Steven Hawking no longer with us : (

How good is “Captcha” at stopping Rogue log-ins to any site(s)?!
V1 Captcha Shut Down…(reading road-signs and street names)
V2 Long Live That! Solve some Puzzles and Google will Remember you are NOT a Robot!
(Thanks for your patience, Alex!)

Air Gapped Security? Wazzat?
EternalBlue- the Exploit. Wazzat?!
WannaCry Ransomeware- SMB Defect & WinXP
CryptoMining Viruses and JavaScript, Etc.

Old IMac Linux– Whooppeee!
CALIBRE– Ebook Read/Convert:

WordPress: a Stable set of Plugins..
Google ReCaptha by BestWebSoft.. etc.
Yoast..

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >

For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

Both Glenn and Paul were in the studio today.

It was a rainy day in Nevada City and Glenn reminded those who were driving to turn on their headlights. If the windshield wipers are on, a California State law requires the headlights be on too. Daytime running lights don’t count.

Students were in the studio today. 24 of them from a combined 5th & 6th grade class were there to see how a radio station worked. Katie came to the mic to read the station ID and others were briefly interviewed. Hudson was impressed by the CD collection. Glenn said that the CDs were being digitized for easier access to the music, eliminating the need to handle the discs.

Glenn said there are KVMR apps for both Android & iPhone. You should be able to find the links to them on the front page at kvmr.org.
<The link to the Android app makes it a bit difficult to find. I found it more directly by going here>

Next it was Aden who came to the mic. He noticed the abundance of rooms at the station. Glenn said the studio doors are usually open during the Zen Tech broadcast to make it seem more inviting and to capture the ambient sounds (as long as they’re not too loud).

Lastly, it was Persephone who took a turn at the mic. Her interest in radio stations centered on listening to county music

Glenn reminded listeners that they can listen to this show again at archives.kvmr.org.

There have been changes to the Zen Tech website as well as the KVMR site. The Zen Tech website and KVMR now use secure certificates to keep the traffic between your computer and the website from being intercepted.

Also, when you login to the Zen Tech site, you have to prove you’re not a robot by completing the captcha challenge. This feature is provided by Google and has changed recently, version 1 is no longer available. You now have to use version 2, which involves identifying objects in photographs. You have to click on all photos that have cars in them, for instance. With this version of the captcha it’s hard to know if you’ve clicked the right photos and it keeps sending you more photos to identify. <I hate it, and it’s the reason I was so late in posting the last show notes. It may not be the last time that happens.>

Paul went on to say that once you pass the captcha test, a cookie is set on your computer, which is then valid on other websites that use version 2 to let you pass thru without the hassle of the captcha. He said that’s the reason they made it so hard. If you think you’re solving the captcha wrong, chances are it’s ok and that the system is just putting you thru the paces.

The captcha system Paul uses for the Zen Tech site is a plugin for WordPress, which runs the site. The plugin is called Google Recaptcha by BestWebSoft. There are several captcha systems he could have chosen and one of the things that helps him decide is how many time has it been downloaded. He’ll favor the plugin that’s been downloaded most often. Obviously, he also checks for compatibility for the version of WordPress he’s using — there were several in the last few months.

Paul started to talk about compiling site maps “so that Google will know where our site was”. The popular pluging for that is ‘Yoast’. It’s free and it analyzes the site to see how palatable it is for search engines like Google. It sounded like he didn’t say all that he wanted when he suddenly changed the subject to thanking supporters of KVMR.

Glenn continued by thanking the contributors and underwriters and he thanked the members who support KVMR thru their donations. <If you’d like to become a member, you can call the station at 530-265-9073 or go to kvmr.org>

The guys noted the passing of Stephen Hawking, a famous mathematical physicist.
<A brief history of Stephen Hawking’s discoveries.
Stephen Hawking: pop culture icon>

Glenn has been educating himself in using Word and Excel recently. He said there’s a lot more to Excel than just spreadsheets. One of his projects is creating name badges. He found that the border color can change depending on what is entered in certain fields. He was using the 2013 version of Excel but thought that earlier versions might be capable of the same thing.

Paul mentioned the possibility of getting malicious code when someone gives you a Word <or Excel> document. The document may have macros (mini programs), which enhance the functionality but can be made to do strange things. Your Excel application should warn you that there are macros in the document you’re about to open, and ask you if the macros are to be executed.

