Infobulletin Oct14 - Smartwatches watching you?, Blanket Wi-Fi, Tether your phone, Mobile printing

October 2014Issue 145

Always the best sourcefor IT ideas

NewsBytesWindows 9/10, Office 365 eBook, HyperCat, misplacedcloud fears ... and more

Always on the recordWhose smartwatch is watching you?

A strategy for blanket Wi-FiConfiguring multiple Access Points

Tether your phoneHow to keep working when the broadband dies

Here comes the new con ...... same as the old con

The mobile printing scrumAccommodate users without compromising the network

Q&A: How to suppress the "Open with"menu in Windows 7?

Clicks of the Trade - Wean yourself offadmin rights

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04/07/2014 - InfoBulletin July 2014 - Remote control software, Phones that listen, Lifeafter XP, Create an IT security policy

13/05/2014 - InfoBulletin May 2014 - Thought your mail was private? Cryptolockerransomware, Wi-Fi pitfalls, Hire society

02/04/2014 - InfoBulletin April 2014 - Mobile Device Management, ShapeshiftingOffice, Hybrid drives, A false sense of security, New roaming Wi-Fi

*** NewsBytes ***

InfoBulletin October 2014 - Smartwatches watching you?, Blanket Wi-F... http://www.coopsys.net/downloads/infobulletin_oct14.htm

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Liberating Windows 9 ...wait, that's Windows 10!

As the details of Microsoft's next operatingsystem gradually eked out to a waiting public,a free upgrade was conjectured as one of thecarrots to lure existing users. During a pressevent ahead of the 30 September launch, thepresident of Microsoft France named thesuccessor "Windows 9" by accident. Thoughthe company line had been that the codename"Windows Threshold" was still the official one,Microsoft surprised everyone as Terry Myerson,head of operating systems, announcedWindows 10.

The much anticipated Start Menu returns as amini hybrid, combining a traditional Windows 7application list on the left along with a set ofWindows 8 Live Tiles on the right. This versionruns Metro/Modern apps from the WindowsStore will be able to run in multiple virtualdesktop windows too. The 'write-once, deployevery where' approach of Windows TechnicalPreview will be for developers only. Using anadaptive new system dubbed Continuum, it willrun across the "broadest range of devices everfrom the Internet of Things to enterprisedatacenters worldwide", encompassing Xbox,PCs, phones, tablets and tiny gadgets alongthe way. Though small-screened devices won'thave the desktop, they will retain the Charmbar. A single view for all open apps and filesnow comes care of a new Task view button onthe task bar, allowing quick switching andone-touch access to any desktop. Anotherappealing aspect posed by Andreas Diantoro,president of Microsoft Indonesia, is thatexisting users of Windows 8 would get a freeupgrade the new OS. Interestingly this is oneleak that nobody has confirmed or refuted asyet.

Delve: Office 365 gets itsown Google Now

Coming toEnterprise Office365 users andthen businessplan subscribersfrom early 2015,Office Delvelearns therelationships between a user's data pools andtheir activity. By tapping into Microsoft-powered data sources, this new Officeassistant delves into business-subscribedemail, OneDrive, SharePoint and Yammer,Microsoft's social network. The list of

Office 365 virtuallyanywhere, free eBook

This all-rounderfrom MicrosoftPress aims tointroducebeginners andteam leaders toOffice 365. Thefirst tenthcontains a fairbit ofpromotionalpuff - to beexpected if they want hook readers aspotential new subscribers - and a primer ofcloud computing and collaboration. Howeverthose who understand or are responsible forbasic admin - the ones likely to have the mostpurchasing clout - should skip straight to theadmin section in chapter 3 to get acquaintedwith some edifying screen shots. For example,SharePoint serves up 6 handy roles (view,read, contribute + enhanced, design, fullcontrol) as well as permitting customisedvariations, invaluable for realising a hierarchyof site collaboration. The excellent Office WebApps allow users to create, edit and sharetheir work as usual but the guide is up frontabout the limitations too - no format painter ortracked changes being just two. We also findout that the single file size limit of 50MB canbe increased with some "behind-the-sceneswrangling". The title "Microsoft Office 365:Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere,Anytime" says it all really. The neat ambiguitydisplayed by "collaborate, virtually anywhere"or "collaborate virtually, anywhere" illustratesthe power of implementing the kind of cloudcomputing any team can just pick up and runwith. Download the epub (22MB) and mobi(8MB) formats from the Microsoft Press blog.

