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Techlore Recommendations: Privacy & Security Resources
Pretty good overview of better-than-average to top-notch software, in terms of security and privacy (note that there are also service providers and tools listed on this page that I would neither endorse nor recommend):
Nomad Network – Communicate Freely
Off-grid, resilient mesh communication with strong encryption, forward secrecy and extreme privacy.
Nomad Network allows you to build private and resilient communications platforms that are in complete control and ownership of the people that use them. No signups, no agreements, no handover of any data, no permissions and gatekeepers.
Information is the basis of society in the digital world.
Freedom of expression/speech and free access to information are indispensable prerequisites for democracy.
Sadly, there are misleading and dubious organisations, lobbyists, parties, secret services, legislative and executive bodies that work against these liberal, enlightened and humanitarian values and demand or advocate censorship, online and offline.
This is a big threat for civil society – you and me, all of us.
And this is what makes projects like NomadNet important and valuable.
Stand up for freedom of expression/free speech and fight censorship!
(And as always, please note the disclaimer: All software and hardware can have security bugs).
macOS: Home and End keys like in Windows
As an alternative to the somewhat invasive https://karabiner-elements.pqrs.org/, a post how to bind the Home and End keys in macOS to behave like they do in Windows:
https://damieng.com/blog/2015/04/24/make-home-end-keys-behave-like-windows-on-mac-os-x
macOS Ventura: Fix the “Operation not permitted” error in Terminal
The “Operation not permitted” error message is caused by one of the typical annoyancesfeatures in macOS, namely the Terminal app lacking “full disk access” by default (and by design).
This conclusion unfortunately isn’t obvious, as when encountering the above error message, one would typically first check the ownerships and permissions of the directory/file/symlink “causing” the error, then perhaps the ACL / extended attributes, then whether the resource might still be locked by another process accessing it, and last but not least, one would remember macOS’s SIP (System Integrity Protection) and even consider booting into recovery mode. But none of that is actually required. The solution is:
- In the macOS “System Settings”, go to “Privacy & Security”
- Then click on “Full Disk Access” and enable it for “Terminal” (slider turns blue)
- Open a new Terminal window/session
Irritatingly, upgrading to macOS Ventura apparently resets the Terminal app’s security privileges.
Example:
I wanted to remove and recreate a symlink, so that “MobileSync” (where macOS stores backups of iOS devices like iPhones, iPads) isn’t just a regular, local directory, but a symlink pointing to a directory on a mounted NAS share. Advantage: Backups of iOS devices don’t use up valuable (and expensive) SSD storage space on your MacBook Air/Pro, but use cheap NAS storage instead (further, you don’t create duplicate backups on each of your Macs). Here’s where the MobileSync symlink is located and where it points to, in my case (you can create it using ‘ln -s /Volumes/backups_ios/MobileSync .‘, my share is named ‘backup_ios‘)
mymac ~/Library/Application Support $ ls -lad ~/Library/Application\ Support/MobileSync
lrwxr-xr-x 1 myuser staff 31 Apr 1 00:47 '/Users/myuser/Library/Application Support/MobileSync' -> /Volumes/backups_ios/MobileSync
Even as root, I first couldn’t remove the symlink I created some time back before the upgrade to Ventura. Which is even the more puzzling considering this all happens in a regular user’s home directory.
New Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad is surprisingly good, even excellent!
Recently, I’ve managed to render my beloved old Apple Keyboard (full-size, with numeric keypad) useless – accidentally pouring half a glass of tap water over it was sufficient, unfortunately (due to the mineral ions in the tap water; distilled water wouldn’t have conducted electricity and thus wouldn’t have shorted circuits; on the other hand, drinking distilled water would probably shorten your life, so please don’t consider doing this).
