THE PULP JANUARY, 2021 The P U L P Newsletter of the Hartford User Group Exchange http://www.huge.org Volume 40 Issue --01
JANUARY 19th General Meeting: Pranks & …
Rev. Fleming Hall 2533 Main Street, Glastonbury, CT Q&A Session: 7 PM–7:15PM Meeting starts at: 7:15PM
Contents Page
From the Editor 2
Stu’s Quiz Page 3
How to Decode Apple Ver- 4 sion and Build Numbers
UEFI Configuration for Boot- 7 ing Live Media
Genealogy Research Online 9
Calendar 10
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The PULP is published monthly by and for members of the Hartford User Group MEETING LOCATIONS Exchange, Inc. (HUGE). HUGE is a nonprofit organization whose aim is to pro- vide an exchange of information between users of personal computers. The PULP is Rev. Fleming Hall not in any way affiliated with any computer manufacturer or software company. Original, uncopyrighted articles appearing in the PULP may be reproduced without 2533 Main Street, prior permission by other nonprofit groups. Please give credit to the author and the Glastonbury, CT PULP, and send a copy to HUGE. The opinions and views herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of HUGE. Damages caused by use or abuse of information appearing in the PULP are the sole responsibility of the user of the in- formation. We reserve the right to edit or reject any articles submitted for publica- tion in the PULP. Trademarks used in this publication belong to the respective own- ers of those trademarks.
From The Editor by Stuart Rabinowitz
Happy New Year. Thanks to everyone that added to the UEFI/BIOS firmware Three million users installed 28 mali- December discussion.. Those of you that were at the meeting cious Chrome or Edge extensions. A hacker is selling access to may notice a theme to at least one of the articles in this the email accounts of hundreds of C-level executives. month’s PULP. It relates to a topic that came up in the Apple ID has added a recovery key option, but it’s not yet meeting. The January. topic is inspired by a frantic ‘FaceTime’ ready for you to use. call. Law enforcement took down three ‘bulletproof’ VPN Also, as those of you that attended the December meeting providers. may remember, no heat. There is a very good chance the heat Facebook launches new initiative to fight against iOS 14 ad will not be fixed as the are working to get bids to replace the tracking protections hot air gas furnace. If we need to be virtual, I’ll send out a link. Older Android phone just dodged a big web browsing problem. This time we’ll be using ‘Jitsi” which is an open source soft- All Android phones should now be able to access sites secured ware. An iOS and Android version is available. with certificates from Let's Encrypt until 2024. To those of you that sent your dues check into Marty, I 5G standalone networks may have more vulnerabilities than apologize for not having deposited them. We are in the process you think of changing banks to reduce fees, but are having issues with satisfying the bank with our documentation. Microsoft has created a Rewards program which promises sweepstakes for prizes, discounts toward items in the Mi- In the news: The SolarWinds Trojan affected about 18,000 crosoft Store, and other personal benefits, but you need to enterprises that must use hot patches, isolate compromised enroll and provide them some personal information. The pro- gear Reports indicates the company was warned about gram tracks what those customers search on Bing, what web- insecurities years ago. A backdoor was found in the sites they visit and how often, and what time of day are they SolarWinds Orion IT monitoring and management software in online, etc. a dynamic link library called SolarWinds.Orion.Core. Google’s huge Gmail and YouTube outage on 12/14 lasted 50 Some organizations have been infected with Sunburst (not to minutes affected billions and was due to an errant 'zero' be confused with SolarWinds) malware released online. The biggest names on this list include Cisco, SAP, Intel, Cox Send your comments to [email protected] Communications, Deloitte, Nvidia, Fujitsu, Belkin, Amerisafe, Until next month…Happy computing!! Lukoil, Rakuten, Check Point, Optimizely, Digital Reach, and Here is the appropriate copyright citation for the “Tidbits” Digital Sense. articles. Each article has a link to the full text. Academics have been able to turn RAM into Wi-Fi cards to steal data from air-gapped systems. They do need to be fairly http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ close to the computers, at present. FireEye, one of the world's largest security firms, has disclosed security breach. TheNew TrickBot version can tamper with
Page 2 THE PULP JANUARY, 2021 A Little Computer Quiz Dec. Quiz Answers
Continuing a theme from last month— 1 One of the currently hottest computer pro- 1 Java was developed in the summer of gramming languages is Python, when was it 1994 , but was not originally called have. released? What was the original name? A 1991
2 What company developed it? 2 When was work on it started? A Work began in 1989 3 Who was the lead developer? 3 Who created Python? 4 What was the first app written? A Guido van Rossum, He has been Presi- dent of the Python Software Foundation, after 5 When was JavaScript announced? stepping down it 2018 as (BDFL) ‘benevolent dictator for life’.