88% fear risk of theirdata in the cloud

... though only2 percent haveactuallyexperienced abreach. Nearlyhalf oforganisationschanged theway they usecloud servicesfollowingrevelationssurrounding PRISM, according to a poll of 250senior IT business decision makers conductedby the cloud industry forum (CIF), while afurther 9% switched cloud service providerscompletely. Ranking highest amongst concernswere backup/disaster recovery, data storageand personnel/payroll. Chiefs and partners atCIF put the experience mismatch down to thefear, uncertainty and doubt promulgated bymedia stories, and cite their CIF code ofpractice as a route to helping cloud serviceproviders (CSPs) build trust within their clients.

Dying for a sit down


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'delve-able' source applications will soon growto include email attachments, OneNote andLync.

Inevitably Office Delve will be compared toGoogle Now, but underneath its engine isOffice Graph, which employs "sophisticatedmachine learning techniques to map therelationships between people, content, andactivity that occurs across Office 365" saysJulia White, general manager of Office 365Technical Product Management. And of courseDelve is mobile-friendly too,as you'd expect of anysystem that fetchesinformation for you ratherthan having to go searchingfor it. As for the applicationitself, Office 365 adminsdon't have to do any searching or waiting;those on the First Release program can getDelve simply by signing into their Office 365online account.

OneDrive now shareableand bigger

In the race tooffer ever morefree cloudstorage,Microsoft hastaken a leapthat puts itback in contention with Google and Dropbox.Up from 2GB, Microsoft's OneDrive cloudservice is now syncing files up to 10GB size, inits free allocation of 15GB. The company hasalso rectified an omission that saw it losing outto Dropbox, namely a link whereby a right-clickon a OneDrive-synced in the Explorer app onthe desktop (both Windows and Mac) opens asharing menu. The "Share a OneDrive link"menu item creates a link that can be mailed,IM-ed or shared via Facebook, Twitter, orLinkedIn.

These features - among the top requested forOneDrive - are rolling out over the next fewweeks says Microsoft.

Dell Mobile Workspacetackles BYOD issues

Streamlining phones, email and Office 365,Dell's solution aims to solve BYOD security,manageability and cost in one go. Rather than

Today's desk jockeys have a dilemma on theirhands: work is probably killing them, literally.Sitting comfortably? Here's a bit of news tomake you squirm. With half the time of anymodern day worker spent sitting down, onestudy has shown the associations of asedentary life with diabetes and cardiovasculardisease, while another at the British Journal ofSports Medicine emphasises the importance ofexercise and standing up in preventing damageduring cell division. The otherwise shortenedchromosome-caps, called telomeres, displaylinks to heart disease, cancers, diabetes,obesity and strokes. Thus, time spent stabbingthe screen ofoursmartphonescould be yearsof our livessaved, thoughonly if we do itstanding up,and avoidingtextingfaceplants.

Shellshock: Macs andLinux get a bashing

A flaw in thebasicoperatingsystem of bothLinux andApple Mac'sOSX was therecent bignews discovery, if only because it lay hiddenfor perhaps 20 years. In the past, Macs and tosome extent Linux have often been portrayedas 'immune to viruses' but the fallacy was welland truly shot down at the end of Septemberwith the revelation that the so-calledShellshock bug affects an essential piece ofsoftware called Bash - the shell or commandline interface that allows a user to talk to aUnix based system, and is one of the mostinstalled utilities on any Linux system. Securityexperts are deeply concerned, like FireEyeInc's Director of Threat Research DarienKindlund who reckons Shellshock is "horrible.It's worse than Heartbleed, in that it affectsservers that help manage huge volumes ofInternet traffic. Conservatively, the impact isanywhere from 20 to 50% of global serverssupporting web pages." The bug rated a 10 outof 10 on the severity scale of the US NationalVulnerability Database. The team at Red Hat,who discovered the flaw have written an FAQwhich cites the Red Hat release of patchedversions of Bash. Patches for many other Linuxdistributions can be found via Lifehacker whichalso presents the one line command (envx='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash

-c 'echo hello') to test whether a

machine is vulnerable. Apple has promised a fixfor Mac users is on its way.