The macros are in English and Paul said you can look thru them to see if the words like ‘delete’ are present or a website is mentioned, which might hint at something malicious. Glenn said the main Excel file has the extension .xlsx and the macro files are .xlsm. Otherwise, just be aware where you get your document and what it’s supposed to be doing.

A long time ago there was defect in Windows that would allow code to be executed if you clicked on a .gif file — “the picture viewer could be tricked into overrunning the code.” The .gif picture file could be longer than what it was meant to be and code could be stuck on the end, which would then cause what was called “arbitrary code execution”. Adobe .pdf files have had a similar problem. And the worst of all have been .swf, Shock Wave Flash files, which exploit defects in the Flash player.

Next, Paul talked about crytocurrency viruses. A lot of computer processing is needed to manage cryptocurrency like Bitcoin. So someone came up with the idea of using the computers you or I have to help out — to distribute the processing out to the computers on the internet. The virus will use your computer’s spare time to do a small fraction of the processing that would otherwise require a huge array of computers. Paul reasoned that it shouldn’t use more then 50% of your computer’s time, otherwise you’ll suspect something’s going on.

Paul found out how such a virus can get on your computer. It appears that some Windows machines still have a flaw despite all of the recent patching. The flaw is called Eternal Blue that exists in the “networking stack”. It was first developed by the NSA and is now used by the cryptocurrency miners and also by the ransomware Wannacry virus.

Microsoft came out with a patch for Eternal Blue. If you have Windows XP and are keeping it off the internet for security reasons, you can download the patch to a flash drive and then plug the flash drive into the XP machine to update it. You should also have an updated anti-virus program to protect it from compromised flash drives.
<Further info from Microsoft.>

Glenn invited to call with their questions and comments at 530-265-9555. And they can send email to zen at kvmr dot org.

Paul has a Kindle app for his Android tablet for reading books and such. And though it can read .pdf files, it’s pretty rudimentary. So he discovered a free app called Calibre, which is an ebook reader and converter that runs on a PC or Mac. It can convert a .pdf file into a Word document, which you can then edit. In fact it can convert between 20 different formats, including..mobi, the native format for the Kindle.

Calibre has a bit of a learning curve and the interface is clunky, but it’s a far better program than he first thought. It also lets you subscribe to various free magazines, news sources, periodicals and documents. And it comes with a list of websites where you can get all of this free stuff

Caroline called. She has an iPhone 4 and keeps getting the error message “Can not get mail. The mail server ‘IMAP Gmail.com’ is not responding. Verify that you have entered the correct account info into mail settings.”
– Paul said the email app on your old phone is out of date for what Gmail expects. Google has started imposing a a more stringent authorization scheme called OAUTH.
– Use the Safari browser to go to Gmail and get your mail. Though eventually Safari will become out of date and fail to access the mail.
– It’s not obvious, but there is a setting in Gmail to permit less secure authentication. But then you’ll get warnings saying something like ‘less secure applications are accessing your account’ <referring to your email app>.
– Get a new iPhone.
– Gmail is the least hacked mail service and this problem is the price you ‘pay’ for more security.

Last Updated 12:59 AM 3-15-2018

Hello!

Ryan is In the Studio Today!
https://www.freecodecamp.org/

https://github.com/

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >

For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

The intro & outro music was by Pentatonix.

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today.

Glenn was a bit late coming into the studio because he had a problem with his Canon MX922 printer, He didn’t put the ink cartridge in quite right and it got stuck. He had to call tech support to get it resolved. The printer was under warranty, but he didn’t even have to verify that with them.

The rest of the show was an interview with Ryan Trauntvein who is part of the Github enterprise and he told us what it’s all about. Git is the guts of Github and git is a derogatory word in England that refers to someone who makes stupid mistakes. Github is a website where you can collaboratively work out your mistakes, Paul quipped.

Ryan said Git is a version control system and Github is a host <the website> for version control using Git. It’s a way for 2 or more people working on something, like writing a computer program, to prevent changes made by one person from being lost when another person makes changes to another version of that program.

The old way of doing this is to allow only one person to “check out” a file and work on it, thereby not allowing anyone else to work on it until it’s checked back in. With Git each person can work on their own copy at the same time and, when the file is sent back up to the server, the choice is made about how to merge the two (or more) versions. It’s not just for writing software, it can be generalized for use on many collaborative projects.

For instance, in writing a novel, if 2 people edited a paragraph, Git will highlight changes made by each editor while noting who made which changes. It will then be up to the editors (or project managers) to decide which changes to keep or delete.

Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux, also created Git. When Linux was created, the version control system he used was called Bit Keeper and it was proprietary, so he created Git.

You can create a free account at Github. You don’t need to download anything to your computer, it can be run from their webpage using their editor. If for instance you want to work on a novel, you create a project on the website and proceed to create sections for your chapters. Other collaborators on your project will than have to first create an account on Github and be invited to contribute to your novel. Alternatively, there are desktop applications available that can be used for collaboration. Collaborators can be restricted to work on just a certain portion of the project, like just a particular chapter of a novel.

Many of the projects on Github are open source. Of those let you only look at the contents of the project. Some, however, let you make changes without being formally invited to the project. The changes you make will create a ‘fork’ of the original project and be kept separate from it.

Later, your fork of a project can be submitted to the original project with a ‘poll request’. Those running the original project can then look at the changes you’ve made and make suggestions on how you can improve your fork. Eventually, your fork may be merged with the original project.

Paul mentioned another open source repository called Source Forge.

Github is a for-profit enterprise. If you are creating a non-profit project, Github is free to use, as long as you keep it open to the public. If you want to close it to the public, then you’ll have to pay to use Github.

Paul asked Ryan if musicians could use Github to work on their music. There are a number of music projects, Ryan said. One is called Sonic Pie. Images & 3-D printing models also have their own projects

Paul then asked if Github keeps track of all the changes made on a project. Ryan said there are different ways to go back and compare parts of a project as they’ve changed over time.

A project with plain text is easy for Github to keep track of, but what if the collaborators use something like Microsoft Word to create the content? Ryan said that Github can only display a limited number of formats online, and the rest has to be sent to the collaborators for display on their own computers.

On a related topic, Paul mentioned the meetup event that happened yesterday at Quietech Associates in Grass Valley called the Nevada County Free Code Camp. They have a Facebook group. And you can find them on Github if you search for Nevada County Free Code Camp, where you can see their repository.

There are “mini modules” thru which you can progress when learning programming at Free Code Camp, which is a global organization. There are 3 areas of certification: front-end web development, data visualization and back-end development. The entire free learning experience is covered in 400.

The certifications offered are for skills that are widely used in industry. There are thousands of testimonials from people who’ve gotten jobs after going thru the program.

Paul wondered where the big demand for jobs is, Ryan said there’s a big demand for documentation and, perhaps, back-end development (cloud services).

Glenn said that if you go to freecodecamp.org and click on ‘map’ in the upper right-hand corner, it lists the various projects.

Paul asked what sort of [Github] projects there are for non-profit organizations. Ryan thought that modernizing what they already do would be helpful — things like data visualization or mobile apps. And many organizations need a membership database, Paul added.

Glenn asked how one should prepare themselves to attend a Free Code Camp meetup. Ryan said there’s usually an initial short talk on something like a coding topic or how a company has been using a software product. Then there’s a freeform class where you can immediately start learning and where people can help you thru challenges. <Bring your laptop was implied.>

Paul said you can find various meetups in your area by going the meetup.com and search on your geographic location.

Every Thursday there’s a meeting of Coffee and Code which is put on by the Nevada County Hackers meetup group, a spin-off of Free Code Camp. It’s more of a heads-down working session.

Glenn asked if Free Code Camp is for people who want to develop mobile apps. Ryan wasn’t sure but thought there are a number of people who have that interest. He thought that’s something that will be addressed in the future.

On the other hand, a lot of the design done at Free Code Camp is mobile friendly. The term for that is ‘responsive design‘. This is where the website will display differently based on the device you’re using — it will to fit better if it determines you’re using a small screen. The Zen Tech web site is like that. WordPress, the content management system it uses, makes it display properly.

If you’d like to program apps for the iPhone and iPad you can get the free Xcode developer platform and run it on a Mac, Paul said. It also lets you collaborate on a program with Github using the ‘check out’ ‘check in’ method. If you then want to put your completed app into the Apple App Store, it will cost you $100.

The best way to reach Ryan…
– On the meetup website.
– On Facebook
– On a Github-related chat site called Gitter.
– Or come to one of the meetups.
<Other info about him…
At Github, here and with his picture here.
– On Twitter>

Listeners were invited to write to the guys with questions or comments, even those they’d like to be forwarded to Ryan: zen at kvmr dot org

Paul closed with this thought: Education is when you learn more and more about less and less until you know everything in the world about nothing at all.

