Manonight Computers

04/09/2024

Please remove as this is no longer me. I have not worked in a while due to illness.

01/07/2022

Hey folks! Hope to be with you soon!! I'm taking care of some business and will get with you as soon soon as I'm better...

10/02/2021

Yet, given that working from home has long been my lot in life, I need a decent phone signal at all times and T-Mobile can't yet guarantee that.

So, Mr. Sankey of AT&T, I know that your phone stores are likely a sad pimple on the chin of your brand perception. I know that you want to take AT&T to "a new place." One, I imagine, that's blissfully virtual.

But you might want to learn a thing or two about customer service from T-Mobile. Just as T-Mobile might want to learn a thing or two about security from, well, just about anyone who knows a thing or two about security.

It may well be that all phone brands will soon shut their stores and force customers to shop entirely online.

It may well be that they'll leave the likes of Best Buy to provide actual physical experience and advice. But customer service remains something that matters to, you know, real humans.

This particular salesman got nothing out of our conversation. I asked him to please hurry the signal improvement near my house. (He said he'd get right on it.)

But, as I walked out of the store, I felt so good about the interaction that it genuinely lifted my day.

Then I looked at my phone and thought: "Hey, it's still five minutes before anyone at the AT&T store will talk to me."

AT&T's CEO says he's not happy with his brand. A visit to two phones stores shows the chasm he may need to bridge.

10/02/2021

Whenever I'm asked for things that are a must-have, a YubiKey is on the top of my list no matter what platform or operating system people are using -- Windows, Mac, or Linux, Android or iOS.

It doesn't matter.

Everyone needs a YubiKey.

Virtual private networks are essential to staying safe online -- especially for remote workers and businesses. Here are your top choices in VPN service providers and how to get set up fast.

Read More

So, what is a YubiKey?

A YubiKey is the ultimate line of defense against having your online accounts taken over. And with prices starting at $45, it's one of those indispensable gadgets for the 21st century.

If you have important online accounts, you need one (perhaps, two) of these.

10/02/2021

And this right here is the problem.

Apple gets too much of a free ride from reviewers and customers.

The company has embodied this culture of "ship now, fix later, maybe" which results in buggy products being shipped (likely due to an aggressive product refresh cycle), and features that are "not perfect" are being tolerated.

It makes little sense.

I've watched iOS releases quality slip over the years, and now I'm seeing the same thing happen with Apple's hardware.

And increasingly I see reviewers shrugging their shoulders over bugs, and customers living in hopes of fixes.

I paid full price for a beta product.

09/21/2021

Don't. Just don't!

09/21/2021

Around Q2 2022, if an app targets Android 6 or higher and isn't used for a few months, Android will automatically reset the sensitive runtime permissions that the user had granted to an app.

"This action has the same effect as if the user viewed a permission in system settings and changed your app's access level to Deny," Google explains in developer notes.

The change will affect all Android apps on consumer devices. However, Google has made an exception for enterprise-managed apps and apps with permissions that have been fixed by enterprise policy.

Google also has a way for developers to ask a user to disable auto-set for their app. This could be suitable for apps that are expected to work in the background, such as apps that provide family safety, apps for syncing data, apps for controlling smart devices or pairing with other devices.

SEE: Smartphone sales are riding out the global chip shortage

The rollout of the auto-reset feature will gradually take place after kicking off in December, but it won't reach all devices between Android 6 and Android 10 until Q1 2022, Google notes.

However, users with Android 6 to 10 can go to an auto-reset settings page and enable or disable auto-reset for specific apps.

"The system will start to automatically reset the permissions of unused apps a few weeks after the feature launches on a device," Google notes.

Google is rolling out a privacy-enhancing answer to all those forgotten and unused Android apps once granted access to your sensitive data.

09/21/2021

So what's the bottom line?

One thing I'm asked regularly is whether or not ExpressVPN (or any other VPN) is going to share information with the FBI (or name your favorite intelligence agency). The prevailing wisdom is that VPN vendors located outside the various "Eyes" intelligence sharing treaties are somehow safer for those hiding information from government access. This is generally not true. As I discussed in my analysis of NordVPN, most VPN providers have enough of a footprint in MLAT treaty countries that if a three-letter agency wants your information, it'll get it.

So, unless you're a very serious dissident (or, I guess, a criminal) on the run from the government, the whole issue of jurisdiction is merely VPN theatre for the benefit of good marketing hype. And if you are relying on a VPN service to protect your life and freedom, why are you relying on something you read online for your truth? I just showed you that the biggest VPN review sites are owned by a VPN conglomerate. You need to do some very serious investigation and testing on your own, if you want to be truly safe.

If you're currently using ExpressVPN for general-purpose safe computing (like checking your mail at the local coffee shop) and you like it, I wouldn't say you should give it up. If you're relying on any of the Kape brands for a life and death situation, I'd say it's probably not worth the risk.

If you're shopping for a VPN, read all the reviews and try them out. Most give you thirty days, so see how they actually work for you. Again, I wouldn't necessarily dismiss ExpressVPN out of hand because of these reports, but it's up to you to gauge your risk level.