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employing today's piecemeal measures to reignin the bring-your-own-device wave, Dell offersa single application where employees accesscorporate email, calendar, contacts, theintranet and documents both on or offline.Mobile Workspace satisfies the requirements ofmanagers, data controllers and IT admins,providing remote lock, wipe and passcodepolicy operations within the application, butwithout taking total control of the device, thusmaintaining privacy concerns of the phoneowners. Employees even get a separatebusiness phone number on their existingsmartphones or tablets with the BusinessPhone. The firm's cloud storage service facility,Box, allows staff to access its organisation'sfiles and folders securely across a range ofdevices. Mobile Workspace supports Android4.0 upwards and iOS 7.0 upwards on MicrosoftExchange 2007 and up.

*** end of NewsBytes ***

^ Back to contents ^

1. Always on the record

2015 is set to be the year of the smart watch but is this particular gadget also set tomould employees as in-house spies?

Helpathand.Backissuesjust aclickaway

The 'wearable tech' world of JamesBond has arrived and it's watching you,even as you boggle at its capabilities.

Timed to arrive at for a lucrativeChristmas take-up and a blast into theNew Year, a slew of renownedsmartphone companies pitched theirofferings into the smartwatch race inthe second half of 2014:

LG rolled out its initiallysomewhat dull rectangular Gwatch followed by a moreexciting round G Watch R runningthe android Wear operating systemSamsung produced a range of Gear watches, based on its home-grown Tizen operatingsystem as a lever to disengage itself from the stranglehold of Google's AndroidMotorola's Moto 360, was a well received and water-resistant Android device with a circularand bright face, though as iFixit discovered, its battery capacity turns out to be a bitconfusingApple, puffing up to the finishing line, announced one rectangular watch in 2 sizes with atouch/pressure sensitive screen and a new take on the decade-old 'jog dial'

With so little in the way of control and viewing surfaces, information harvesting in the style ofGoogle Now, Cortana, and Siri will be a given. To respond to a user's wishes, wrist-borne datainput will be automated as far as possible so that a picture of the user's environment is always onhand, and timely information can be served up with as little conscious interaction as practicable.

Enterprises still coming to terms with the data-slurping side effects of BYOD may not realise thatan even more insidious trend is about to bubble up, this time from technology on the arm insteadof in the pocket.


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Looks like a watch ...

Feels like a watch ...

Watch doppelgänger ...

Er ... one to watch?

Testing 1, 2, 3

These devices are as packed with sensorsas the smartphones with which they areintended to be paired. Stuff like Wi-Fi,Bluetooth, accelerometers, compasses, andgyrometers for GPS positioning, and heartrate sensors for fitness are taken as read,but these wrist buddies don't stop at justtracking their owners.

The Samsung Galaxy Gear sports a 1.9MPcamera while the Arrow smartwatchcontains a 360° rotating camera for selfiesor incognito filming. Microphones onsmartphones are fairly capable of pickingup sound from any direction (since mostnow bundle second mics to suppressbackground noise in conversations), whilethe Smartwatch 2 Camera app turns aremotely placed smartphone into a kind ofvideo baby monitor.

Thus the capabilities of bugging equipmenttoyed with only by professionals andthriller writers a decade ago is tricklingdown to consumer-level. So will bosses belogging every word and movement atmeetings? Perhaps colleagues will join inas well, just to cover their backs. Mondaymorning round-ups could become a tenseaffair!