Last Updated 4:25 PM 3-1-2018

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >

For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

The intro music was by Pentatonix.

Both Glenn and Paul were in the studio today.

Glenn thanked listeners & supporters of KVMR. <If you’d like to become a member, you can call the station at 530-265-9073 or go to kvmr.org.>

Glenn was given a 9″ tablet made by Digital Reins recently. It runs the Kit Kat operating system — version 4.2.2 <but their webpage says it 4.4>. He said it’s kind of slow and that he might add an external SD memory card (up to 32gig) to it. You can get it at Amazon for about $100.
<This might be the tablet>

He said it sometimes displays the message “cannot start android.google.(something) upgrade”. It seem to be trying to do something in the background, but can’t.

Paul said people should keep in mind that products you buy to experiment or have fun with may not be adequate for your need to get work done. He’s cautious about buying new off-brand products. Brand-name products that are similar can cost twice as much, but that doesn’t mean you get twice the performance.

There are various benchmarks <apps> you can get to check network performance. video rendering, etc.

Off-brand manufacturers get permission from Google to use the Android operating system without having to pay a royalty. Google expects to make up for it when people come to Google for resources and products — apps, email, media, etc. That will give Google the opportunity to gather information about the users.

You can learn more about your tablet by going to Settings -> About. Toward the top you’ll see the model number. Glenn’s tablet shows it’s model m920. Paul said the company may have put the firmware made for a different model with the same chipset into this tablet. He speculated that might be the reason Glenn was getting the error message.

Paul went on to say you can upgrade such tablets. There is a hacker community that will offer you recompiled images <of the operating system> that you can put on the flash card. You can then upgrade the OS from the flash card.

The cheaper tablets have a more reflective display because they don’t use an anti-glare coating, Paul noted. And several years ago cheap tablets would have a resistive display, which is less responsive to finger movement. This type of display is what you’ll find on GPS devices. The preferred type is capacitive display.

Taking tablets apart can be tricky. Paul bought a tool that looks like a pair of plastic tongs with suckers on them. You’re supposed to wet the suckers and put one on the front and one on the back of the tablet and squeeze the tool. If you patiently exert a fixed amount of force, eventually the glue will give way and the two halves of the tablet will come apart. You can speed up the process by using a hot air gun or hair drier but be careful not to apply too much heat. The glue will start to loosen at about 160 degrees F.

If you venture into upgrading your tablet, you’ll notice that newer versions of Android don’t demand much more from the hardware. The current version of Android is 7. And you shouldn’t have much trouble of installing most of the common apps on an older tablet.

Paul said most of the apps you would need would be able to run on version 4.2, so why would you want to upgrade? One reason is better advantage can be taken of the hardware resources. For example, Google made version 7.1 more responsive to touch.

Talk turned to cord cutting. Until recently, the content you got over the internet tended to be prerecorded, like Youtube. Now there’s Google Live, which lets you watch live TV relays of sports, political events, news broadcasts, etc.
<Maybe its Youtube TV
Engadget article
The app for it.>

Glenn’s experience was that he watched only a small fraction of what was available thru his cable subscription. Then he got the least expensive package from Direct TV called the Family Pack, which gave him something like 28 or 48 channels. But it was still kind of pricey. He’s intrigued by the internet channels but thinks the cost can still add up by the time you subscribe to enough services to meet your viewing desires. Glenn’s had some success bargaining with cable companies for better rates by claiming he can’t afford to pay more than the introductory rate he started with, and then settle for a marginal increase in his fee.

Steve Baker entered the studio to give an update on the shooting in a Florida high school. There are a number of fatalities — one source said 14 dead. The gunman is in custody.

Paul said there is feature in Google Maps to find the distance between 2 points in a straight line (as the crow flies) rather than driving distance. He thought the feature is available on the mobile app for Google Maps, too.

If you use your computer to go to Google Maps, you can discover other features you might not have been aware of. Google Earth, Street View are now integrated into Google Maps.

In the upper left corner of Street View is an option to see a particular street view from the past — different instances of that view photographed over time. Metro areas get photographed more often.

Glenn reminded listeners that they can call in with their questions &amp; comments: 530-265-9555.

Glenn was impressed by the scenery of the opening ceremony from the Olympics and recommended listeners check out the recorded videos, wherever they can be found on the internet — maybe on Youtube.