Luckily, I could temporarily use a similarly old, compact Apple Bluetooth keyboard instead. As I really wouldn’t recommend that keyboard for everyday work though (poor, bubbly typing experience, odd placement of keys requiring weird function key combinations, no numeric keypad), I had to order a full-size keyboard as a replacement again, so I ordered one of the new Apple Magic Keyboards with a Numeric Keypad (in Space Gray and I really like that, but the colour doesn’t matter in regard to the typing experience):
(above is the Swiss German version, US version: https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MRMH2LL/A/magic-keyboard-with-numeric-keypad-us-english-space-gray)
I first thought that the even smaller lift of the keys (luckily with scissor and not butterfly switches) of this new keyboard would be very disturbing and that I’d have a hard time getting accustomed to it.
To my big surprise however I got accustomed to this new typing experience within a couple of hours already and now, after about 3 weeks of using it, I can confidently say: I love this new Apple Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad even much more than my previous, old Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad and wouldn’t want to switch back anymore.
Typing with it feels so immediate, so quick and so “raw” and “crunchy”, it’s literally almost addictive. I can type considerably faster with it than with the previous keyboard, let alone any regular IBM-type keyboards (although I like those too, for their build-quality, for the interesting history and stories behind them, for their customizability and standardization, for the bustling keyboard enthusiast scene around it). Further, typing for a prolonged time feels much less tiring for the fingers, hands and forearms.
It feels as if you had to work with a wobbly tool for quite some time, then all of a sudden, get a very precise and exact instrument, like e.g. skiing with racing skis vs. with allround skis. It’s pure joy!
The difference is difficult to describe, so I would recommend you rather go experience it yourself and judge for yourself. For me, it’s my most favourite keyboard so far.
I’m even thinking of getting one for the Windows workstation at work too, it’s that good.
macOS: How to remove stale/redundant entries from the “open with” context menu
To regenerate the “open with” context menu in macOS (and reopen Finder windows), execute the following two commands in Terminal:
$ /System/Library/Frameworks/CoreServices.framework/Frameworks/LaunchServices.framework/Support/lsregister -kill -r -domain local -domain system -domain user
$ killall Finder
IPMI Serial over LAN (SOL)
A nice summary by Werner Fischer (Thomas-Krenn) about how to enable and use Serial over LAN, particularly for Linux boxes:
(In German, but you can easily translate it using your favourite online translation tool, e.g. deepl.com or Google Translate)
Got a recent Mac and Boot Camp? You’ll need unofficial drivers.
(Or: The sad state of Apple’s Boot Camp support)
If you use Boot Camp with the official AMD GPU drivers the Boot Camp assistant installs, you’ll notice that many recent games in Windows 10 will issue warnings about outdated AMD GPU drivers and/or will simply crash (e.g. after a couple of minutes, like Forza Horizon 4).
Apparently, the only remedy is installing unofficial AMD drivers from https://www.bootcampdrivers.com (kudos!). It worked fine for me ( Adrenalin 19.1.2 V3 on a 15 inch MBP late 2018 with an AMD Radeon Pro 560X) – the games stopped crashing – BUT apparently, installing unofficial drivers from the above web site happens to void your Apple Care warranty (read: You do it at your own risk).
This means that one has the choice to either void the warranty or stick with an unacceptably buggy Boot Camp installation. Really, Apple?
Paragon CampTune – a handy tool to resize the Boot Camp partition
Recently I ran out of space on a Boot Camp partition with Windows 10 Pro. So I looked around for ways to make more space for Windows by shrinking the macOS partition and enlarging the Windows partition. Apple doesn’t officially support this in Boot Camp without reinstalling Windows, and doing these operations by hand, e.g. with the help of GNU Parted, is time consuming and tedious.
Luckily, I stumbled over Paragon CampTune, a commercial macOS utility (ready for 10.14 Mojave) that automates these tedious tasks and allows to resize the macOS and Boot Camp partitions on the fly, without having to reinstall Windows or macOS.
It finally worked wonderfully, the only irritating thing was that the tool showed a bland error at the first start of the repartitioning process: “Object not found”. After restarting the process with slightly different partition sizes, it could be successfully completed.
I can thus recommend this handy utility as it can save hours of work for a few bucks (ca. 22 USD).