Transparently rejected

Google Glass is blatantly obvious by itsmere presence, and also to its 'subjects'that recording is live/on air as it were. Thesheer barefacedness of Glass already sawits use being banned - even before theconcept had made it to production - inplaces such as bars, restaurants, banks (idprotection), gyms, and cinemas (as ananti-piracy measure), while a mountingclutch of US states including West Virginia,Illinois and New Jersey have proposedlegislation banning drivers from "using awearable computer with head mounteddisplay", despite potential enforcementhurdles.

If all this weren't enough to severely dent aGlass wearer's ego, a worse fate is to belabelled a 'Glasshole', and Google itselfpublishes an etiquette guide of GlassExplorers Do's and Don'ts to help usersavoid humiliation at least. However, likecartoon Comic Book Guy, self-inflictedGlass nerds could already be flip-floppingbetween denial and depressed acceptanceof a life as the new social outcast.

Hidden in plain sight

In the wake of face-worn tech, more stylishsuccessors are inevitably becomingfashionably acceptable, but potentiallymore useful. Ron Amadeo found that after amonth and half's ownership of Google Glass, his costly hi-tech specs ended up in the drawer andhe found himself persuaded by the ergonomics of Android Wear.

Wrist-worn computers are arguably a great innovation for users who want to sidestep the Google


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Glasshole.sh is a script that can be used to kickGoogle Glass off your local wireless network.Written by Berlin artist Julian Oliver, it can beinstalled on a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone.

The Stop The Cyborgs store has publisheddownloadable PDF banning signs.

geek look and keep that giant smartphone slab tuckedaway, but the advantage of discretion that makes themsocially respectable could also be their failing: they'reinherently covert.

The banning restrictions on Glass could apply to thepervasive capabilities of smartwatches but enforcementswill be even more fraught. Workplaces could be concernednot only about the devices' lifeblogging capacities but thepotential to leak organisational data should control of thesewrist-worn devices end up in the wrong hands throughviruses, remote attacks or disgruntled workers.

Not on my watch

Perhaps there's not as much to be feared here as mightfirst appear; there are severe impediments to operating asmartwatch in slick fashion. However many buttons, jogdials and tap sensors are packed into the device, two handsare still required for response and control. Wrist-flickingand voice recognition algorithms don't pass any subtletyetiquette in meetings, while a smartphone, by comparison,can still be silenced inconspicuously with one-handedoperation.

Over several decades we've got used to what we must nowpresumably call 'feature watches' - those esteemed lumps of precision stainless steel driven byquartz movements - lasting a couple of years on a single non-rechargeable battery. However,sophistication comes at a price. By contrast to their predecessors, the smartest of the 'smart'adversaries - as witnessed by these comparisons - barely chug through a whole day, effectivelyaround 700 times less efficient at telling the time and date.

With that kind of stamina, you can bet that the average smartwatch will conk out just as therecord button is pressed. Perhaps we're safe after all.

Bookmark


2. A strategy for blanket Wi-Fi

Configuring multiple access points for shared Wi-Fi.


When small organisation wants to expand into aneighbouring office, staff usually need to haveaccess to Wi-Fi. The existing Wi-Fi router signaloften doesn't reach where they want it so shouldthey buy a repeater?

This is a typical stumbling block of Wi-Fiexpansion. Thick walls, water pipes and metalmesh all conspire to block off the Wi-Fi signal,and even metal filing cabinets being shiftedaround can play havoc, especially near the 30metre limit of Wi-Fi transmission.

A decade ago, repeaters were seen as onesolution but the technology effectively halves thebandwidth for connected computers as theyprocess and rebroadcast the signal. While routerbandwidth always tends to be much greater thanthat of an broadband Internet connection, it could make internal PC networking slow, and anyway


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there are better solutions these days, either using existing Wi-Fi technology or the incominggeneration of routers and antennae.

