Your iOS 15 questions were answered in Mac Geek Gab 890. Have more questions? Send them in to [email protected] for a future show!
How to Change the Address Bar and Website Tinting in Safari in iOS 15
Safari in iOS 15 brought in changes to the addres bar and added website tinting. If you don’t like these changes, they are easy to reverse. Charlotte Henry shows you how.
The Return Of Pilot Pete!!
Have you watched Mac Geek Gab 891 yet? You won’t want to miss the return of one of our favorite people, Pilot Pete!
Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny Brands Apple a Putin Accomplice
Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny (pictured above) has hit out and Apple and Google. He called them “accomplices” of the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin’s regime, AppleInsider reported. It follows the recent removal of a tactical voting app from the App Store and Google Play store.
In a long series of tweets, Navalny accused Big Tech firms of capitulating. “The giants Apple and Google have complied with the Kremlin’s demands and removed our app from their stores,” he wrote. “My beloved YouTube has deleted our video, and the Telegram messenger has blocked our bot.” “I know that most of those who work at Google, Apple, etc. are honest and good people,” he continued. “I urge them not to put up with the cowardice of their bosses.”
[Image credit: Jonas Petrovas / Shutterstock.com]
iPhone 13 Review Shows Impressive Battery Results
We saw Apple executives on stage mention one or or one-and-a-half extra hours of battery with iPhone 13 models. This review proves it.
Apple was careful not to promise any specific battery life on the new iPhones. I think that’s because of 5G. Depending on 5G frequency and signal quality, the battery life you get can be much shorter than you see here—and the 5G situation is so confusing across different carriers and countries that I don’t think Apple was willing to make a generalization. Of course, you can always turn off 5G.
iPhone 13: How Cinematic Mode Was Made
Cinematic mode was one of the big new features in the iPhone 13. In a new interview with Techcrunch, Apple VP Kaiann Drance and Human Interface Team designer Johnnie Manzari explain how it was made.
“We knew that bringing a high quality depth of field to video would be magnitudes more challenging [than Portrait Mode],” says Drance. “Unlike photos, video is designed to move as the person filming, including hand shake. And that meant we would need even higher quality depth data so Cinematic Mode could work across subjects, people, pets, and objects, and we needed that depth data continuously to keep up with every frame. Rendering these autofocus changes in real time is a heavy computational workload.” The A15 Bionic and Neural Engine are heavily used in Cinematic Mode, especially given that they wanted to encode it in Dolby Vision HDR as well. They also didn’t want to sacrifice live preview — something that most Portrait Mode competitors took years to ship after Apple introduced it.
Inside Story: How the Mafia is Getting Involved in Cybercrime
On Monday, police in Europe announced the arrests of over 100 people connected to the Mafia. They were using hackers to support efforts in traditional crime.
The authorities said that the organized crime groups employed hackers who were using phishing, social engineering attacks, and SIM swapping, as well as sending malware to victims with the goal of taking over their bank accounts and stealing their money.
This operation highlights a new trend: traditional organized crime groups, such as the Italian Mafia and Camorra, are now dabbling in cybercrime to support their traditional offline activities, according to Italian and Spanish police investigators involved in the crackdown who spoke with Motherboard.
AirPods Market Share Dropped From 41 Percent to 29 Percent
Mashable‘s Alex Perry writes how AirPods revolutionized the wireless earbud space but is currently falling behind.
AirPods market share dropped from 41 percent at the end of 2019 to 29 percent at the end of 2020, according to research firm Counterpoint. That’s still a substantial lead over everyone else, but it does point to what happened in the more than two years since the last AirPods update: Other companies made cheaper and better entry-level wireless earbuds, and consumers took notice.
Photo by Lala Azizli on Unsplash
'ShadowDragon' Helps Michigan State Police Surveil its Citizens
An investigation on Thursday shows how Michigan State Police use software called ShadowDragon to collect online data. This helps them identify “persons of interest.”
By providing powerful searches of more than 120 different online platforms and a decade’s worth of archives, the company claims to speed up profiling work from months to minutes. ShadowDragon even claims its software can automatically adjust its monitoring and help predict violence and unrest. Michigan police acquired the software through a contract with another obscure online policing company named Kaseware for an “MSP Enterprise Criminal Intelligence System.”