4 Even older is BASIC. When was the first BASIC program successfully run? A May 1. 1964 at 4 AM on a General Elec- tric computer.
6 Where? A Dartmouth College in Hanover NH.
Stuart Rabinowitz
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How to Decode Apple Version and Build Numbers build numbers, you can glean additional information about any given release. DAVID SHAYER 8 July 2020 Everyone knows that Apple operating systems have ver- Understanding Apple Version and Build Numbers sion numbers, like iOS 13.5.1 or macOS 10.15.5. But have Apple’s two main operating system lines, iOS and macOS, you noticed that Apple operating systems also have build have independent version and build number systems. iOS, numbers? For instance, iOS 13.5.1 is build number 17F80. iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS share a common system since But what does that mean? they are all derived from the iOS code base. (Only Dar- To see your macOS version and build numbers on a Mac, win-derived operating systems—macOS, iOS, iPadOS, choose Apple > About This Mac and click the version watchOS, and tvOS—use build numbers. Classic Mac OS number. In iOS or iPadOS, go to Settings > General > and iPod OS didn’t use the same build number system.) About and tap Software Version. For watchOS, in your As you know, every Apple operating system release has an iPhone’s Watch app, go to General > About and look at official version number, composed of three parts: the Version line. Major version: For iOS, it’s incremented once per year for significant upgrades. For macOS, the major version num- ber has been 10 since the initial release of Mac OS X, ren- dering it pointless up until the upcoming update to mac- OS 11 Big Sur. Minor version: For iOS, the minor version is incremented as necessary (usually three to six times) throughout the lifespan of a major version to reflect updates that contain new features along with bug fixes. For macOS, the minor version is really the major version, incrementing for each annual named release of macOS. Patch version: For iOS, the patch version increments as necessary for bug fix updates to each minor release. For macOS, Apple updates the patch version for every release that’s more than just a quick bug fix—those are called “supplemental updates” and don’t get their own version numbers. But their build numbers change! Here’s a simple chart to help clarify the official version numbering scheme.
OS Major Minor Patch iOS 13 5 1 macOS 10 15 5 An Apple build number also has three parts: Finding build numbers in Apple operating systems Although it’s easy to check the build number of any oper- Major version: Within Apple, the major version is called ating system you’re running, Apple doesn’t publish a the build train. canonical list of them anywhere. For that information, Minor version: For iOS and its descendants, the minor head to Wikipedia’s iOS Version History, macOS Version version tracks with the minor release; for macOS, it tracks History, watchOS, and tvOS articles or look in the Mac- with patch releases. Tracker app (for the macOS build numbers, you’ll need to Daily build version: The daily build indicates how many click through from the version history article to the ex- times Apple has built the source code for the release since panded article about each release). the previous public release. Apple makes a new build of each operating system at least To make this crystal clear, look at iOS 13.5.1, which is build every night, so there’s a fresh version ready for the engi- 17F80, and macOS 10.15.5 with its supplemental update, neers each morning. Most of these builds are never re- which is build 19F101. leased outside the company, so they don’t get an official version number like 13.5.1. But the engineers still need a OS Major Minor Daily way to identify a particular build. That’s what build num- iOS 13.5.1 17 F 80 bers are for. Once you understand how to decode Apple’s macOS 10.15.5 19 F 101
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One tangentially related note: For macOS Big Sur, Apple Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite 14 updated the major version number to 11 and reset the mi- Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan 15 nor version number to 0. This move may cause problems macOS 10.12 Sierra 16 for some apps that check feature availability by looking up macOS 10.13 High Sierra 17 the operating system version. Since macOS’s major version macOS 10.14 Mojave 18 number remained at 10 for so long, some developers got macOS 10.15 Catalina 19 lazy and checked only the minor version number. Needless macOS 11.0 Big Sur 20 to say, such sloppy code could break in Big Sur. Luckily, as Minor Build Letter Howard Oakley explains, Apple has made some effort to mitigate this problem by having Big Sur return 10.16 For iOS, the minor build version usually changes for each rather than 11.0 in some situations. This is why apps X.1 operating system release. It’s a letter, not a number, should check macOS APIs directly for the existence of a and generally clambers its way up the alphabet. There are particular feature, rather than assume it exists