Change the channel

A common strategy is to buy additional access points (AP) and place adjacent APs on separatedchannels to prevent interference, but all broadcasting with the same SSID, so that staff don't haveto worry about several SSID names and which one might be the 'right' one. Thus, a primaryrouter's Wi-Fi and its two connected APs could all be called "acme-airside" but allocated tochannels 1, 6, 11 (and in the UK 13) for 802.11b/g protocols. On 802.11n, it's possible to use anarrower separation, hence channels 1, 5 and 9.

The router is likely to be the unit that handles DHCP while other Access Points will be allocated astatic IP on the same subnet, something like this for 802.11b or 802.11g:

Device Router Access Point 1 Access Point 2

SSID acme-airside acme-airside acme-airside

IP 192.168.1.1 192.168.1.2 192.168.1.3

Channel 1 6 11

With a minimum channel separation of 5 or possibly 4, some IT architects adopt a channelallocation strategy to blanket their workplace in seamless Wi-Fi.

Imagine this example of channel separation in a linear continuous corridor:

Channel sequence for each Access Point (5 channel separation): 1, 6, 11, 3, 8, 13, etcChannel sequence for each Access Point (4 channel separation): 1, 5, 9, 13, 4, 9, etc

(For Europe/UK. US is generally 11 channels)

In a shared building, neighbouring APs might be operating on adjacent channels on floors above,below or to the side so this strategy is not always as straightforward to operate as it might seem.

Most routers are set up withchannel 11 by default. It'sneither impossible norcompletely disruptive to othersto operate with Wi-Fibroadcasting on nearby overlapping channels (look up CSM/CA), it's just less efficient. Softwarelike NetStumbler can help to locate other broadcasts in the vicinity.

Channel widths (and therefore separations) also vary depending how much each AP signal dropsoff as it gets attenuated and how much power is allowed by country.

Better APs can assignchannels automatically bypolling each channel atrandom intervals andchoosing the most separatedone from other existingchannels, while somemanufacturers offer wirelessmanagement devices tocontrol a whole group ofAPs - you get what you payfor. However not everyonerecommends these becausethe algorithms doing thecalculating can be quitebasic.

For more sophisticated seamless roaming Wi-Fi solutions, check out HomePlug products likeDevolo for home use, or Cisco's Meraki for the workplace.

Contacts

The overlapping channel problem JANET library advisory services


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Farproc Wi-Fi analyzer for Android smartphones

Bookmark


3. Tether your phone

No Internet? Time to learn how to harness your phone as a temporary broadbandreplacement to keep your main computer up and running.


When that red light appears on your router, it could be that yourbroadband line will be down for a while. One way or another,you're about to reach the end of your tether.

What is tethering?

This technique allows you to take your mobile phone as the point of contact for Internet data andshare that connection out to other devices such as a desktop, a laptop, or even another mobilephone. This is achieved using the phone's mobile data, whether that's a pay-as-you-go allowanceor a contract.

So-called mobile tethering can be set up via a USB cable, or Bluetooth, or via Wi-Fi, also knownas Personal Hotspot.

First, get wise to a couple caveats and concepts:

Treat the setup as temporary and use it sparingly. It's easy to hammer through a month's mobiledata quota (say 1GB) when behaving as if the connected laptop or PC is still hooked up to tens ofGB at landline capacity. Avoid video, audio and any sort of streaming until the main broadband isback up again.

Cable will always be simplest and fastest (if your phone allows it) so look for USB to start with.For tethering one device, a USB cable is perfect as there's no need to worry about a password.Just grab a mini-USB or micro-USB cable (whichever suits your phone) and connect the other endinto the standard USB socket on a laptop or desktop PC.

Next best is any wireless type of connection, though these are less reliable and harder to set up.Bluetooth has an unobstructed range of up to 10 metres, while Wi-Fi will transmit across 30metres at best, again barring metal or thick masonry in its path. It's possible to tether more thanone device this way.

Print out the relevant page from links below, or practice how to set up tethering for your phone atleast once in advance, but do it before you need to reach for it in anger!