Once a Upon a Time, Phones Were Phones. Then the iPhone Came Along
Vox has launched the newest season of its podcast Land of the Giants. In the first episode they talked to Apple executives about how the iPhone changed everything.
True story. Once upon a time, mobile phones were … phones. You used them to make phone calls. Maybe you’d send some texts, if you were kind of advanced. The iPhone changed all that. And it changed more than the way we used phones: It changed Apple, and it changed culture, and it overturned industries and created new ones. And all of that happened really, really fast: Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone just 14 years ago. But it’s already almost impossible to imagine what life was like before that.
Mozilla Adds Facebook Messenger, Houseparty, and WeChat to 'Privacy Not Included' Guide
In a review of the privacy features of 21 popular video call apps, Mozilla said Apple’s FaceTime is safe, while WeChat, Houseparty, and Facebook Messenger are not.
Says Jen Caltrider, *Privacy Not Included Lead at Mozilla: Video call apps are now a routine part of millions of people’s lives. And even when the pandemic recedes, that won’t change. In this new world, people deserve to know if the apps they’re using everyday respect their privacy — or if they’re snooping on them. While video call apps may feel more intimate than social media platforms, there’s still a ton of data being collected, stored, and shared. For that reason, users should assume that anything they say on a video call app could be made public.
macOS Finder Bug Lets Certain Files Run Arbitrary Commands
Researcher Park Minchan reported a bug within macOS Finder that lets certain files execute commands. It affects all versions of macOS up to Big Sur.
A vulnerability in the way macOS processes inetloc files causes it to run commands embedded inside, the commands it runs can be local to the macOS allowing the execution of arbitrary commands by the user without any warning / prompts.
Originally, inetloc files are shortcuts to an Internet location, such as an RSS feed or a telnet location; and contain the server address and possibly a username and password for SSH and telnet connections; can be created by typing a URL in a text editor and dragging the text to the Desktop.
Jon Stewart Explains Why New Apple TV+ Series is Not ‘The Daily Show’
Jon Stewart is the cover star in the latest edition of The Hollywood Reporter [available with an Apple News+ subscription]. In an extensive interview, he explains why his new biweekly series coming to Apple TV+ Is very much not The Daily Show.
I like that this is more of a conversation. It’s probably a terrible pitch for the show — “it’s The Daily Show, but less entertaining” — but also maybe more complete. And people will ask, “How are you going to live up to expectations?” Well, I’m not, and I never have. That’s not why we do it. We make things, and sometimes those things disappoint people and sometimes they really like them.
How Many Times Was The 'Ted Lasso' Intro Music Heard at The Emmys?
If you were watching the Emmys on Sunday you probably noticed the Ted Lasso intro music was played a lot. Luckily, Vulture kept score and shared exactly how many times viewers heard that now-famous “yeaaaah.”
Apple TV+’s lovable transatlantic football comedy Ted Lasso went into this year’s Emmy Awards ceremony as a record-breaker, with an unprecedented 20 nominations across various categories. But what the Emmys maybe failed to realize when they heaped those noms upon Ted Lasso was that every time one was announced during the ceremony, some anonymous wielder-of-the-aux (Reggie Watts, perhaps?) played the same few seconds of the show’s music — namely, the most famous yeeeeeeaahh to start off a theme song this side of CSI. So how many times did we hear that ripper of a note by *checks notes* Marcus Mumford? Really???
Two Apple Watch Nightstand Tips You Should Know
Check out these two quick tips for your Apple Watch Nightstand, then watch Mac Geek Gab 889 for more!
Claris Brings 'ECF Records Manager' to K-12 Schools
On Tuesday, Claris International announced the general availability of ECF Records Manager. It’s an app created to help K-12 schools and libraries meet the requirements of a new US$7 billion federal program to support remote learning.
The FCC’s ECF Program provides more than $7 billion in funding to help K-12 schools and libraries address the homework gap by purchasing tools and services that support remote learning. This program also requires schools and libraries to keep specific device or equipment data as well as user, usage and service information and “any and all” records related to applications for funding and reimbursement payments. Required data and documents must be kept for at least 10 years.
