418: Interview With James Chiappetta, Security Expert From Better Appsec

Topics:

• This week we are pleased to welcome James Chiappetta, Security Expert from Better Appsec.

• An intro to the human element of security.

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-appsec-can-help-balance-product-usability-with-security-e958463aad81

  • https://betterappsec.com/how-to-account-for-the-human-element-in-appsec-146548ecb9a1 

• What are the most common iphone PINs and what drives the creation of them? http://danielamitay.com/blog/2011/6/13/most-common-iphone-passcodes

• Is a 6 digit PIN really more secure than a 4 digit PIN? 

• https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04868.pdf >> In a throttled scenario, simply increasing the PIN length is of little benefit. In our results, there was no significant difference between 4- and 6-digit PINs within the first 100 guesses

• Product and Usability/Convenience - Opting in vs Opting out

  • The Engine Start/Stop example - https://www.edmunds.com/car-reviews/features/do-stop-start-systems-really-save-fuel.html && https://www.edmunds.com/fuel-economy/engine-stop-start-systems-save-fuel-at-low-cost.html 

• What is the responsibility of consumer brands on data privacy and security? 

  • GDPR - accept all cookies?

  • Steve Job’s stance on prompting the user about the decision of opt in vs opt out

  • How or when does the question of optin vs opt on get asked factor in? 

Consumer empowerment. The individual should be able to actively manage their own data via consent, access, and correction mechanisms. In the event of a lack of adherence to these principles, there must be a way for the individual to address the breach without negative consequences. >> https://lolokaufman.medium.com/is-privacy-by-design-enough-12aa4fddb747

417: Nana-Technology or Sitting In A Bubble Of Time

Topics:

• Sam gives a shoutout to Armin Briegel of Scripting OS X for solving a huge problem he was having. If you’re not subscribing to his site, you should be.

• Being a part of the Mac Admins community is invaluable.

• Joe talks about creating a custom AppleScript to sync data in the Photos app. Jerry brings up an interesting point about support over the network.

• Note to self: Triple the estimate when quoting a scripting/automation job!

• The group talks about their automation processes.

• One of Sam’s old difficult clients who he had not talked to in years reached out to him for help. He was not sure how to respond.

• Joe shared a similar story about a client who rebook things off with him coming back after years.

• Jerry says that taking notes can be extremely helpful especially when trying to remember what happened with a client in the past. Daylite is an excellent tool for documenting this information and attaching to a client record.

• Sam tried to part ways with a client that was very time consuming but he didn’t have the heart.

• Joe shares a tip on setting up hot corners because even though they’ve been useful, they also drive him crazy.

• Shoutout to the TidBits content newsletter for sharing tips that even the professionals don’t know!

416: Interview With Annie Chen VP Of Product At Splashtop Inc

Topics:

• This week we are joined by Annie Chen, the VP of product management at Splashtop.

• Splashtop is a Silicon Valley company founded in 2006 that started off as a browser based product.

• Today they focus on remote access to your devices, working closely with GPU manufacturers to optimize and leverage hardware encoding to achieve high performance.

• Jerry commends Splashtop on the feature parity and he talks about how Mac had seemed to always receive the short end of the stick with other remote access products.

• Splashtop has three major offerings: Splashtop Business Access, Splashtop Remote Support - useful for MSPs looking to replace their RMM products, and Splashtop SOS for quick remote access.

• It is easy to try out and adjust to Splashtop, which Jerry found really helpful.

• Sam recently tried to use SOS with a customer and ran up against macOS security settings but was able to deal with it by blindly typing in admin credentials on a Mac

• Annie explains how the Safe Reboot feature works, which will help you reboot a computer remotely without losing access.

• Jerry likes how the screens that Splashtop SOS presents to the clients because it makes it easier for them to know what to do.

• Joe has been really happy with the consumer side of Splashtop as well.

• With Splashtop’s next version release, Mac Streamer will support native hardware encoding.

• They have recently formalized their MSP support group and an advisory panel.

• Splashtop is also working on having a specific build for M1 that they hope will be a universal binary and installed on Mac as a whole.

• They have just launches a monthly subscription plan for Splashtop’s remote support product.

• With Splashtop your subscription can grow as your business does.

• The group is impressed with Splashtop’s feature set in general.

• Jerry mentioned how Splashtop’s competitor would show advertisements even though you paid for the product.

• Focusing on security and protection, Splashtop has set up a security advisory counsel as well.

• Annie says the remote support and SOS products are really great for MSPs and service class teams.

• Visit Splashtop.com to set up a free trial and see what all the fuss is about.

