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Friday Morning Random Stuff…

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Software Updates
Clonezilla 2.6.0-37 – “includes major enhancements and bug fixes”
Firefox – 64.0.2
VLC – 3.0.6

Microsoft: Windows 10 to grab 7GB of your storage so big updates don’t fail
News all over the internet. IMHO, no big deal. Stop your fracking whining.
FYI – As it stands this will only apply to new installs.
Official page: Windows 10 and reserved storage

Best Drive Cleaner? CCleaner VS Wise Disk Cleaner VS PrivaZer
Major Geeks has a video showing the options of each. Good stuff.

Cell Phone Companies Are Selling Access To Customer Location Data

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Motherboard – I Gave a Bounty Hunter $300. Then He Located Our Phone
T-Mobile, Sprint, and AT&T are selling access to their customers’ location data, and that data is ending up in the hands of bounty hunters and others not authorized to possess it, letting them track most phones in the country…
The bounty hunter did this all without deploying a hacking tool or having any previous knowledge of the phone’s whereabouts. Instead, the tracking tool relies on real-time location data sold to bounty hunters that ultimately originated from the telcos themselves, including T-Mobile, AT&T, and Sprint, a Motherboard investigation has found. These surveillance capabilities are sometimes sold through word-of-mouth networks…
Motherboard’s investigation shows just how exposed mobile networks and the data they generate are, leaving them open to surveillance by ordinary citizens, stalkers, and criminals…
Don’t think it’s a big deal? This could be your Mom’s, wife’s, girlfriend’s, or daughter’s phone…

Patch Tuesday

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Windows Update
Updates available for all currently supported versions of Windows. Updates for Flash and .Net available where applicable.

Windows 7
January 8, 2019—KB4480970 (Monthly Rollup)
January 8, 2019—KB4480960 (Security-only update)

Windows 8.1
January 8, 2019—KB4480963 (Monthly Rollup)
January 8, 2019—KB4480964 (Security-only update)

Windows 10
1809 – January 8, 2019—KB4480116 (OS Build 17763.253)
1803 – January 8, 2019—KB4480966 (OS Build 17134.523)
1709 – January 8, 2019—KB4480978 (OS Build 16299.904)

– – – – – –

Wise Disk Cleaner 10.1.5 Released
Download (I use portable) | Release Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Hey Apple, what happens on iPhones doesn’t stay there, and your ‘clever’ CES ad is promoting a dangerous illusion
That’s a cute ad you have in Las Vegas for the CES tech convention. “What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone” is both a good dig at your rivals and a clever restating of Sin City’s popular catch phrase.
But it’s literally a lie. What happens on customers’ iPhones doesn’t stay on them — and you know it.
Preach

Survey: Americans Warming to Use of Facial Recognition Tech
I’m not sure I buy the results of the study. If it is even close to true then, well, SMH.

Came up in an email convo with a reader and friend:
SiriusXM stations I mostly listen to:
Hair Nation ’80s Hair Bands 
Ozzy’s Boneyard Ozzy’s Classic Hard Rock 
Classic Rewind ’70s/’80s Classic Rock 

Monday Random Stuff…

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Tomorrow is Patch Tuesday. Backup if you get the time.

Adobe Reader Updated
Download en-US | All Downloads | Security Bulletin | Release Notes

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Please don’t repeat these things WikiLeaks says you can’t say about Assange (updated)
You absolutely cannot say these 140 things about Julian Assange, according to bastion of the free press WikiLeaks.
A representative of WikiLeaks has sent a “confidential” memo to news outlets including an updated “defamation list” (version 1.2), advising reporters not to mention or publish it. The memo was promptly leaked (update: the first out of the gate to leak was Emma Best of MuckRock). WikiLeaks then linked to a revised, heavily edited and redacted version (version 1.3) they posted “anonymously” on a text paste site.
Here, without further comment or editing, and in its entirety, is the WikiLeaks advisory.

Gentlemen actually do prefer blondes: study
They needed a study for that? Next you’re gonna tell me guys like women with big, um… Anyway, I was searching for the actual research and I found this:
Not so dumb! Blondes have more complex DNA, with more than three times the number of genetic variants than brunettes or redheads
Blondes may have a ditzy reputation, but their lighter locks are far more complex than scientists thought.
I’m not sure of the author’s hair color but I’m not seeing how more complex DNA for hair equates to “Not so dumb”. Maybe it’s because I’m a stupid brunet.
The actual research is here: Genome-wide study of hair colour in UK Biobank explains most of the SNP heritability

Seasonal affective disorder: your eye colour might be why you have the ‘winter blues’
You’re not alone if colder weather and longer nights make you feel down. This well-known phenomenon, called seasonal affective disorder (SAD), might explain why people feel low, irritable, and lethargic in the winter months. For some, the condition can be serious and debilitating.
Although SAD is a recognised form of clinical depression, experts are still divided on what causes the condition, with some even arguing it doesn’t exist. But my own research has found that your eye colour might actually be one factor determining whether or not you develop SAD.
Interesting.