Paul thought people might like to know how to watch the Olympics online for free. If you signed up at Google Live, you can watch for free during the 30-day trial period. After that it’s a $35/mo subscription. Otherwise, he hasn’t found any good options to watch the Olympics for free.

There was some chitchat about Elon Musk & Space X. There was mention of the recent launch of the Falcon Heavy and how the boosters do a soft landing on a barge.
<Watch video of the launch and landings if you missed it live earlier, or if you just want to watch a rerun.>

Douglas called. A mouse ate the fuel injection wires in his car. He thought a car would have to be parked for a long time before mice can get to it. He uses his car often and the mice needed less than 13 hours to do the damage. It cost $1500 to $2000 in repairs because the engine had to be partially disassembled to get to the wires. When the tow truck came for the car, the driver said <maybe jokingly> that he should put a bar of Irish Spring under the hood because the smell will keep them away. It didn’t help that in 2012 the auto makers complied with European laws that demanded the wire insulation be biodegradable and, perhaps more attractive to mice.

Glenn related the story of how Ivory soap was made to float. One of the vat tenders accidentally let it go too long and it got too much air in it. First thought to be an error, consumers were impressed.

Paul’s humorous contribution was about a workman at a factory that made glasses who fell into a vat of molten glass. The news headlines: glass worker makes a spectacle of himself.

Douglas also said that mint oil and the sonic devices you plug into a wall socket also keep mice away.

Paul mentioned a local company called Sonic Technology that discovered a way to modulate ultra sound in such a way that it drives rodents away and they don’t get used to it.

Adding to what was said before, Paul said you don’t have to drop your cable TV subscription before you experiment with the alternatives. You can get a Roku box for an “Android TV unit”, which he just bought for himself for $28. <He didn’t give a model number of the Roku.>

Robin called. She thought Douglas said menthol would keep the mice away. Glenn clarified by saying it was mint oil.

She also asked about where to have her broken computer looked at.
– Locally there’s Rod’s Computers.
– She was asked to email the guys to get a reply for other repair shops.
– Call the shop in advance to see if there’s a charge to determine if it’s worth repairing. Understandably, shops generally have a service minimum.
– If you want to recycle it, that’s usually free. Take the hard drive out first to protect your personal info. The best way to get rid of it is to take a hammer to it <or keep the drive & put it into your next computer.>

Last Updated 12:47 AM 2-15-2018

A lost dog notice…
A male Queensland Heeler named Orion last seen in the Dobbins and Challenge area without a collar. If you have info, call Adam at 530-675-9403

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >

For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.

The intro & outro music was by Pentatonix.

Paul was in the studio today. Glenn called in.

At the start, KVMR’s program director Steve Baker talked with Pascal of yubanet.com about horrific auto accident on highway 20.

A tow truck and a fuel tanker had a head-on collision near the junction of highway 20 and I80. At the time of this announcement, highway 20 was closed between Nevada City and the junction, except for citizens of Cascade Shores & the town of Washington. There’s no estimated time when the highway will reopen. Pascal speculated that it will be closed overnight. You can get updates at yubanet.com.

Paul thought the technology that went into the making of the Pentatonix video showcased their talent well and paraphrased a quote by saying ‘the best technology is indistinguishable from magic’. He pointed listeners to wikiquote.com for the source of his quotes.

Glenn invited listeners to write with their questions and comments to zen at kvmr dot org

The guys commented about the weather. Glenn said that, unlike last year, there hasn’t been as much precipitation and that we may have an early spring.

Paul shared with us the source for the news he reads. In the US there’s therecord.com and from the UK it’s therecord.co.uk <this doesn’t go anywhere, maybe he meant the Daily Record, I dunno.> Both sites are run by the same people. He said the UK site gives Eurocentric news and the US site gives tongue-in-cheek and unusual tech news.

Looking back at the show notes from last week, Paul continued talking about the Meltdown & Spectre flaws. He said that there has been patch by Microsoft to disable a previous patch for the problem, when it was determined that it caused some machines running Windows 7, 8.1 and 10 to reboot unexpectedly.

Paul said he’s seen the rebooting problem affecting a couple of his clients. He had to be quick on the keyboard to get into safe mode on those machines. And even then, there was a problem because the faulty patch expressed itself, even in safe mode. “You have to get to the point where it says go back to last known good configuration,” he said. He didn’t go into details.