in a specific some discrepancies, such as iOS 13.1 continuing minor operating system version just because Apple first included version A instead of switching to B. Also, iOS 13.3 is minor it in that version or an earlier one. version C, and iOS 13.4 is minor version E, skipping D. More on these oddities shortly. Major Build Number These days, the major build number for iOS changes every iOS 13 Minor Versions year. iOS 13’s major build number is 17; iOS 14’s is 18. iOS Version Build iOS 13.017A577 iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS Build Trains iOS 13.1 17A844 iOS iPadOS watchOS tvOS Major Build iOS 13.2 17B84 Number iOS 13.3 17C54 iPhone OS 1 1–4 iOS 13.4 17E255 iPhone OS 2 5 iOS 13.5 17F75 iPhone OS 3 7 Things are a bit different in the macOS world. As you can iOS 4 8 see, the minor build letter corresponds with the macOS iOS 5 9 patch release number. iOS 6 10 iOS 7 11 Catalina Minor Versions iOS 8 watchOS 1 12 macOS Version Build iOS 9 watchOS 2 tvOS 9 13 macOS 10.150 19A583 iOS 10 watchOS 3 tvOS 10 14 macOS 10.15.1 19B88 iOS 11 watchOS 4 tvOS 11 15 macOS 10.15.2 19C57 iOS 12 watchOS 5 tvOS 12 16 macOS 10.15.3 19D76 iOS 13 iPadOS 13 watchOS 6 tvOS 13 17 macOS 10.15.4 19E266 iOS 14 iPadOS 14 watchOS 7 tvOS 14 18 macOS 10.15.5 19F96 With macOS, the major build number also changes with Daily Build Number every significant release, which occurs every year now, although less frequently in the past. Things get interesting when we come to the daily build number. Apple engineers increment it every time a new macOS Build Trains build is made, usually every night, but sometimes more macOS Version Major Build Number often. The first time Apple made an engineering build of Mac OS X Public Beta 1 iOS 13, it was assigned build number 17A1. The next build Mac OS X 10.0 Cheetah 4 was 17A2. And so on. Mac OS X 10.1 Puma 5 The first shipping version of iOS 13.0 was 17A577, which Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar 6 means Apple made 577 builds of iOS 13 before it shipped Mac OS X 10.3 Panther 7 the first copy to users The second shipping build was iOS Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger 8 13.1, build number 17A844. It took an additional 267 builds Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard 9 to create iOS 13.1. More interesting are the build numbers Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard 10 corresponding to the patch releases. Mac OS X 10.7 Lion 11 Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion 12 iOS 13 Patch Releases Mac OS X 10.9 Mavericks 13 iOS Version Build
Page 5 THE PULP JANUARY, 2021 iOS 13.017A577 used for iOS, with tvOS starting at J and watchOS starting iOS 13.1 17A844 at R. iOS 13.1.1 17A854 iOS 13.1.2 17A860 and 17A861 OS Build iOS 13.1.3 17A878 iOS 13.017A577 As you can see, Apple was pushing those patch releases tvOS 13.0 17J586 out quickly—there were only 10 builds between iOS 13.1 watchOS 6.0 17R575 and iOS 13.1.1, only 6 or 7 between 13.1.1 and 13.1.2, and Apple isn’t dogmatic about following these rules, or, to put only 17 or 18 more before the release of iOS 13.1.3. I don’t it another way, circumstances sometimes force the com- know why iOS 13.1.2 had two build numbers; iPadOS 13.1.2 pany to deviate from its rules. If it had followed past years, shared only the first one, so perhaps the second one was iOS 13.1 would have been 17B267, but it was 17A844. This specific to a particular iPhone model or geographic area. fact probably means that Apple originally thought that With macOS, the daily build number is more important. iOS 13.1 was going to be iOS 13.0.1, but it ended up con- As you’ve undoubtedly noticed, when Apple is forced to taining such important changes that the company decided release a quick bug fix update for all of its operating sys- to increment the minor version number rather than the tems, it sometimes gets stuck with macOS. iOS 13.5 went patch version number. to 13.5.1, for instance, but macOS 10.15.5 was given a “sup- Last year’s confused iOS release reflects that decision, plemental update” with no change in the official version with Apple releasing iOS 13.0 and promising a quick up- number. date to iOS 13.1 with features that weren’t ready at launch Luckily, the build number has no such limitation. As you (see “Apple to Ship iOS 13 on September 19th, iOS 13.1 on can see in the chart, the daily build number changes for September 30th,” 10 September 2019, and “Features the supplemental updates, enabling you to tell if your copy Added in iOS 13.1: Personal Automations, Driving ETA, of macOS has been updated or not. That’s helpful because and More,” 24 September 2019). Apple usually backpatches supplemental updates into the Similarly, iOS 13.3 is 17C54 and iOS 13.4 is 17E255—what update they address. So if you held off on installing mac- happened to minor version D? That was assigned to iOS OS 10.15.5 for a week, by the time you got to it, it would 13.3.1, which has build number 17D50. Presumably, Apple have already included the macOS 10.15.5 Supplemental had planned the release that ended up being iOS 13.3.1 to Update (see “Kernel Vulnerability Causes Apple to Update include