Category: Technology

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Ah Ha! I knew it…

Warning: Geeky Stuff ahead.

Yesterday, I updated to the latest operating system offering from Apple.

IMG 2867

There haven’t been a lot of issues yet.

But there has been one, and this issue is across iPad, iPhone, and the Mac OS. 

Some websites will completely fail to display user credentials stored in Apple’s Password Management System.

After you get over the initial panic that the IOS or OS upgrade has wiped the thousand or so passwords and IDs that you’ve become so dependent on…

Your head will clear and then you’ll go look at passwords. As your heart rate slows, you’ll notice a curious thing. Some websites still work. But other websites act brain dead. Instead of Safari offering to fill in your password and id from Apple’s password management system you’re presented with nothing.

Even typing the first few characters of the user ID will not give you the familiar prompt for face, touch, or master password verification.

Locating the entry containing the user ID and Password and telling your device to open the website, from the password entry itself will open the site BUT WILL NOT autofill the user ID and Password, so you’re on a site, but you’re not logged in.

It’s in Safari, and it’s not technically a bug.

Safari’s security protocols have been updated which is good. But if you log  into web sites that are not using HTTPS with the new versions of Safari, it will look like the upgrade has flushed the login credentials.

The issue is HTTPS versus HTTP. Since the entirety of the internet is supposed to be using HTTPS (For your comfort, safety, and protection,) Apple apparently decided that it’s unsafe to allow the password management system to serve up a user ID and Password to a lowly HTTP site.

On the one hand I can see it. On the other hand there are corporations where their internal HTML pages may require a user ID and Password, BUT where they are not using HTTPS inside the corporate defense ring. This may or may not be good security, but that’s not the issue. The issue is the confusion caused by the way Apple has implemented this change.

Since there’s absolutely NOTHING, no message, no reaction, no indication, no clue, whatsoever about what is going on, it could leave customers badmouthing Apple, and the new OS. 

Not because what’s been done is wrong, but because it’s inconvenient! Apple already has trouble in corporate environments due to IT departments inherent Pro Windows bias. They needn’t add any fuel to that fire.

I haven’t found the setting to turn this feature off yet. Instead, I just enabled HTTPS on my site. If I find more sites that give me issues, I’ll go digging around to see if there is a setting.

I’d been holding off because I DONT WANT TO PAY FOR THE SECURITY CREDENTIAL!

Oh yeah, it costs… which leads me to begin contemplation about continuing to maintain my own hosting site. Or should I park the unused domains and transfer the live domains to another hosting service.

Truthfully, I’m becoming less and less pleased with my current hosting provider. I’ll take a look at the contract and decide if I want to continue doing business with them.

They’re pretty inexpensive if you select longer contract terms, but their quality of service is becoming questionable. Talking to them and solving problems is getting to be just like every other business. You end up talking to someone outside the country who doesn’t really understand what your issue or question is.

For the moment this HTTP/HTTPS issue is solved. I’m sure there will be other interesting issues popping up soon enough.

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I broke a rule today.

It is one of my internal rules.

I updated the OS of my Mac on the first day of the new OS being available.  I haven’t done something like this for years… There’s always something that screws up!

But while I’m sure I’ll be annoyed in the coming weeks, I thought, “Why Not? I’m bored and If I do it now, then I don’t have to worry about it later, especially if there’s something that demands me & my computer being up to date.”

Something insane like a job… for example. At this point if I were to get a job I’d probably have a heart attack and keel over from the shock.

Thus far the OS seems to be smooth and working as expected. I’m using my big monitor right now. I gotta admit, much as I like having the small light laptop, I really do like using the big monitor, especially with the color depth this thing is capable of.

This monitor could also be used as a gaming monitor, it’s a bit small but serviceable. So the monitor goes in the box of Tech that moves with me into whatever temporary housing situation I find myself in, moving forward. That’s actually funny this is a 27” and I can remember when that was a big monitor. 

