We can quantitate the risks of cracking conventional passwords. AI-based systems using biometrics are known to be brittle, and to have exploitable blind spots. Can we trust them in security systems?
Category Archive: Macs
For no apparent reason, Sierra has again downloaded and installed an old ‘security’ update from 2016. Not only that, but it does its utmost to prevent you from finding out, even when studying the log. At least 5 bugs!
The File menu has been tidied, and xattred can now save the one xattr selected or all of them to a text file.
Do you trust the file size given in Finder’s Get Info dialog? Perhaps you shouldn’t, as it only consider part of the file, its data fork.
Scripts and apps which could look at folders in iCloud should watch for stub files. Here’s how they work, and why they can mislead.
How the two user modes differ, what iCloud Drive does to files transferred between two different clients, and an apparently unique tag it applies to apps which pass through.
More mitigation for Meltdown and Spectre, EFI updates, and steady progress in High Sierra are all very promising. So where does that put macOS 10.14?
Gatekeeper doesn’t seem interested in extended attributes attached to the contents of signed apps – the signature remains valid. Could this be exploited?
An odd problem: you try running an old installer and it crashes. There’s nothing actually wrong with the installer, it’s just that the rules have changed.
I haven’t written much about my first-generation Apple Watch, because like all good watches, it has just got […]
The Eclectic Light Company 