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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

‘NordPass’ Update Brings Improved Autofill for Passwords
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'NordPass' Update Brings Improved Autofill for Passwords

Andrew Orr ·

The latest NordPass update introduces improvements to one of its key features — autofill. Its form-detecting algorithm recently became more efficient. Before the update, developers had to manually improve the form-detecting algorithm. Now, it is based on machine learning technology.

The part of the autofill algorithm responsible for detecting the type of form now operates with vastly improved performance compared to its previous static iteration. The algorithm is now trained using artificial neural networks to be as accurate as possible. According to NordPass developers, the current accuracy of the algorithm is 99.6%.

‘Grammarly’ for iOS Adds Editor and Safari Extension
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'Grammarly' for iOS Adds Editor and Safari Extension

Andrew Orr ·

The Grammarly app was recently updated to bring the editor to iPhone and iPad. Here are the new additions: Provides comprehensive writing feedback on long-form documents, along with personal statistics and milestones to help people improve along the way. Grammarly Editor is also compatible with hardware keyboards.  Grammarly’s Safari extension: Brings the best of Grammarly to any mobile web application. Grammarly Keyboard: Access Grammarly’s leading writing suggestions in any mobile application.

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Phlebotomy Training Specialists Exposes Student Data in Breach

Andrew Orr ·

Led by Noam Rotem and Ran Locar, vpnMentor’s research team discovered a data breach from Phlebotomy Training Specialists.

Unfortunately, the company was storing the complete records of 10,000s of students nationwide on a single, open cloud account. In this case, Phlebotomy Training Specialists was using an Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3 bucket to store data it collected from students, staff members, and people applying to its courses. S3 buckets are an increasingly popular enterprise cloud storage solution. However, users must set up their security protocols manually to protect the data stored therein.

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Facebook Moves to Cancel its Facial Recognition System

Andrew Orr ·

Facebook announced it will cancel its facial recognition system responsible for cataloging its billion-strong user base.

Our technology will no longer automatically recognize if people’s faces appear in Memories, photos or videos. People will no longer be able to turn on face recognition for suggested tagging or see a suggested tag with their name in photos and videos they may appear in. We’ll still encourage people to tag posts manually, to help you and your friends know who is in a photo or video. This change will also impact Automatic Alt Text (AAT), a technology used to create image descriptions for people who are blind or visually impaired. AAT currently identifies people in about 4% of photos.

The above quote is probably the only useful part of the self-congratulatory update.

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Mozilla New Home Page and Other Features for Firefox Mobile

Andrew Orr ·

Mozilla updated its Firefox browser for Android and iOS, bringing a new home page, recent searches grouped by topic, and other features.

Based on user feedback we designed the new Firefox homepage and organized it in a way that helps you jump right back into what you care more about, saving you time and headspace, and removing the visual clutter that can often leave us feeling overwhelmed.

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Beware of Fake Job Ads That Can Steal Your Identity

Andrew Orr ·

Fake job ads are on the rise, a report says on Tuesday. Scammers use peoples’ Social Security Numbers to sign up for unemployment benefits.

That means scammers may need help from their victims — and sometimes they go to elaborate lengths to mislead them. Some fraudsters recreate companies’ hiring websites. One fake job application site uses Spirit Airlines’ photos, text, font and color code. The phony site asks applicants to upload a copy of both sides of their driver’s license at the outset of the process and sends them an email seeking more information from a web address that resembles Spirit’s, with an extra “i” (spiiritairline.com).

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Zoom Tests Advertising for Users on Free Plan

Andrew Orr ·

Zoom announced on Monday that it will begin piloting advertising for users on the free Basic plan.

For this initial program, ads will be rolled out only on the browser page users see once they end their meeting. Only free Basic users in certain countries will see these ads if they join meetings that are hosted by other free Basic users.

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Private Messenger 'Signal' Adds Anti-Spam Features in Update

Andrew Orr ·

Signal recently announced some new features designed to help reduce spam on the platform, such as a Report Spam and Block button.

When a user clicks “Report Spam and Block”, their device sends only the phone number that initiated the conversation and a one-time anonymous message ID to the server. When accounts are repeatedly reported as spam or network traffic appears to be automated, we can issue “proof of humanity” checks to suspicious senders so they can’t send more messages until they’ve completed a challenge.

Buying a New Mac? Consider Using the M1 Chip Decision Tree
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Buying a New Mac? Consider Using the M1 Chip Decision Tree

Andrew Orr ·

If you’re planning to buy a new MacBook Pro, this decision tree for the M1 Pro | Max models may be able to help. It shows you every possible configuration with the CPU, GPU, RAM, Power Adapter, and SSD. “And when I say 18 configurations, I’m not even counting the choices on SSD size. All 18 configurations come in 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4GB and 8TB. And yes, I verified that you can configure the bottom-of-the-line M1 Pro with an 8TB drive and you can configure the top-of-the-line M1 Max with only 512GB. That means there are actually 90 different ways you can configure the new Apple Silicon MacBook Pros. Unless you layer in the option of color with grey vs. another grey, which makes the grand total 180 different configurations.”

‘Notability’ Becomes Freemium App With Optional Subscription in 11.0 Update
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'Notability' Becomes Freemium App With Optional Subscription in 11.0 Update

Andrew Orr ·

Ginger Labs announced on Monday that its note-taking app Notability is now free and a subscription unlocks the full features. The plan will cost US$14.99/year but users can get it for US$11.99 for a limited time. Previous Notability customers can continue using the app without interruption until November 1, 2022. Another feature: “With the release of Notability 11.0, for the first time ever users can publish notes publicly to the Notability Gallery and enjoy the creativity of the community. Gallery opens up unlimited possibilities for learning and sharing on the app—users can search for ideas on any topic and find inspiration from over 15 million Notability note takers across the globe.”

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Cryptee Update Brings Encrypted PDFs and Print-Accurate Editing

Andrew Orr ·

An update to Cryptee, a platform for encrypted photos and documents, brings Paper Mode, a print-accurate view for your documents. It also adds editing for encrypted PDFs.

You can now work on your documents in Cryptee Docs, using a print-accurate paper view, by choosing paper sizes like A4 / A3 / US Letter / US Legal etc, just like the way you would in Microsoft Word or Google Docs.

While exporting your documents as PDF files, you can now easily set a key, and encrypt the PDFs. These encrypted PDFs can be opened using any PDF viewer, on all operating systems and PDF viewer apps.

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'Shrootless' macOS Bug Could Bypass System Integrity Protection

Andrew Orr ·

Microsoft reported a macOS vulnerability it calls Shrootless. It could let an attacker bypass SIP and perform arbitrary operations on the device. It has been patched by Apple with the most recent Mac updates this week.

We found that the vulnerability lies in how Apple-signed packages with post-install scripts are installed. A malicious actor could create a specially crafted file that would hijack the installation process. After bypassing SIP’s restrictions, the attacker could then install a malicious kernel driver (rootkit), overwrite system files, or install persistent, undetectable malware, among others.