the many new features in iOS 13.4 but felt a press- All Operating Systems,” 1 June 2020). The only way you ing need to push out a quick bug fix update first. In this could tell what you had would be to look at the build case, it was to address the privacy concerns surrounding number. the ultrawideband technology in the iPhone 11 (see “Apple Releases iOS 13.3.1, iPadOS 13.3.1, macOS 10.15.3, watchOS Catalina Supplemental Updates 6.1.2, and tvOS 13.3.1,” 28 January 2020). macOS Version Build There are undoubtedly many other stories behind jumps macOS 10.15 19A583 in build numbers or build numbers that skip around. An macOS 10.15 Supplemental Update 19A602 apparently missing build might be destined for HomePod, macOS 10.15 Revised Supplemental Update or an unreleased product, or a product only used internally 19A603 at Apple. But what’s important going forward is that you macOS 10.15.4 19E266 now know how to find and decode the build number asso- macOS 10.15.4 Supplemental Update 19E287 ciated with any given operating system release. And with macOS 10.155 19F96 that information in hand, you can draw various conclu- macOS 10.15.5 Supplemental Update 19F101 sions about the release: how much work went into it, Extracting Meaning from Build Numbers whether Apple was taken off guard by some bug report, or just whether or not you’ve actually received a supplemen- As you can see, we can learn useful information from build tal update. numbers. For instance, watchOS 1 (12S506) has major build number 12, the same as iOS 8 (12A365), because Join the discussion watchOS 1 is derived from the iOS 8 code base. We can also tell iOS and iPadOS are built from the same Editor Note: I apologize for some of the tabular format- source because they have the same build number (17A577). ting, it was difficult changing it from single column to two On the other hand, we can tell tvOS 13 and watchOS 6 are column. derived from the iOS 13 code base, because they have the same major build number, but are distinct branches, be- cause they have different minor build numbers that aren’t
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UEFI Configuration for Booting Live Media and “administrator” allows changing the UEFI configura- By Dick Maybach, Brookdale Computer User Group tion. You should always enable an administrator password www.bcug.com to prevent someone from enabling booting from your USB n2nd (at) att.net port, which would allow them to boot a live medium and access your disk. For a similar reason, if you’ve enabled In modern PCs the boot process is controlled by a Unified USB booting yourself, prevent someone else from doing so Extended Firmware Interface (UEFI), that has replaced by setting a system password. the old Basic Input-Output System (BIOS), see https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Extensible_Firmware_In- Figure 1 shows the opening UEFI configuration screen on terface. Most users, who purchase a machine with Win- my Dell laptop, which displays its table of contents. dows installed, can ignore the change, but if you wish to change its configuration you will have to be aware of its Figure 1. UEFI First Configuration Screen. differences. In particular, if you wish to enable booting from a live USB device you will want to: Note the Unlock button at the bottom. Select this and • require a password to access the PC, enter your administration password, assuming you’ve set • allow booting an alternate operating system from one, to make changes. a live memory stick or DVD, and • allow other operating systems than Windows. Most PCs require a keypress at the start of the boot process to enable booting from a USB port (assuming of The first challenge is to access the configuration utility, course you’ve enabled it). Here are some common ones. which requires tapping keys during the boot process. (You • Acer: , • Gigabyte: , • HP: , • Lenovo:
Page 7 THE PULP JANUARY, 2021 want to run Linux, but it is a security feature, and you may wish to enable it when you go back to Windows. Figure 2 Editor Note: Per Apple Support: shows the appropriate screen on my Dell, which follows To allow your Mac to use an external startup the security section. disk with a T2 chip (pretty much any Mac since Figure 2. Secure Boot Screen. 2019 except the new M1s): 1. Restart & at Apple Logo hold down Set the boot sequence to include USB devices, Figure 3. ‘Command-R’, Open Startup Security Utility. Figure 3. Boot Sequence. 2. Select ”Allow booting from external Following the advice on Figure 3, enable legacy option media.” at bottom of window. ROMs, Figure 4. 3. Your Mac doesn't support booting from network volumes, whether or not you al- Figure 4. Enable Legacy Option ROMs. low booting from external media. 4. If you want to select an external startup Also enable USB boot support, Figure 5. disk before restarting your Mac, quit Figure 5. USB Boot Support. Startup Security Utility, then choose Apple menu > Startup Disk. Finally, disable fast boot support, Figure 6, as this is com- patible only with recent versions of Windows. You may also want review some of the available security options. Figure 6. Disable Fast Boot.
