Month: November 2016

System Integrity Protection disabled by default on SOME new MacBook Pros

Dan Uff November 18, 2016 0

Some —but not all —Touch Bar models of the new MacBook Pro are shipping with System Integrity Protection disabled, potentially exposing them to malware threats, according to discussions on Twitter.

The issue was called out by developers Jonathan Wight and Steve Troughton-Smith. The latter suggested that there seems to be no obvious trend, other than Pros with a function key row having SIP on as usual.

While Macs do have other safeguards, SIP has been on by default since OS X El Capitan, and limits root permissions —mitigating the amount of damage malware can do if it does infect a system.

Apple is allegedly aware of the problem, and likely working on a software update. Technically confident Mac owners can turn SIP back on themselves holding down Command-R when booting, releasing when a progress bar appears, then selecting Terminal from the Utilities menu in recovery mode. Entering "csrutil enable" and restarting should complete the process.

Via: AppleInsider.com

Editor's Note:
To check and see if your Mac isn protected, go into Terminal and issue the command: csrutil status

Security Firm: Apple Automatically Uploads your iPhone Call Logs to iCloud

Dan Uff November 17, 2016 0

According to a Russan security firm called Elcomsoft, CEO Vladimir Katalov, told Forbes that any user that has iCloud enabled on their iPhone are having their call-logs automatically uploaded to Apple. The logs are said to include FaceTime calls, and in the case of iOS 10, missed calls from third-party apps like Skype and WhatsApp.

iPhone owners can stop the uploads by disabling iCloud Drive, Katalov noted, but this cuts off other iCloud-related features and can stop some apps from working.

The data could potentially be useful to government agencies with warrants or other legal access. Officially, though, Apple says the only iCloud data it can provide to agencies includes email logs and content, text messages, photos, documents, contacts, calendars, bookmarks, and iOS device backups.

Apple also says it doesn't hold onto FaceTime call data for more than 30 days, but Elcomsoft said it was able to extract call logs going back over four months. Presumably, deleting a call from an iPhone's logs would also delete that from the iCloud Drive backup.

Apple mentions call histories being included in iCloud backups as part of security whitepaper, but it's likely that most people haven't seen the document.

iOS forensics expert Jonathan Zdziarski suggested to Forbes that the tracking is likely just an oversight related to the handoffs needed for Apple's calling technology, which for instance allows people to seamlessly shift between devices.

"They need to be able to sync a lot of that call data," he said. "I suspect whatever software engineer wrote that part of it probably decided to just go and stick that data in your iCloud Drive because that's kind of what it's purpose is."

Apple could theoretically add end-to-end encryption to iCloud, but this might create even more conflict with U.S. spy and law enforcement agencies, which are already upset about their inability to break into iOS devices. The company stores the keys for iCloud accounts at its U.S. datacenters, allowing them to serve up (readable) data on demand.

Since this article was published by AppleInsider.com, an Apple spokesperson had reached out to the web site and offered this statement:

"We offer call history syncing as a convenience to our customers so that they can return calls from any of their devices. Apple is deeply committed to safeguarding our customers' data. That's why we give our customers the ability to keep their data private. Device data is encrypted with a user's passcode, and access to iCloud data including backups requires the user's Apple ID and password. Apple recommends all customers select strong passwords and use two-factor authentication."

Newest version of Visual Studio works on Windows and Mac

Dan Uff November 16, 2016 0

(PC World) - Microsoft’s (MSFT) Connect developer conference kicked off Wednesday with some expected news: The next versions of the Visual Studio IDE have arrived on Windows and Mac. (Yep, you read that right.)

After a set of leaks from MSDN Magazine on Monday, the company officially confirmed Wednesday morning that it’s bestowing the Visual Studio brand on Xamarin Studio, a C# development environment for the Mac that the company acquired earlier this year when it bought the company of the same name. In addition, Microsoft’s confusingly named Visual Studio “15” has been officially renamed Visual Studio 2017 and given a release candidate at the show.

Microsoft also launched Visual Studio Mobile Center, a portal for developers to access a suite of services all aimed at making it easier to create mobile apps.

The moves are part of Microsoft’s ongoing push to expand the reach of its developer tools and improve what they’re capable of. The C# programming language and .NET frameworks are widely used, but also compete with a wide variety of other programming tools. By expanding the capabilities available to developers who already know those tools, Microsoft is making them more relevant.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

PC World reviews the Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Generation)

Dan Uff November 16, 2016 0

When I reviewed the Amazon Echo 13 months ago, I predicted that people would want one in every room. The Echo can control your home’s lighting, play music, estimate your commute time, operate a timer, answer trivia questions, read books and news bulletins to you, tell you which movies are at your local theater, and so much more. You can order a pizza from Dominoes, a ride from Uber, or virtually anything from Amazon. You’d want one in every room so you didn’t need to walk to the room it was in to use it, or yell “Alexa!” from across the house to get its attention. I’m sure Amazon loved my idea, but it was never going to happen on a broad scale at $180 a pop.

So Amazon got wise and iterated on the concept, introducing the battery-powered Echo Tap and the puck-sized Echo Dot in March 2016. But the Dot still cost $90, and the $130 Tap lacked the voice activation that made the Echo so useful. It was easy to take the Tap from room to room, but needing to push a button to get Alexa’s attention spoiled the magic.

The second-generation Echo Dot reviewed here is the best of them all—even if you buy only one. Amazon removed the original Echo’s large speaker and volume-control dial, replaced them with a chintzy speaker and a pair of buttons, and sliced the price to $50. It costs even less if you order six at once (you get one free, bringing the per-unit cost to about $42). So for $250—40 percent more than the cost of a single Echo-—you can put Alexa in just about every room. That’s exactly what I’ve done.

The Dot has the same far-field voice recognition technology, supported by seven microphones on top (six in a circle, one in the center), as the original Echo. If more than one Dot hears you say the Alexa wake word, they’ll all wake up, but only the one closest to you will respond. That prevents simple problems, such as having a cacophony of Alexas all talking at once, as well as bigger ones, like ordering one pizza and getting six delivered.

One shortcoming I’ve discovered with the Echos’ mics—I’ve tested the original and the Dot—is that they have difficulty hearing you when the TV is loud or when loud music is playing (on either the Echo itself or from other speakers in the room). When Editor-in-Chief Jon Philips compared the original Echo’s microphone performance to that of the new Google Home, he found that Google’s product was much better at filtering out ambient noise. He also reported that Google Home’s microphones delivered much better range. Deploying Echo Dots fixes the second problem, but it won’t address the first. I handle the problem by either pausing the TV or the music, or just getting closer to the Echo I want to use. Neither is a terrible inconvenience.

To read the rest of the article, click here.