Weekend Random Stuff…

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MS Office Updates Out, Some Already Pulled
How-to update MS Office: Install Office updates
All Office Downloads & Info
Office Standalone Latest Updates
Update history for Office 365 ProPlus – Version 1812: January 3
The updates for Office 2010 have been pulled:
January 2, 2019, update for Office 2010 (KB4032217)
After you install this update, you may experience difficulties in Microsoft Excel or other applications. To resolve this, uninstall the update by following the instructions in the “More information” section.
This update is no longer available.

Updated: WACUP (WinAmp Community Update Project)
Version 1.0.0.3174 released
WACUP (which can be pronounced as wakeup or wac-up or however you prefer it in your native tongue) is designed to work only with the patched Winamp 5.666 release to provide bug fixes, updates of existing features and most importantly new features with the goal to eventually become it’s own highly Winamp compatible media player.
WACUP makes use of the benefits of Winamp being heavily based on a plug-in system so new plug-ins can add additional features as well as allowing replacements to be created which provide better implementations over the plug-ins natively included with Winamp.
Download & Info

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Apple plasters privacy ad on billboard near Las Vegas Convention Center ahead of CES
“What happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone.”
Well played Apple. Never been to CES (can’t afford it) and I didn’t know CES was still a serious thing. Especially since there was a move to reduce or eliminate the best thing about it, Booth Babes!

Los Angeles Accuses Weather Channel App of Covertly Mining User Data
The Weather Channel app deceptively collected, shared and profited from the location information of millions of American consumers, the city attorney of Los Angeles said in a lawsuit filed on Thursday.

Popular Weather App Collects Too Much User Data, Security Experts Say
The app, called “Weather Forecast—World Weather Accurate Radar,” collects data including smartphone users’ geographic locations, email addresses and unique 15-digit International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers on TCL servers in China

Congrats on the new baby. Would you like a DNA screening test?
Every baby born in the United States is given a routine blood test to screen for dozens of inherited medical conditions. Now, the U.S. National Institutes of Health is exploring whether to use DNA sequencing to screen newborn babies for additional genetic abnormalities and disorders…One of the “key ethical issues” when using genome sequencing as a screening tool in newborns (or children in general), she wrote, “is that a comprehensive genetic profile is established without the person’s consent and without a clinical indication…”The issue with genetic information is, that once generated, it cannot be made ‘undone,’ ” wrote Lunshof, who was not involved in Beggs’ study. “If genetic information (that is often probabilistic) is on file, will it be used similar to ‘existing disorders’ and lead to denial of health insurance coverage?”

Move Over ‘Friends,’ Millennials Now Find ‘Seinfeld’ Problematic
Now, one of the most popular and successful TV shows of all time is considered problematic for several jokes that were okay – or a little edgy – in the 1990s that are now offensive to American millennials. The previous victim of this new, politically correct world was “Friends.” Now, “Seinfeld” is getting the social justice warrior treatment.

Blue Moon named official “craft beer” of the Kentucky Derby
Twatwaffles. Blue Moon isn’t craft beer. It is owned by MillerCoors which is owned the Molson Coors Brewing Company, world’s 7th largest brewing company.
Craft beer has the following label:

METALLICA’s LARS ULRICH Interviews JOAN JETT For ‘It’s Electric!’ Radio Show
Joan Jett recently joined METALLICA drummer Lars Ulrich for a special edition of “It’s Electric!”, his online radio show on Apple Music’s Beats 1. She reflects on performing with NIRVANA at the 2014 Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame induction ceremony, dissects the role of women in glam rock, discusses her 2018 documentary “Bad Reputation”, and more.
I love Joan Jett!

How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook

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Privacy International Study:
How Apps on Android Share Data with Facebook (even if you don’t have a Facebook account)
Article | Attached PDF Whitepaper | Video
We found that at least 61 percent of apps we tested automatically transfer data to Facebook the moment a user opens the app. This happens whether people have a Facebook account or not, or whether they are logged into Facebook or not…If combined, data from different apps can paint a fine-grained and intimate picture of people’s activities, interests, behaviors and routines, some of which can reveal special category data, including information about people’s health or religion. For example, an individual who has installed the following apps that we have tested, “Qibla Connect” (a Muslim prayer app), “Period Tracker Clue” (a period tracker), “Indeed” (a job search app), “My Talking Tom” (a children’s’ app), could be potentially profiled as likely female, likely Muslim, likely job seeker, likely parent.

