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Andrew Orr

Since 2015 Andrew has been writing about Apple, privacy, security, and at one point even Android. You can find him most places online under the username @andrewornot.

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Articles by Andrew Orr

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FBI Says Data Was Not Compromised After Hackers Took Over Email Server

Andrew Orr ·

Hackers took over an FBI server over the weekend, sending thousands of fake cyberattack warnings. The agency says no personal information or data was affected.

The agency said it has fixed the software vulnerability that allowed the attack.

The fake emails originated from an FBI-operated server, which was dedicated to pushing notifications to the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP), which the FBI uses to communicate with state and local agencies. The compromised server was not part of the FBI’s corporate email service, the FBI added.

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Contract Lawyers Latest Sector to Face Remote Surveillance Programs

Andrew Orr ·

As WP reports, businesses are increasingly using surveillance software to monitor what their employees do on computers. Contract lawyers are the latest group to face this.

The monitoring is a symptom of “these pervasive employer attitudes that take advantage of these technologies to continue these really vicious cycles … that treat employees as commodities,” she said. “The irony in this situation is that it’s attorneys, who traditionally advocate for employee rights or justice when they’re made aware of intrusions like these.”

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Newly Discovered 'OSX.CDDS' Implant Targets Visitors to Hong Kong Websites

Andrew Orr ·

Google’s Threat Analysis Group discovered a new macOS implant that security researcher Patrick Wardle dubbed OSX.CDDS. It targets “visitors to Hong Kong websites for a media outlet and a prominent pro-democracy labor and political group.”

Notable features for this backdoor include: victim device fingerprinting, screen capture, file download/upload, executing terminal commands, audio recording, keylogging.

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How Thieves are Stealing Apple ID Credentials for Stolen iPhones

Andrew Orr ·

A report from India Today shares the story of how thieves tricked an Apple user to steal his credentials in order to unlock the iPhone they stole.

Vedant narrated his ordeal on Twitter and urged users to be aware of the types of attacks that can be used to extract sensitive information from users. He revealed that the first thing he did after losing his phone was log in to the Find My app with his Apple ID using his MacBook and try to get the phone’s exact location through the Find My app.

Classic phishing attack.

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YouTube Moves to Hide Dislike Count From User Interface

Andrew Orr ·

YouTube announced on Wednesday that it will begin hiding the number of dislikes videos have on its platform.

And earlier this year, we experimented with the dislike button to see whether or not changes could help better protect our creators from harassment, and reduce dislike attacks — where people work to drive up the number of dislikes on a creator’s videos.

YouTube is only making it harder to spot crappy videos at a distance. Now you’ll have to click on each video to be sure, or read the comments. More views = more money for Google.

Topaz Labs Updates ‘Video Enhance AI’ With Apple M1 Support
Cool Stuff Found

Topaz Labs Updates 'Video Enhance AI' With Apple M1 Support

Andrew Orr ·

Video Enhance AI is now compatible with Apple’s M1 chips in its latest update, version 2.6. Other features: New Chronos Fast AI model – Built for high-resolution video clips with fast motion, delivering 2-3x faster performance than the current Chronos v2 AI model. New Proteus, Artemis, and Dione AI models – Optimized to be about 30% faster on Windows computers while providing improved quality compared to previous models. Refinements to these AI models also increase video quality compared to previous versions. Download for macOS.

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What is the World Economic Forum Doing About Blockchain?

Andrew Orr ·

The World Economic Article advises companies to integrate blockchain technology, writing about “middleware” such as Chainlink (LINK).

While there remains a general assumption that blockchain technology is still in its early stages, in reality, it is already entering the early phase of majority adoption, especially by the finance industry. Recalling the massive digital transformation propelled by the internet, many forward-thinking enterprises in the finance sector and beyond are already taking important steps to become blockchain-ready.

I think it’s interesting that WEF is talking about blockchain stuff. It’s also good news for companies such as Chainlink, because they make it easy for stuff on a blockchain to interact with stuff off the chain. Disclaimer – LINK is one of the cryptocurrencies I invest in.

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Disk Utility Can Now Manage Snapshots in macOS Monterey

Andrew Orr ·

Disk Utility can now manage AFPS snapshots, no matter which app created them, in macOS Monterey.

This new feature is cunningly hidden so that you don’t notice this huge leap forward when you first open the app. To engage its new powers, select a volume and use the Show APFS Snapshots command in its View menu. This opens a new table view in the lower part of the main view in which the selected volume’s snapshots are listed.

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Report Shows Instagram Getting Ready to Launch Subscription

Andrew Orr ·

App analytics platforms Sensor Tower and Apptopia show that Instagram is preparing to launch a subscription service.

Both Sensor Tower and Apptopia track the mobile app ecosystem, which includes monitoring chart movements, app engagement and gathering app marketing intelligence data, among other things. But they also track the other less noticeable changes that apps tend to make — like rewriting their App Store descriptions, swapping out their screenshots, or — as in this case — adding new in-app purchases to their App Store listings.

‘Scanner Pro’ Update Brings AI-Powered Smart Categories for Organization
Cool Stuff Found

'Scanner Pro' Update Brings AI-Powered Smart Categories for Organization

Andrew Orr ·

Now Scanner Pro automatically sorts & organizes your scans by categories. It’s tiring and time-consuming to manually organize the hundreds of scanned documents in Scanner Pro into folders and carefully name them so they’re easier to find. Thanks to Smart Categories, you’ll need less time to find the scan you’re looking for, without the need to manually organize all your files. Just search through bills, invoices, magazines, and so on.