Boot-up
We had a lively discussion at which members raised issues connected to their network falling-out; possible reasons why this might be – for example clashing with a neighbour’s network; solid walls in old houses – but felt that this sounded like a hardware, or CONFIGURATION problem that only the ISP (Internet Service Provider) could fix with an engineer’s visit.
I mentioned my problems with upgrading an iMac and how I decided – having looked at the work involved – that I should take it to Neil’s workshop … We will fix your PC. [Update: I’ve just spoken to him and he’s explained the risk in doing the job and that of course that risk needs to be passed on to me, so I’m going to have to think about it!]
We also through the meeting talked about browsers and search engines. I referred you to the post I wrote a few weeks back – “Just Google it …” – I’ve also researched a couple of sources for a good definition of what a browser does, this is the best I could come up with …
“Short for web browser, a browser is a software application used to locate, retrieve and display content on the World Wide Web, including webpages, images, video and other files. As a client/server model, the browser is the client run on a computer or mobile device that contacts the Web server and requests information. The web server sends the information back to the browser which displays the results on the Internet-enabled device that supports a browser.
Today’s browsers are fully-functional software suites that can interpret and display HTML Web pages, applications, JavaScript, AJAX and other content hosted on web servers – this makes a browser a platform for running web-applications (like your banking application) in its own right. This means that some websites stipulate which browser you must use to access their services. Many browsers offer plug-ins which extend the capabilities of the software so it can display multimedia information (including sound and video), or the browser can be used to perform tasks such as videoconferencing, to design web pages or add anti-phishing filters and other security features to the browser. When used like this it is a fully fledged application environment in much the same way as Microsoft Office, or Adobe Photoshop is.
“The three most popular desktop browsers, according to Net Marketshare, are Chrome, followed by Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Edge. Other major browsers include Apple Safari and Opera. While most commonly used to access information on the web (or internet), a browser can also be used to access information hosted on Web servers in private networks or intranet.”
I hope that helps. You’ll notice that the word Google isn’t mentioned at all!! However Google does provide us with Chrome. As we discussed (and as I demonstrated) you can decide which search engine to use – this could be Google, or Bing, or Yahoo, or DuckDuckGo – which I am currently using. You decide this in the Settings of your browser.
We also looked briefly at these three posts on the website
Sextortion (Private site)
Subscription services (Public)
Creating an online magazine (Public)
News
Quora gets hacked
… and so does the Marriott
Google Fi brings WiFi to the masses
A change in direction for tumblr
Google’s Wing delivery drones to be tested in Finland
BT begins to take Huawei kit out of it’s forthcoming 5G network
and finally … the trials and tribulations of Facebook continue
Password managers
How do they work – I will just be describing how LastPass works, but others will be similar …
“LastPass is a browser extension that generates, stores, and fills in passwords. It makes practicing good security a little easier, by letting you generate unique, random, very long passwords for each website you go to. If one website is compromised, attackers only have access to your account on that one website, and only until you change the password.
“On the backend, the security of your LastPass vault hinges on the “master password”. When you create your LastPass account, the vault is encrypted with the master password. The master password, thus, is the key to the vault, which is protected by mathematics. For a decent password, it would take longer than the age of the universe to crack your password and enter your vault. On top of this, LastPass artificially makes logging in take *much* more time (on the order of a few seconds, but this adds up to billions of years for a brute force attack) and thus more difficult to attack.
“LastPass never sees the “raw” contents of your vault. When you log in, your master password is scrambled through a one-way hash function, and sent to LastPass. LastPass compares this with the hash they have on file, and if everything checks out, they send your encrypted vault to your computer. Your computer then decrypts your vault using the master password, and stores it for the duration of your session.
“In the unlikely event that LastPass is compromised, or LastPass receives a government request for your information, all LastPass has is your hashed master password, and an encrypted vault. These are both absolutely worthless without the master password itself. The only way around this is to try every possible password to see if it matches the hashed version. This is why resetting your LastPass master password also empties your vault.”
[Source: Quora but see also Guide to getting started with LastPass]
You can increase your security by using two-factor authentication linked to your master password, but if you feel your master password is strong enough that should probably be sufficient.
What do you need to do?
Two approaches – from the browser, or by downloading an application and then installing browser extensions (see article above). The first way is probably the easiest, watch this!
What’s the choice?
Well obviously LastPass, but here is a review of other password managers as well.
Live Demonstration!!!
We didn’t have enough time to get round to looking at email – clients and accounts, so I’ve transferred the content I’ve prepared over to a new post for the first meeting in the new year.
Is it time to move to more paid subscription services?
I have to admit, the events of the past few weeks have made me look much more seriously at paying more for the IT services that I’ve taken for free up until now. Of course they’ve never been free, I’ve had to put up with the adverts and the email messages I don’t really want – alerting me to this deal, or that deal, and I’ve willingly put up with that as a price worth paying for the service I’ve been receiving. But two events have changed my mind, and moreover I feel the IT world is actually changing slowly as a consequence of the mistakes (to be exceptionally generous) of Facebook and Google; and the decision of Apple to switch more attention to Services, targeting this as their main income stream for the future, and not relying on Hardware alone.
So what were the earth-shaking events in the Harrison-IT-world? Well the first was Google’s announcement that having hidden the news of a potential security weakness in an API, for several months (presumably to secure their stock-market price at the time Facebook was struggling, and presumably also after ensuring that the potential breach was secured) they used this as an excuse to kill-off (sorry “sunset”) Google+ next August. Now this service was not the success Google hoped it to be, and most definitely has not generated the revenue they hoped it might, but for me, my family and for many communities (particularly of photographers – because of the close linkage to Google Photos) – it was a hugely valuable tool. Now, we have to look for another social media platform. It could be Google Photos – Google may have plans to “enhance” it to take on features from Google+, or it could be another platform, but it’s just a pain in the neck having to move off something we’re used to! Google have real history with “sunsetting” tools that people get used to using [Thanks to @MrSimonWood for this link.]
The second was Flickr’s announcement that they were going to limit their Free account to 1000 images – excluding those that were licensed under Creative Commons, which a lot of mine are. They are encouraging users to take out a Pro subscription to remove restrictions and allow more and larger images to be uploaded. This didn’t meet with the same “horror” feeling. I immediately felt that this was a decision that would secure the future long-term of the service under the new owners – SmugMug. [A feeling that I didn’t have when 500px made changes to their platform which led me to delete my account.] So I immediately subscribed and took advantage of the first-year discount price (still available for a few more days I believe).
So what am I saying. I’m saying that if there’s a service that I really want, and I really need some feeling that it’s going to be around for a while, I should pay for it. I wasn’t given that option by Google – shame on them; it appears I’ll never be given that opportunity by Facebook. Both of them are essentially marketing and advertising platforms. I don’t see either of them being able to develop a hybrid model as Flickr has been able to do.
This all makes Adobe’s Creative Cloud Photography Plan and Microsofts’ Office 365 seem so much more sensible. I’ll continue with the former, but decline the latter as my roots are now firmly planted in the Apple world where I look to see how they will develop their Service offerings in Music, TV, Home and Car fields.
Interesting times.