Although I’ve used Dell as an example, the UEFI configu- ration on your PC is probably similar. Explore carefully, For older Macs: read the help text, and be sure you can undo your changes. Restart and hold down ‘option’ key Even if you don’t make changes, exploring your UEFI con- figuration will tell you much about your PC.
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Genealogy Research Online some of the paid sites via local family history By Frank Fota, Secretary & APCUG Rep, centers. A local family history center is Fredericksburg PCUG, MD located at 20 Boscobel Rd Fredericksburg, VA FPCUG Notes for April 2020 22405 (540) 361-7494. www.fpcug.org fotafm (at) gmail.com 4. Roots Web – is the oldest and perhaps the largest genealogy site on the internet. The Well, the Coronavirus has us isolated at home Roots Web site has genealogy search engines instead of at work. Some people, so I’ve and message boards where you can heard, are tackling tasks they’ve deferred for obtain help from budding but more experi- the proverbial “rainy day.” I’ve often said to enced genealogists. myself that I would scan that box of photos I rescued from my departed uncle’s home be- 5. USGenWeb – provides lists of genealogy fore its contents were sold at an estate sale. I resources by state and county. intend to distribute the images to my relatives. The issue is …identifying the people in the 6. WorldGenWeb – is similar to USGenWeb. photos. Genealogical research can be a te- Bob Rankin says, ”WorldGenWeb is a non- dious task. Just such a task for a time like this. profit volunteer organization that is dedicated If you are interested in creating a family tree, to the free use and access of public domain or simply learning more about your ancestors, genealogical information.” there are many websites where you can con- duct genealogical research. Some of these Mr. Rankin notes several other websites and websites are interactive and allow you to the resources that are provided in the article share photos and communicate with distant linked above (i.e., at AskBobRankin.com). He relatives. Bob Rankin at AskBobRankin.com also provides links to genealogy software. provides a list of useful sites for Genealogical research:
1. Ancestry.com – perhaps the best-known website for genealogical research. It is a subscription-based service that costs $199/ year or $99 for six months. A 14-day trial will allow you to evaluate the service. For an addi- tional fee, the “World Explorer” package adds the ability to search internationally.
2. Cyndi's List – is a free, “…categorized & cross-referenced index to genealogical resources on the Internet. Over 335,000 ge- nealogical sites are linked from this website.
3. Family Search – is run by the LDS Church. It provides access to over a billion records worldwide at no cost. The LDS Church also provides personal assistance and access to
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Membership: Anyone may become a member. Dues are PULP Staff $12 per year and includes a one-year subscription to The Editor Stuart Rabinowitz Pulp. Meeting topics, times and places can be found on Distribution George Carbonell page 1 of this issue.
Officers & SIG Leaders Leader: ______George Carbonell 860 568–0492 [email protected] Secretary: ______Stuart Rabinowitz 860 633–9038 [email protected] Treasurer: ______Stuart Rabinowitz 860 633 9038 [email protected] Director at Large: __Phil Manaker 860 659-4584 [email protected] Director at Large: __Ted Bade 860 643-0430 [email protected] Director at Large: __Stuart Rabinowitz Web Manager: _____Bob Bonato [email protected] Membership: ______Martin Ritter [email protected] Integrated SIG: ____Stuart Rabinowitz
SU M TU W TH F SA
January 3032
1 Happy New 2 Year 1970 UNIX introduced
3 4 5 6 7 8 9 2007 iPhone introduced
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1997 HAL 9000 operational
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 1983 Apple IIe General & Lisa introduced Meeting 7 PM
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 1984 Mac 1983 Lotus introduced ships 1-2-3 /31
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