Don’t worry too much about it, Paul said. Just be cautious of popup windows <in your browser> telling you something like ‘click here to fix your problem,’ much of the time they’re bogus.
<Though mentioned during the last show (1-24-18), there’s much more about Meltdown and Spectre in the 1-10-18 show notes.>

On 1-22-18 Intel told customers not to install one of the security updates that it had issued, as the patch was causing even more problems. He didn’t elaborate.

Paul noted that the Mac operating system had name change. It used to be OSX and is now called Apple OS. He said he religiously does the recommended Apple updates and recently updated to version 10.13.3 of High Sierra. He then noticed that 2 smaller fixes were issued, but they didn’t change the version number. It’s the first time he’s seen that happen. Everything seems to be working ok.

When Apple sends out Mac updates, not everybody gets them at once, that would be a strain on Apple’s servers. Doing updates this way also makes it easier to catch and correct a bad update.

Paul said software goes thru different stages of rollout — alpha release, beta release and release candidates (RC1, RC2…). Microsoft no longer releases service packs for their Windows 10. They want to make Windows 10 the last Windows operating system. But what goes on under the hood is a different story. There have been “2 or 3 very substantial rollouts of large chunks of software which performed an under-the-hood upgrade.” He compared it to taking out the engine and giving you a new engine, while you weren’t looking.

The Sep 2017 rollout of the Windows 10 Creator’s Edition caused some people to suffer from machines that “blacked out, continually rebooted or didn’t go anywhere”. Paul speculated that a fix for the Intel bug was part of Creator’s Edition and that it caused the problem.

Paul pointed out that these days it’s far easier to find information and easier to go wrong. Right and wrong are concepts that can vary in meaning. There’s wrong reasoning, wrong information and wrong outcomes. You can get to the right conclusion with the wrong reasoning, it happens in science. You can argue in a faulty way, which are fallacies in logic, in order to convince other people.

On Facebook, people can be convinced of the truth of some news depending on whether they like it or not. I think what Paul was getting at is don’t be quickly swayed by emotions, things that are true have a way of sticking around.

Paul talked about an elderly friend who tried to find the Geek Squad, the tech team from Best Buy, on Google. He called the number he thought belonged to them and they seemed to pass themselves off convincingly. He ended up sending them $700 for subscription for technical service. Bottom line is being careful about search results. Scammers have ways to get their ads placed high in the search results. Be careful what personal information you provide when you’re not absolutely sure they are legit. Be aware that calling an 800 number will reveal your phone number even if you have number blocking.

Glenn said Marilyn wrote in asking about which security protocol she should choose for her internet router. She asked about WEP, WPA and WPA2. Paul said these protocols are used when you connect to wireless networks. They encrypt user name, password and the data that is sent/received between the computer and a router.

The oldest is WEP (Wired Equivalency Protocol). It would use a key that came from a limited set of characters — 1 thru 9 and a,b,c,d. It’s generally not used anymore.

Then came the more secure WPA (Wifi Protected Access) and later WPA2. Paul suggested using WPA2. Go into your router and set it to use WPA2, at least. Also get the latest firmware upgrade for your router.

WEP is insecure and the data that is transferred between computer and router can be spied on. The data that travels between your router and a website can’t be looked at to any degree of usefulness because it is encrypted. <I think he meant to say that this is true if the URL in the address bar begins with https:, not http:> If you’re visiting your bank, a hacker won’t see the data going thru your router.

But some stuff is visible. “Not least is the fact that the second flaw can redirect the website. So when you think you’re typing in mynevadacounty.com you may actually be going to hackersdomain.net, hidden to you and shown on the screen the correct way”. <It wasn’t clear what he meant by ‘second flaw’, maybe the Spectre flaw, and that it may display what you type in the address bar but take you somewhere else> What to do about it? Upgrade the firmware or don’t do anything that’s really sensitive over wireless.

Even very basic sites are starting to use secure certificates. For example, if you go to speedof.me, you’re directed to a secure website. This a site to test the speed of your internet connection, not one where you’ll be typing in personal info, but it’s made secure nonetheless. “However, you may type things in there that could be useful to somebody…Enough information is triggered by visiting the website…that it could be useful to somebody intercepting it”.

If you have a WordPress site or a site with your own domain name, it’s suggested you get a secure certificate. It used to be a lengthy process but is now free. You can get a low-grade SSL certificate at letsencrypt.org. They will give you a certificate but they won’t validate who you say you are. It just means the traffic between you and a website will be secure even if your “router is flawed, even if you have this other defect” (Spectre).

