During the course of your day, buy things, like gas, food, & lodging. Do you pay cash for all those things — or do you try to go back in time and operate on the barter system? Even if you do most of your business…
April 26, 2018 • 13 min read
When you log on to Facebook, do you still feel like you’re having fun? The social network used to be an awesome place to reconnect with old friends and keep in touch with family. Today, more people than ever are choosing #DeleteFacebook. While Facebook is…
April 19, 2018 • 17 min read
Machine learning. Deep learning. Neural networks. Artificial intelligence… it’s starting to feel like we’re in an Isaac Asimov novel! For this week’s episode of The Checklist, we’re diving in to the latest ways computers and technology are being trained to complete complex tasks, make inferences,…
April 12, 2018 • 15 min read
After more than a month since the last big “patch day” for Apple products, the Cupertino company has now released to the public a new slew of updates that bring with them both new features and enhanced security. Covering everything from a new and essential…
April 9, 2018 • 2 min read
It’s that time again — time for us to pull back for a “big picture” look at some of the big missteps in computer security over the recent weeks and months. Some of today’s stories relate to Apple, some don’t, but all of them fall into the category of a classic “security fail.”
April 5, 2018 • 17 min read
Malware and vulnerabilities have roared in early in 2018. On this week’s Checklist by SecureMac, three hazards and two helpers about which you should know.
March 29, 2018 • 18 min read
Las Vegas, Nevada — Concern for personal privacy in the digital world is at an all-time high, and with prominent stories about data breaches and leaks on the rise, users are right to want to take better control of their data. However, Mac users today…
March 23, 2018 • 3 min readFor several years now, a fierce debate has raged over how much access law enforcement organizations (LEOs) should be able to have to the mobile devices of those suspected of a crime. The issue made nationwide headlines after the San Bernardino attacks in 2015, when the FBI grappled with how to break into an iPhone used by one of the perpetrators. While the FBI did eventually retrieve device data by utilizing an unknown group to gain access to the phone’s encrypted contents, law enforcement agencies, in general, have maintained that they must have a “backdoor” to access info secured by your iPhone passcode. Apple has steadfastly refused to give in to such demands, but it appears that for now, those refusals don’t matter: LEOs can now use a pricey piece of hardware called GrayKey.
March 22, 2018 • 3 min read
If you’ve been listening to the news recently, you’ve probably heard the name “Cambridge Analytica” come up — and all kinds of stories about the data firm’s former executives claiming they could manipulate and intimidate large numbers of people with crafted, targeted social media content.
March 22, 2018 • 18 min read
The wave of cryptocurrency miners taking the place of common malware continues in 2018 unabated, and it appears every week we encounter another story about a website running surreptitious miners or a company looking for ways to use your CPU resources. As Mac users, we…
March 19, 2018 • 3 min read
For all our listeners of The Checklist, it is no secret that we are strong advocates for security. Usually, we come on this show to talk about how to secure your digital life and keep unauthorized individuals from snooping through your information. Security is important,…
March 15, 2018 • 16 min read
Last year, we visited the subject of Bitcoin and the technology behind it, the blockchain, in Episode 59 of The Checklist. In just a few short months since that episode, the price of one Bitcoin exploded, hundreds of new cryptocurrencies appeared, and company after company…
March 8, 2018 • 18 min read
In the time since we started The Checklist, we’ve reported on and discussed a variety of stories that, time and time again, come back to the same foundation: hackers breaking into the computers in our homes and businesses by exploiting weaknesses in old hardware or…
March 1, 2018 • 13 min readWe’ve recently seen a series of bugs on iOS and macOS devices that all follow a similar pattern: maliciously-formed links or simple emojis and text strings that cause the device to lock up and crash, sometimes repeatedly. A number of these issues have been fixed…
February 26, 2018 • 2 min read
As 2018 continues, so does the flood of new stories, threats, and developments in the security world. Just recently, we reached into the grab bag to take a quick look at a variety of different stories; this week, we’re going back again to pull out a mixture of the most prominent topics making a splash in the headlines over the past couple of weeks. From the consequences of tracking your exercise with an app to the pitfalls of perfectly proper grammar, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover in today’s show
February 22, 2018 • 17 min read
A key piece of Apple’s iPhone source code may be out in the wild. On February 7, someone posted something called “iBoot” on GitHub. GitHub is a popular site for sharing computer code. This time, though, it appears the code in question was not the…
February 20, 2018 • 3 min read
Way back in 2007, Apple released the iPhone and changed the world overnight by putting the power of an iPod, a phone, and the Internet right in our pockets. The iPhone quickly relegated the iPod to the annals of history, and for better or worse, it all but killed the wristwatch too. Then Apple decided it was time to bring the watch back to life — and thus, the Apple Watch was born.
February 15, 2018 • 13 min read
Keeping the software on your Mac up to date is essential, particularly because it can help to keep you safe from new threats and vulnerabilities. We’ve seen the emergence of a new type of malware that’s hitting Mac users through a service used to streamline…
February 12, 2018 • 3 min read