Android tethering


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USB cable

Settings | More | Tethering | USB tethering

Bluetooth

Settings | More | Tethering | Bluetooth tethering

Wi-Fi hotspot

Settings | More | Tethering | Mobile Wi-Fi hotspot

More details for all three modes plus supported devices can be found on one page at:https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/2812516?hl=en

BlackBerry tethering

USB cable

Learn to use your BlackBerry smartphone as a tetheredmodem (BlackBerry 7.1 OS and earlier):http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/viewdocument.do?noCount=true&externalId=KB05196

Configure a BlackBerry smartphone as a tethered modem on a Mac:http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/viewdocument.do?externalId=KB19641

BlackBerry Desktop Software will be needed for the above.

Install BlackBerry Desktop Software for Windows:http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/viewdocument.do?externalId=KB16236

Installing and uninstalling BlackBerry Desktop Software on a Mac computer:http://btsc.webapps.blackberry.com/btsc/viewdocument.do?externalId=KB18771

Bluetooth

Settings | Network connections | Internet tethering

How to use your BlackBerry as a Bluetooth modem:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/pc-peripheral/3241331/how-to-use-your-blackberry-as-a-bluetooth-modem/

The EasyTether app for BlackBerry supports USB for Windows computers, BluetoothSPP for Android tablets and Bluetooth PAN (not with BlackBerry 10) for OS X andLinux computers.

Wi-Fi hotspot

Settings | network connections | Mobile Hotspot

Set up a hotspot on BlackBerry Z10:http://demos.blackberry.com/blackberry-z10/na/us/gen/how-to/your-blackberry-z10-smartphone/connections/mobile-hotspot/index.html

iOS tethering

(iPhone/iPad)

USB cable

Settings | General | Network | Internet tethering

PC Advisor shows the setup in detail:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3279666/how-to-tether-an-iphone-for-free/

Bluetooth

Wi-Fi hotspot

Settings | Phone/cellular section | Personal Hotspot


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If your plan does not support Personal Hotspots, you will see a link labelled "Set UpPersonal Hotspot" which will tell you how to contact your carrier and update yourplan.

Windows Phone tethering

USB cable

To the disgruntlement of some Windows Phone users,Microsoft appears to have removed tethering via a USB cable(present up to Windows Phone 7.5) from Windows Phone 8

Bluetooth

Settings | Internet sharing | Share over | Bluetooth

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/how-to/wp8/connectivity/share-my-connection

Wi-Fi hotspot

Settings | Internet sharing | Share over | Wi-Fi

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-GB/how-to/wp8/connectivity/share-my-connection

Overcoming carrier blockages

Although phone owners might complain about their phone or its operating system failing to carryout tethering, it's more likely the manufacturer of the phone hardware has taken out an agreementwith the mobile carrier to limit tethering, or specifically exclude it.

For those blocked by carriers and/or manufacturers (typically where deals are done to extractextra fees) there are two app to overcome restricted carriers, essentially a form of proxy.

The two most popular Wi-Fi tethering apps are PdaNet and TetherMe. Both of these apps costmoney, so ensure that they work on your phone and carrier. PdaNet has a trial version to checkout your carrier.

Tethering alternatives

A dongle or datacard plug-in or pocket Wi-Fi is are other solutions. They involve extra expense(as opposed to borrowing someone else's) but purchasing a simple pay-as-you-go block of data isself-contained way to escape a broadband crisis, as long as 3G or 4G coverage is available in thebuilding. Furthermore it can be a financially delineated alternative to using up the data allowanceof a privately owned smartphone.

Contacts

How I share my iPhone's Internet connection (without paying Verizon extra)How to share your Windows Phone's internet - whether or not your carrier wants you to

Bookmark


4. Here comes the new con ...

Recent strings of frauds are succeeding because of traps in old communications


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technology.


When communications technology moves at a fast pace, it'sthe older generations or the technically naïve that suffer.

There has been a rise in the number of reported phonescams where the fraudster asks the 'mark' to put the phonedown and then ring back, a common method to verify thecaller is genuine.

What the victim doesn't realise is the fraudster is still ontheir end of the line, and simulates the expected ring tone.They then 'answer' just as if it were a real banking callcentre.