Paul backtracked to say more about Spectre. “One of the defects in Spectre will allow people to see what happens on your machine after encrypted connections are going on.” Spectre doesn’t care about your router or secure websites, “at some point on your screen something readable was visible, which was the balance in your bank account, your account number or any of that stuff. If you could see it on your screen, it could be grabbed out of cache memory and subverted.” <Spectre and a secure connection are separate issues, as I understand it.>

Paul said he’ll post pictures taken with his quadcopter from Sugarloaf just north of Nevada City.

Saxon from Fair Oaks called. He has a 5 year old Mac Book Pro with a 1 terabyte SSD drive that he put in it. Since it’s 5 years old, he wanted to know when should he start thinking about replacing it. He has a thunderbolt display and runs CAD (computer aided design) programs and the machine seems get warmer than normal. Paul suggested he use compress air under 60 pounds or can of compressed air to blow it out. Find the vent underneath the back hinge. Unhinge the cover and look for the vent.

There are a series of keystrokes, which Paul couldn’t remember, to reset the system management console. This is an Intel chip that controls the keyboard lights, fan and battery charging. For more info, google the words: reset smc. It doesn’t hurt to reset it even if there’s nothing wrong with it.

Check the condition of the SSD drive. The maker of the SSD will usually give you a custom diagnostic to see what shape it’s in. This is different than a hard drive diagnostic. The memory cells of the SSD degrade over time.

Last Updated 11:47 PM 1-31-2018

/p

Notifications of new show notes and edits are tweeted at: twitter.com/ddhart.
– They’re tagged with #Zentech.
– When what’s said is unclear to me (or I’m unfamiliar with a topic) I tend to quote (” “) verbatim.
– Editor’s comments are delimited by < >

For a couple of months, the audio of today’s show is here. Recent shows are here.>

The intro & outro music was by Pentatonix.

NOTE: There is another Zen Tech show scheduled next Wednesday, 1-31-18

Both Paul and Glenn were in the studio today

Paul alerted listeners to below freezing temperatures coming probably tomorrow to the local area. <There was likely something about it in the Calendar segment, which I didn’t listen to.>

Paul thought that midwinter day is Feb 4. The equinox & solstice are the beginning & end of a season, he went on to say. The midwinter point is between the equinox & solstice — 6 weeks in from the beginning of winter and 6 weeks before the beginning of spring. It’s for astronomical reasons that 6 weeks after the “longest day” (around Dec 21) we experience our coldest temperatures, he said. <I guess he meant the longest night — the Winter solstice. More about this in the 11-8-17 show notes.>

The Romans disliked this time of the year so much that they made February the shortest month just to get it over with, he quipped.

We forget what it’s like to drive on icy & wet roads and need to be reminded to be careful, he cautioned. Paul thinks weather warnings and forecasts have become more undependable. Glenn seemed to concur and thought a change in weather modeling might be to blame.

While playing the Pentatonix intro music, Paul noted that there is a change in volume about 15 sec from the start. In the KVMR studio they have to compensate for this. The free software they use is called Audacity.

In Audacity it’s the ‘normalizing’ function that’s used. <But see below.> They highlight the whole waveform and go to ‘tools’ -> ‘normalize’. That will bring the highest & lowest volume levels closer together.

Glenn reminded listeners that they can call in with their questions & comments: 530-265-9555.

Paul doesn’t like to upgrade just for the sake of upgrading. It seems to cause “stuff” not to work like it used to, as in the case of iTunes. He doesn’t like the changes made to iTunes and has turned sour on the program.

A local lady with a Mac of 2011 or 2012 vintage, which came with Mac OS 10.6, got a warning that she can no longer use Dropbox, an internet based file storage/sharing site, with out upgrading the Dropbox software. But the new software wouldn’t install because her operating system (10.6) was too old. Hence a need to upgrade the operating system first.

The latest OS version is 10.13 (High Sierra) but you can’t go directly from 10.6 to 10.13. If you have 10.7 or 10.8 you can do it. Click at the top and it gives you the choice to upgrade to High Sierra. <Be careful to check that your older software will run on 10.13 before upgrading.>

So, if you have 10.6 you have to upgrade to 10.7 or 10.8 first. Open the App Store, which is present in 10.6 and do a search for OS 10.8. Paul seemed to say that sometimes you may not be permitted to install it and it will usually tell you why. The good news is that all versions since 10.6 or 10.7 are essentially free. The other thing you can do is a Google search for: upgrade 10.6 to 10.13. But Apple will sometimes change the procedure, so the information you find may be out of date.