See page 35 of the PDF for what little you can do to protect yourself.

This means that much of what you see on your phone either is, or could have been manipulated.
If this doesn’t piss you off then you deserve what you get.

Source: Techspot via [H]ardOCP

Wednesday Random Stuff…

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The holidays are over. Hopefully the tech world will start to slowly come out of it’s hangover induced lethargy.
Thus ends the slew off Off Topic posts. We now return to our regularly scheduled program.

Web Site Feedback On A Couple Of Issues

1 – Errors – A reader had contacted me earlier and said when he went to this site it appeared as a download. I didn’t understand what he meant but I’ve now seen it. The problem seems to exist for a while and then go away. My new web host is Inmotion. Their tech support continues to deny the situation exists and if it does it must be on my end. Never mind that I keep telling them that the problem first appeared when I switched to them. If you see this issue PLEASE take a screenshot and send it to me at tweakblog@gmail.com .

2 – Quote font color. I’ve been trying to differentiate quoted text via color vs italics. Is the color too light? Any suggestions?

Software Updates
7-Zip 18.06
Notepad++ 7.6.2

Windows 10 is now more popular than Windows 7
The latest Windows 10 operating system is now the most popular desktop OS in the world, finally beating Windows 7’s market share according to Net Applications. Windows 10 held 39.22 percent of desktop OS market share in December 2018, compared to 36.9 percent for Windows 7. It’s a statistic that’s taken Microsoft three and a half years to achieve, and it demonstrates just how popular Windows 7 has been since its release nearly 10 years ago.
For the most part you haven’t been able to by a Windows 7 computer in 2 years and Win10 was being given away for free (still is). Congrats on nothing Microsoft.

First-Ever UEFI Rootkit Tied to Sednit APT
Researchers hunting cyber-espionage group Sednit (an APT also known as Sofacy, Fancy Bear and APT28) say they have discovered the first-ever instance of a rootkit targeting the Windows Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) in successful attacks…The rootkit is named LoJax. The name is a nod to the underlying code, which is a modified version of Absolute Software’s LoJack recovery software for laptops…The infection chain is typical: An attack begins with a phishing email or equivalent, successfully tricking a victim into downloading and executing a small rpcnetp.exe dropper agent. The rpcnetp.exe installs and reaches out to the system’s Internet Explorer browser, which is used to communicate with the configured domains…Once the UEFI rootkit is installed, there’s not much a user can do to remove it besides re-flashing the SPI memory or throwing out the motherboard…By enabling Secure Boot, and making sure their UEFI firmware is up to date, end users can protect themselves against attack
Great, just great.

Stuff I bookmarked recently. Some off topic, some not:

Netflix drops satire episode critical of Saudi Arabia
Netflix confirmed Tuesday that it removed an episode of a satirical comedy show that criticizes Saudi Arabia, after officials in the kingdom reportedly complained.
Another American tech company sacrificing freedom for a dollar.

New Horizons Successfully Explores Ultima Thule
“Congratulations to NASA’s New Horizons team, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory and the Southwest Research Institute for making history yet again. In addition to being the first to explore Pluto, today New Horizons flew by the most distant object ever visited by a spacecraft and became the first to directly explore an object that holds remnants from the birth of our solar system,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “This is what leadership in space exploration is all about.”
Well done NASA.

Kentucky Distillers Scientifically Emulate A Century-Old Bottle Of Bourbon
But that antique bottle of Old Taylor, which was originally released in 1917, inspired Eaves — whose background is in chemical engineering — to use new technology to examine the bourbon’s past.”The most dominant flavor in that 1917 bourbon was the butterscotch note,” Eaves says. “That’s something that bourbon aficionados and the ‘dusty hunters’ recognize about historic Old Taylor bourbon is this beautiful, rich, creamy, sweet butterscotch note — and the mouthfeel of that particular bottle was really unique for a historic whiskey.”…According to Reigler, many people still don’t recognize all the science and technological innovations that underpin the bourbon industry — from increasingly computerized distilling systems to spirits analytics like what Eaves did with the antique bourbon.

The Apathetic Washington Redskins Fans

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Warning – This a completely Off Topic and self-serving post.
I’ve put this here as much as a place maker for myself as anything.

The Redskins suck. They’ve sucked for a long time. So long that the once rabid fan-base has mostly become “over it”. For a little while each season I try to care, but I just don’t. Not anymore. I’m a guy that used to watch 3 NFL games at once. Usually one of them was my other favorite, the Raiders. Yeah I know, I can really pick’em. At least my Sundays are free for other things now.
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