415: Interview With Jason Dettbarn / Founder & CEO of Addigy - Cloud Based Mac Management Platform

Thank you to our VIP sponsors!

Special Thanks to our friends:

Topics:

• This week we are excited to be joined by Jason Dettbarn, the founder and CEO of Addigy.

• Dates for The Addigy User Summit have been booked for February, 2022: https://addigy.com/event/addigy-user-summit-2020/

• Throughout the pandemic, they started seeing more VPN and remote control technology being put into use in order to manage devices.

• COVID forced the whole IT industry to improve, since everything had to be done remotely.

• Jason explains how the pandemic has actually effected his business positively.

• Take a European summer this summer authorized by Jason Dettbarn.

• Sam and Jerry think Joe’s been on a break for the past three years.

• Joe thanks Jason for the great product he’s created, specifically Addigy LiveDesktop while he does one of his famous remote migrations.

• Additional remote control capabilities will be announced at their Innovation Summit.

• Join Addigy for their Innovation Summit on June 15! https://addigy.com/innovate2021/

• Quick Tip for Addigy users: Joe has a URL on his site for users to enroll into Addigy on the fly to allow management when they need it.

• Addigy will be adding variables to their Custom Facts in an upcoming update.

• Custom criteria will be added to allow auto assigning devices to a particular policy.

• Addigy is the only multi tenancy solution to allow Single Sign-On for Mac.

• Apps & Books deployment is now available in Self Service.

• Thomas Reed from Malwarebytes will be joining the security panel of the Innovation Summit.

• Addigy places a big value on community.

• The Custom Fact feature allows you to report custom criteria about a computer that isn’t built into Addigy.

• The community aspect is what allowed such a quick remediation of Silver Sparrow.

• “Day zero” support is already too late. Jason explains how Addigy prepares.

• The Command Control Power crew had their own Addigy Summit.

• Use all of the features available to you when installing Addigy.

• Addigy Certified Expert, Addigy Certified Associate certifications are available from Addigy:
  https://addigy.com/training/

• Joe talks about maintaining software updates using Addigy.

• Content caching is a feature that will explored in the near future.

• Jerry has a theory about kernel panic alerts he has seen from some of his users.

• Don’t forget about the Addigy Innovate Summit on June 15th!
  https://addigy.com/innovate2021/

414: Devolving Into Chaos

Topics:

• Jerry talks about a problem he had shipping a package through Walgreens.

• Jerry shares five tips of the day today.

  • Tip #1: Don’t ship your package through Walgreens.

  • Tip #2: Clean out your wallet.

  • Tip #3: Don’t carry a lot of money in your wallet.

  • Tip #4: Check in your settings in Backblaze to make sure you update it to more than 30 days.

  • Tip #5: If you create a folder in safari with multiple URLs, you will have the option to open all of the tabs.

• ACN links that you may have been using on your websites have changed. (Shoutout Jason Golfarb for sharing this information.)

• The cobbler’s son has no shoes.

• There should be better tools for web browsing management.

• The group discusses the Apple Airtags, Sam has used them to track his dog who runs away at night.

• Both Joe and Sam have a bad time as they attempt to update the UniFi Controller. Joe found his answers online while Sam reached out to Ubiquiti support. In either case, the solution involves an SSH connection and running this command: apt update; apt install -y openjdk-8-jre-headless

• Note to self, check the release notes.

• Note 2 to self, don’t upgrade client networks on a Friday night.

• One of Sam’s one off clients had a gen1 Cloud Key that crapped out. Matt used an old trick by getting into the Mongo database to store a new password and write it back to the cloud key.

• Jerry talks about the great UniFi LTE device he installed with Joe and the group discusses payments for it.

• Joe gives a quick tip on how to configure the device.

413: The Ultimate Technical Debt

Topics:

• Jerry talks about what he likes about SmallCube.

• The group talks about Apple supporting old hardware.

• Joe finally purchased a new refurbished Mac!

• Jerry talks about a problem with a computer that would not download Big Sur and kept going black that had a weird solution.

• This leads into Joe’s story about problems with a laggy bluetooth keyboard.

• Pro tip: Don’t let your device just sit around for a long period of time.

• Jerry shares a theory about kernel panics.

• People don’t read on screen warnings, which can lead to trouble.

• They have a conversation about how useful Omni Disk Sweeper is.

• Joe has an update to the df command thanks to listener Viktor Glemme.

• Terminal commands can be very helpful and efficient if you learn how to work with them.

• Jerry shares a story about a client that had trouble going to certain secure websites with Safari.