I’ve seen some computer/gaming monitors 36” and above. I’d have to have a large desk to have something that big in proportion. I guess you could hang it on the wall of your cubicle or cubby.

The last place I worked at, they gave us dual 15” monitors which was really more annoying than helpful given the amount of data and application windows we were supposed to be juggling. The Windows desktops were under powered, in terms of CPU, memory, and hard drive space, to be pushing that amount of data but as is typical of Corporate America, if the computer crashed, it was the employees fault. 

I’ll take my 27” here at home with a computer that could drive two 30” 4K monitors (I think) and not worry about crashing. Come to think of it, I don’t think this computer has crashed on me since I got it. Either I’ve lost my touch, or this machine has more than enough horsepower to do whatever I ask. 

Let’s just hope it doesn’t become sentient! That could be a real problem…

I’ll continue playing with this new OS. There are some new features, but none I’m likely to be using immediately.  But I’ll poke around to see what the new stuff is all about.

BTW this qualifies as interesting and entertaining for me.

I hope your day is as amusing.

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Isn’t that interesting ?

As I’ve mentioned over the past 6 months or so, SPAM in my email had become a major problem. 

Spam email

At one point I was getting over 100 SPAM emails per hour. That was at the height of the SPAM blast and it was very annoying.

I’d given up. No filtering that I could apply stopped the onslaught. It had gotten to the point that I didn’t even open email because my email account had been reduced to complete uselessness. 

I’d got to bed with zero SPAM email in my junkman folder and by morning there’d be 1000 and more coming in. 

I finally started just emptying the junk folders blindly. I wouldn’t even look, I’d highlight everything and hit delete.

Now, over the last few days, the SPAM email count has dropped off precipitously. I have no idea why. As I said I’d given up trying to set up filters because nothing I could do would stop more than a handful of the ever changing addresses. 

I still believe that I should be able to select specific countries to literally lock out. Pretty much every country has a specific set of IP addresses. Why shouldn’t I be able to say, “I don’t want ANY email or communications from country X, Y, or Z?” If I don’t know anyone there, am I going to be interested in email from strangers? Probably not!

The thing that annoyed more about all of this is the cost in battery, CPU time, and my time to deal with bullshit emails saying I’d won this or that, or I was eligible for a legal settlement or asking if I’d like to see some whore’s pussy or prolapsed anus.

Every one of these emails imposed a penalty on my computer, phone, and iPad performance and battery life. Not to mention sucking up cellular data if I happened to be carrying my phone outside my WiFi range. I think I should be compensated for those costs.

I’m not holding my breath, mind you, but this stuff has a real cost and consequence associated with it. Which is one reason that I think all SPAMMERS when caught should be castrated with a dull spoon.

Now suddenly, this major annoyance has pretty much dried to a trickle. In fact it’s back to the level of SPAM that I was getting before the FTC blasted my email address to fucking PayPal who then sold my information to SPAMMERS. All for a lousy $10 settlement against LifeLock.

I think the FTC and PayPal should cough up $10,000 for the inconvenience they caused me.  Again, I’m not holding my breath.

It is nonetheless interesting that as quickly as this began, it’s over. I ask the question(s) Why? & How?

Did someone just realize that their servers were wide open and insecure? Or do the SPAM lists get old enough that they’re retired?

I know it sounds like I’m looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I’m curious. Did the Russians or Ukrainians blow up a server farm???

Has China given up trying to extort me over my porn habits? They can threaten me all they want, If you get pictures of my naked ass, and like ‘em please send $2.00. Thank you!

Oh God!!!

Maybe the folks trying to extort me have decided I’m too old and not hot enough.  That would totally suck!

I’m not sure how I’d feel discovering that I was too old and gross for SPAMMERs or Hackers to try to extort money from me by threatening to post captures of me jerkin it in front of my web cam…🤣

In any case, I’m glad to not be buried in SPAM anymore. I just hope this lasts.