Paul thought that Glenn had something to say about his Mac Mini. He thought it was something intriguing, apart from the fact that later versions of the Mini can’t have their memory upgraded. Glenn had trouble remembering, too. Then he brought up the problems he was having synching his Mac Mini, iPad and iPhone. iCloud is supposed to be smart enough to do that, but not in Glenn’s case. Glenn decided to leave iCloud and do his backups to the Mini instead. Paul said doing this gives you more control and is faster than sending data over the internet.

Around the time that Sierra (10.12) came out for the Mac, a feature called iCloud Drive was added to iCloud. It lets you synch your desktop & documents out to the cloud. If you turn that feature on, “the usage of your iCloud will go thru the roof” and you could get a warning that you’re running out of space, Paul said. Also, it will take forever copying out stuff from your desktop and your documents folders” to iCloud. And surprisingly, your documents folder will appear empty, but don’t panic. In its place it will give you iCloud access under a folder called ‘All Files’.

In his case, when Paul tried to turn off iCloud Drive he got the message “if you turn off iCloud, all copies of your documents will be removed from this machine”. It also said “would you like to download a copy before you disconnect iCloud?” The problem with that is you may have 100 gigs or more of data that’s been stored in the cloud and it would take long time to download. The lesson seems to be to think these things out before you accept a service like iCloud Drive.

If you choose to retrieve your files, iCloud will take it’s own sweet time to send them episodically. You can check the progress by going to Finder (on the left) and clicking the animated clockwork dial. It’s his personal feeling that it’s not worth using iCloud Drive. You’re better off using Google Drive or maybe even Dropbox where you have more control and file transfers go at full speed.

Bruce called. He has the older iMac Light with OS 10.6.8. It is a 32bit machine and he’s heard that it can’t be upgraded beyond OS 10.6.8, is it true? Paul said that is true. About 10 years ago Apple went from Power PC to the Intel chip. In 2007 they went to the Intel Core Duo. Later they started using Core 2 Duo, which can take an upgrade to a later version of the OS. The simple thing is to just try the upgrade and it will tell you if it can’t be done.

Also, Bruce recently acquired an iPad and wanted to know if there’s a way to browse the file structure. Paul said there is a way to see some of the file, but Apple doesn’t want you doing it. Paul found the app called Iexplorer to help you. But he said it’s a disappointing experience — you can’t “get to the guts of it”, only the first few layers. If you back up the iPad to a Mac, you can then browse some of the files but a lot of them are encrypted or useless.

Bruce would like to save some critical configuration files that he might want to restore later. Paul said there would be problems doing that because the Apple device keeps tight control and will defeat your efforts of moving files around.

Bruce related his experience with the normalize function in Audacity, talked about earlier. He said other than removing the DC offset, it proportionally increases everything up to about 100% from the maximum that you set it to, but it doesn’t level highs and lows, as Paul implied above. Instead, if you have a burst of loud sound, highlight that part of the audio and then use the ‘amplify’ function to reduce it.

Kay called. A friend of hers wants to make a portfolio using the program Word Writer. She doesn’t know what type of computer the friend is using, possibly a Mac. Paul looked up Word Writer and came up with many products by that name. He also found zoho.com/writer that allows you to do word processing online. <There are others, like Google Docs> Kay asked about making slides and Paul suggested she use, and may already have, Powerpoint, if she’s using a PC or Pages on the Mac.

Don called. He wondered of anyone had run Meltdown exploit code on their own machines. He’s done it on his machine that has a Pentium 4 processor (2005 vintage) and had a very low success rate (the exploit failed most of the time 1/200 to 1/2000). On a more recent Intel i5 CPU it was successful every time. He speculated that it’s because a level 3 processor cache is more exploitable. <There’s much more about Meltdown and Spectre in the 1-10-18 show notes.>

He gave a link to the software he used. It will check if your computer is vulnerable and see how well the patches you install are protecting it. Don’s understanding is that the AMD processor is not vulnerable to Meltdown, only to Spectre. Paul warned us not to use this exploit program on a work computer (it may be illegal) and be wary of doing it on your home computer.
<I think this is the software Don used>

Don said he only uses the Pentium machine for surfing the internet, not his newer machine. Paul said the internet doesn’t require much horsepower, even very old computers will work fine and be more secure running Linux.

Last Updated 12:14 AM 1-25-2018

– They’re tagged with #Zentech./p