In the mid-1980s, US president Ronald Wilson Reagan was preparing for a summit with Soviet president Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev and wanted to bond with his Soviet counterpart. When Reagan spoke with Russian history scholar Susanne Massie, an American, she introduced him to the phrase doveryai, no proveryai. In English, that's trust, but verify. Reagan apparently liked the phrase so much, he overused it, much to the annoyance of Gorbachev.

In any case, that's how I recommend approaching ExpressVPN: trust, but verify. We'll keep an eye on how the company behaves. Does Kape do anything else that indicates their moral compass is askew? Does Gericke's access become more limited or does he leave the company? Does data secured by ExpressVPN turn out to be less secure?

I don't believe we need to pillory ExpressVPN just yet. All the bad news is tangential to its operations. But I'd advise the company to walk very carefully, to hold its new masters at Kape accountable, and to both know where the line is and stay firmly on the angels' side of that line.

In light of ExpressVPN's double-whammy of troubling news, we take a deep dive into the facts, and whether you can feel safe or suspicious about using one of the world's most popular VPNs.

09/04/2021

T-Mobile and Sprint’s recent merger has brought mostly good news to the carriers, but it would not be surprising if they encountered some hiccups along

09/04/2021

Microsoft's much-hyped free upgrade offer for Windows 10 ended years ago, right? Not exactly.

09/04/2021

When will Windows 11 be released to the public?

Microsoft says the official release of Windows 11 (what the company calls General Availability, or GA) will be available to the public beginning October 5, 2021. It will arrive on new hardware beginning in late 2021.

The process of updating Windows 10 PCs that meet Microsoft's hardware requirements will extend into 2022, Microsoft says.

What do I have to do to test Windows 11 today?

As of July 2021, Microsoft is making preview versions of Windows 11 available for anyone who opts into the Windows Preview Program and signs up for the Dev Channel. More polished versions of Windows 11 preview releases should arrive in the Beta channel in August and September.

What happens if my system doesn't meet the minimum system requirements?

In advance of the official release of Windows 11, Insider preview releases can be installed on devices that don't meet the minimum hardware requirements. When Windows 11 is generally available in October, PCs that fail to meet the minimum system requirements will not be eligible to upgrade to Windows 11 using Windows Update. Their owners will be required to reinstall Windows 10.

Those who are not running preview releases will be able to download an ISO file and perform a manual upgrade or a clean install, although Microsoft warns that machines running Windows 11 that fail to meet minimum hardware requirements will not be officially supported. I expect that older PCs in this fashion will continue to receive updates alongside supported hardware, but that's not guaranteed.

How much will Windows 11 cost?

On any PC with a properly licensed copy of Windows 10, the upgrade to Windows 11 will be free.

Microsoft hasn't announced prices for Windows 11 retail editions yet, but it's reasonable to expect they will be identical to the prices of corresponding Windows 10 editions.

Will Windows 11 run in a virtual machine?

Yes, you can install Windows 11 in a VM. In fact, you can create a virtual TPM in a Windows 11 virtual machine that will satisfy the hardware requirements of the new operating system. On a Type 1 (bare metal) hypervisor like Microsoft's own Hyper-V, you'll be constrained by the same CPU requirements that govern installations on a physical PC. On a Type 2 hypervisor such as Oracle Virtual Box or VMware workstation, you might be able to spoof that requirement, but the effort is probably not worth the risk.

Will my existing apps and hardware devices work with Windows 11?

Most apps and devices that work with Windows 10 should work as expected under Windows 11. The new operating system is sufficiently similar to its predecessor that the differences shouldn't pose a problem for most apps. Of course, answering that question is why we have preview releases, so the best way to check compatibility for a device or app is to install the latest Windows Insider preview release and try running it. (If you encounter an error, be sure to use the Feedback Hub app to file a report.)

What's new in Windows 11? What are its minimum hardware requirements? When will your PC be eligible for the upgrade? We've got answers to your Windows 11 questions.

09/04/2021

What to do?
According to Rapid7, Fortress decided not to respond to these bugs, closing the report back in May 2021, and didn’t object to the company’s proposed disclosure of the flaws at the end of August 2021.

Thus it looks as though the company isn’t planning any sort of firmware update, whether for its control units or keyfobs, and therefore that these vulnerabilities will not be patched, at least in systems that have already been sold.

So, if you have one of these systems, or a similar-looking system under a different brand that you suspect may be derived from the same original equipment supplier, there are two workarounds you can use:

Use an email address that an attacker is unlikely already to know or to guess. Webmail services such as Outlook and Gmail, for example, allow you to have multiple email aliases for your main account, simply by adding text such as +ABCDEFG at the end of your regular email name. For instance, if you use [email protected] as your regular email address, then messages to nickname+[email protected] ought to be delivered to the same mailbox, even though the two addresses don’t match. Note that this is an example of security by obscurity, so it’s not an ideal solution, but it does make things harder for an attacker or an ill-disposed friend or family member.
Avoid using the keyfob remote controls at all. This means you’ll always need to have your laptop or mobile phone handy, or to do everything directly from the control panel, but if you never set up your keyfobs to work with your own control unit, they can’t give away any secrets that an attacker could use in subsequent replay attacks.

The alarm system that can be turned off with your email address.