possibly: it hovers in the air! it floats in the water! you can play 3D games on it, just like in the first Star Wars movie! (Wookie not included.)
  • A new iPad mini. The iPad mini falls in a useful space between the size of an iPhone and the size of an iPad. The mini is just about the size and weight of a paperback book, and I used one of the earlier iPad minis as my reading library of choice for years.
  • Air Tags. The Find My app included on the Mac, iPhone and iPad was recently modified with a new option to find “Items.” This is sort of spelled out on an Apple documentation page, https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211331 — except that Apple (so far) has no tags or widgets that use this capability. Presumably, third-party suppliers will make such tags or widgets, but Apple might, too.
  • A new Apple TV. While the Apple TV is quite spiffy, the Year of COVID has revealed that it could be more. Maybe.
  • New Macs. So far, three computers with Apple Silicon CPUs have been released, the new Mac mini, one MacBook Pro, and a new MacBook Air. But it would make sense to add some larger MacBook Pros and iMacs and whatnot.
  • Apple Aircar. For years, industry pundits have been talking about a forthcoming Apple Car. But this is Apple; I’ve been predicting an Apple Aircar. It will fly through the air with the greatest of ease, and park in a standard driveway, no airport required. It will run on batteries, and can be recharged using a USB-C charging cable. True, it takes about a day to recharge unless you get the optional charging station. For some reason, it also offers the Apple Pencil as an option.

The Strait Macintosh User Group will meet that evening, and we will probably gossip about what was presented.