Kirk McElhearn
Co-Host of Intego Mac Podcast
Kirk McElhearn writes about Macs, iPods, iTunes, books, music and more on his blog Kirkville. He is a regular contributor to The Mac Security Blog, TidBITS, and several other websites and publications. Kirk has written more than twenty books, including Take Control books about iTunes, LaunchBar, and Scrivener.
Kirk McElhearn has hosted 371 Episodes.
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Twitter and Deepfakes
September 6th, 2019 | 39 mins 39 secs
Twitter's boss had his Twitter account hacked, and Twitter has disabled a feature from its earliest days, which let you tweet via SMS. Firefox's new update blocks trackers and crypto miners. And we take a look at audio and video deepfakes.
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Everyone Is Listening!
August 30th, 2019 | 33 mins 19 secs
There's a recurring theme in security and privacy news lately, and that is the fact that everyone is listening. If you use Alexa, OK Google, or Siri, the companies behind these services listen to some of your requests (and sometimes when you don't explicitly ask their devices anything). There's news this week about companies listening and watching, along with some Apple updates, clickjacking scripts on websites, and all the stuff that Facebook knows about you. And we answer a couple of listener questions.
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Do Macs need an antivirus?
August 23rd, 2019 | 36 mins 7 secs
There's a question we get asked often: do Macs really need an antivirus? Many people think that Macs are immune to malware, or that security software companies even create malware to sell their products. We give a balanced answer to the question of whether you need to protect your Mac with an antivirus.
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Hacker Conventions
August 16th, 2019 | 35 mins 21 secs
Summer is when hackers get together to present and discuss malware, vulnerabilities, and exploits. Two big hacker conventions - Black Hat and DEF CON - were held recently, and we discuss some of the Mac-related discoveries. We also look at some interesting news, including certain Macs being banned by the FCC, and answer a listener question about ransomware and files on a Mac.
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Who’s Listening to Your Private Conversations?
August 9th, 2019 | 31 mins 26 secs
Last week, we discussed how Apple was listening to some of your Siri requests. The company changed its policy, and Amazon and Google followed suit, but what else does Apple listen to? We also discuss Apple's new bug bounty program, how AT&T workers unlocked phones for profit, and how cryptojacking isn't financially viable any more.
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Preparing for macOS Catalina
August 2nd, 2019 | 31 mins 20 secs
We discuss some ways to check that your apps are all compatible with macOS Catalina. We also talk about Apple contractors listening to Siri recordings (but Kirk also adds a last minute update about Apple's change of heart), how the Facebook "Like" button can be a privacy problem, and how Google has discovered some new iOS vulnerabilities.
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Hacking humans: How to avoid social engineering scams
July 26th, 2019 | 36 mins 10 secs
Kirk and Josh take a close look at how you can be scammed by social engineering techniques. They also discuss Apple's recent updates to iOS 9 and 10, a report about the increase in malware targeting Macs, and some good and bad news about Google.
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Zoom Zero-Day, and Unmasking Mac Malware Makers
July 19th, 2019 | 34 mins 3 secs
An app named Zoom may sound like a good thing, but this app opened the Macs of users who had it installed - including Kirk - to a serious security vulnerability. This led Apple to take the rare action of pushing out a silent security update to Macs. And Josh tells us all about how you find out who creates malware.
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Browser Fingerprinting, Hyper-Threading, Firefox, VPN, and More
July 12th, 2019 | 32 mins 9 secs
We discuss a number of issues in the news, such as a 17-year old Firefox vulnerability, the threat to end-to-end encryption, and whether Apple should offer a VPN. We also answer listening questions about browser fingerprinting - what is it? we explain - and turning off hyper-threading (we explain that too).
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Browser Wars: Which Web Browser Is Best for Privacy?
July 5th, 2019 | 35 mins 27 secs
Everyone uses a web browser, on their Mac and their iOS device. But there are many web browsers, and some are better designed to protect your privacy. We take a deep dive into web browsers and discuss the pros and cons of Safari, Chrome, Firefox, and a number of alternatives.
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New Mac Malware, Apple Public Betas, and More
June 28th, 2019 | 28 mins 43 secs
There's been a lot of Mac malware appearing lately, and Intego has been discovering many serious new threats. We look at some of these malware, discuss an interesting new OneDrive feature, then talk about installing and using Apple's public betas for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS.
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Flash, Incognito Mode, Porn, and a Malware Extravaganza
June 21st, 2019 | 36 mins 36 secs
This week, as we are at Midsummer's Day, we look at the final nail in Adobe Flash's coffin, a new Chrome incognito mode feature, the UK's porn block, and a bunch of new malware.
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Privacy Policies Can Be as Complicated as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
June 14th, 2019 | 34 mins 28 secs
We discuss running iOS and macOS betas, the new iPod touch, Firefox's coming subscription service, Safari auto-submitting user names and passwords, and how some companies' private policies can be as complicated as Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.
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New Security and Privacy Features in macOS Catalina and iOS 13
June 7th, 2019 | 34 mins 49 secs
Apple announced their new operating systems early this week, and we take a close look at the many interesting and useful new security privacy features that will soon be available on your Mac and iOS devices.
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Deep Dive: Software Updates on Mac and iOS
May 31st, 2019 | 27 mins 44 secs
It's essential that you update your software, both to have improved features, squashed bugs, and security fixes. But should you update your software automatically, or should you wait? How can you best manage software updates on the Mac and on iOS?
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Oh, Google...
May 24th, 2019 | 34 mins 8 secs
We've called out Facebook many times recently for their security issues, and now it's time to look at a couple of problems with Google. We also discuss the Huawei situation, and how it may affect Apple, and more.