TEH 074: Look Both Ways Before You Download

In This Episode: Mac versus PC detente. The TV in Gary’s bathroom, driven by Raspberry Pi. Living off the grid. Conspiracies live! Backing up the podcast. News sources. Sony Walkman is 40 years old. CrescentCore malware is new and trying to hide. Take precautions before crossing the street, and before downloading anything.

This Week’s Hosts

  • Leo Notenboom, “Chief Question Answerer” at tech education site Ask Leo!
  • Gary Rosenzweig host and producer of MacMost, and mobile game developer at Clever Media.
  • Longer Bios on the Hosts page.

Show Notes

    • In the warmup, Gary talked about the TV in his bathroom driven by a Raspberry Pi. and Gary visited some friends in New Mexico who are living off the grid and learned a bit about practical solar power and astronomy. He also noticed at a farmers market that the chemtrail conspiracy theorists have adopted 5G as a new target.
    • Leo described how, in lieu of Kevin’s normal backup recording he experimented with using Camtasia — a screen recording utility — to create a backup recording of tonight’s podcast. (Recording the mic is easy, it’s recording “the other side”, i.e. the system audio, that poses problems for many recording packages.) Update: it worked!
    • What’s your source of news for the show? Gary leans towards Apple News, while Leo uses a list of sites he keeps in his RSS reader. Both Reddit and Quora were mentioned as additional sources of news and topics of general interest, though both need to be understood and managed well.
    • In the “Make ya feel old (because you are)” department: 40 years ago, the Sony Walkman changed how we listen to music.
    • Gary brought up a new piece of Mac malware is typical in that it tricks you into installing itself, but unusual in that it is trying to hide from researchers. ’CrescentCore’ malware attacks your Mac, evades antivirus tools. This lead to a discussion of malware and the nature of “the race”, as Leo terms be, between those creating malware, and those whose job it is to react to it. We also rail a little on the various types of misleading ads we see and can do little about.

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