70% of People use the Same Password for Multiple Websites
A report of a survey (n=1,041) reveals that 70% of respondents said they reuse the same password for multiple websites.
The numbers above from our recent survey of 1,041 adults age 18 or older in the US say it all. A full 70% of the respondents admitted they use the same password for more than one thing—sometimes (25%), most of the time (24%), or all of the time (21%). If you don’t know why that’s bad, read on: When someone gets your password for just one service, they have your password for everything. Since most online accounts assign your email address as a username, it doesn’t take Mr. Robot to crack that code.
One of our recurring tips for Security Friday is to use a password manager. This helps you easily create unique, secure passwords for anything.
Here's Why iPhone 13 120Hz ProMotion Display Matters
Rebecca Isaacs has written a helpful explainer about the iPhone 13’s 120Hz display and why it matters for customers.
One of the major selling points of this technology is that it allows you to dynamically vary refresh rates based on what you’re doing. For instance, basic web browsing can be handled at an undemanding 10Hz to 60Hz, while gaming can take advantage of the full of 120Hz. The Apple Watch can even hit a low of 1Hz with the always-on screen.
Crypto Miners Most Detected Malware Type in 2021
A report on Tuesday found that crypto-mining malware was the most detected malware type in the first half of 2021.
The most active cryptocurrency miner in the first half of 2021 was MalXMR, with 44,587 detections. MalXMR is a crypto-mining malware that exploited EternalBlue for propagation and abused Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). During the infection, high CPU utilization can be noticed with powershell.exe or schtasks.exe.
Pluggin a service I use: NextDNS. There’s a toggle you can turn on to “Prevent the unauthorized use of your devices to mine cryptocurrency.”
Alaska Health Service Attacked by Nation-State Cyber Attacker
The Department of Health and Social Service (DHSS) disclosed that it was the victim of a sophisticated cyberattack from a nation-state level actor.
Citing an investigation conducted together with security firm Mandiant, DHSS officials said the attackers gained access to the department’s internal network through a vulnerability in one of its websites and “spread from there.”
Officials said they believe to have expelled the attacker from their network; however, there is still an investigation taking place into what the attackers might have accessed.
Jay Z Makes Huge Investment in Smart Home Tech
Rapper, songwriter, businessman Jay-Z has reportedly made a huge investment in smart home tech recently. Through Marcy Venture Partners, Jay-Z sent $110 million into Wyze Labs’ coffers. That brings the smart home device maker’s total funding to date to $146 million. The smart home tech company, founded in 2017 by Amazon veterans, has more than 300 employees. The work Wyze is doing with AI and camera technology will definitely. benefit from the extra cash.
“We are doubling down and investing heavily to build world-class artificial intelligence into our camera products,” Wyze co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer Dave Crosby told GeekWire in a recent piece. “Just in the last year, our AI team has built person detection, vehicle detection, package detection and pet detection into our cameras. “Right now we have AI features in the works that we truly think will be game-changing for any camera, let alone one that costs less than $36.”
Grain Cooperative 'New Cooperative Inc' Hit with BlackMatter Ransomware Attack
Cyber gang BlackMatter has attacked Iowa-based grain cooperative New Cooperative Inc with ransomware, successfully shutting down its systems.
The attack occurred on or around Friday, according to Allan Liska, senior threat analyst at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future Inc. The ransomware gang, which goes by the name BlackMatter, is demanding a $5.9 million ransom, Liska said.
New Cooperative confirmed that they had been attacked and said they had contacted law enforcement and were working with data security experts to investigate and remediate the situation.
Here's How Much Your Car Knows About You
Jon Callas, the Electric Frontier Foundation’s director of technology projects, explained what data newer cars, especially Tesla, collect from you.
“All of these things are at least theoretically able to be logged,” cautioned Callas. “And there is a port that you can connect something to — and there’s lots of hardware and software that you can connect to your car and get all sorts of telemetry information about how the car is running — and just like there are people who hack their computers there are people who hack their cars.”
The Kingston Data Traveler Max Flash Drive
Here’s an awesome product review of Kingston’s Data Traveler Max Flash Drive from Mac Geek Gab 889 . Speeds are 900MBps Read, 800MBps Writes, prices: 256GB – US $91.00, 512GB – $153.00, 1TB – $262.00.