Using this kind of deception, scammers have swindledthousands of pounds from individual victims, maybe their entire savings. That the scam works atall is largely because old analogue telephone lines may keep the line open for as much as 5minutes after the receiving handset is put down, allowing the fraudster to perpetrate this kind ofelectronic ambush.

Decades ago, when the only sort of telephones available were analogue ones, making call wasvery expensive. Similarly the introduction of mobile networks brought relatively costly tariffs toconsumers and lucrative revenue to mobile phone providers, all of which made for an equallypunitive hostile environment for swindlers to enter.

Now however, the cost of vocal communication is small, meaning that in this case at least, thecon artist wastes only a few pence spent keeping a line open to hook their prey.

Nevertheless phone scams haven't attained the dizzying levels of scatter-gun mass emailingbecause despite the plummeting call costs, it's not just a matter of hitting Send, sitting back andwaiting for clicks from the gullible to roll in. The voice call costs may have dropped but executingeach one is still a one-at-a-time labour intensive process.

It's a burgeoning sector of the population that makes voice call scams a natural target: older,better off, and in today's climate of austerity, more fearful. These factors turn normally lethargicsavers into panic stricken movers of wealth, paradoxically powered by the very fear about the sortof trouble they are getting into.

At the same time as educating new audiences to the risks of 'baring all' on social media andincoming assaults via phishing, we're having to keep one eye at our backs for senior users whofall prey to time-worn scams in a new guise. Witness online dating frauds that promise happinessto vulnerable dating rookies in exchange for helping to release potential partners from somefabricated plight abroad. Or supposed telecom support people cold-calling to sort out anon-existent virus in the hope of gaining access to their quarry's PC.

Whatever the ruse, victims are thus swindled out of vast sums through age-old social engineeringtricks, though new technology makes the deceit look cleverer than it really is. For those whoprovide IT support, it's a wake-up call to hone their skills of communication: explaining the riskwhile adjusting the 'techno-babble' to suit the competence and understanding of the audience onthe receiving end, whatever their age.

Contacts

Read the Scams Checklist from the Citizens Advice BureauReport fraud at Action Fraud

Bookmark


5. The mobile printing scrum


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Just when would you use mobile printing, and why is it a prescription for apunch-up?


Like it or not, workplaces are increasingly buzzing withperipatetic employees and visitors who are stepping intothe office scrum for just an hour or so, and the result isthat their mobile devices have become a nearly universalwork tool.

Often they'll walk up to a meeting and - despite theballyhoo that hypes everyone's ability to work directly onscreen - they'll want to print an agenda, or a graph, orhave a diary week shown on paper, oruse the lowest-tech means of puttinga copy in someone else's paws.

Sure, we have Bluetooth and Wi-Fiand Dropbox, and any number ofdigital transfer mechanisms, but roadwarriors are frequently those that liveby tried and trusted means. Becausethey exist mostly at the sharp,customer-focused end of business, thedemands of these 'fly-halves' oftencarry clout.

However, simple zero-setup printingdoesn't exist at the level these peoplerequire and their tried and trusted paper stalwart then becomes vexatious and stressful, becausegiving up their mobile devices isn't an option either.

Equally IT admins shudder at the idea of herds of users dropping in and out at will, hooking upstrange new devices that might well be let loose rogue pirate copies of Angry Bird upon theirprotected network.

Such a dichotomy is a recipe for a nasty ruck. How to keep both parties happy?

On the basis that users are more likely to adopt security measures ifthey're quick and painless, a new standard looks like it could be theway forward.

Enter the Mopria Alliance, a non-profit membership organization ofleading global technology companies with the shared goal ofproviding intuitively simple wireless printing from smartphones,tablets and other mobile devices. Founded by member companies

Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox, most other major printer manufacturers are now members too.

Looking at practical examples of thisrelatively new Mopria standard, HPlaunched its colour LaserJet Pro MFPM476 series offering importantadvancements that help mobile userswith direct hassle-free printing.

Wireless direct printing - allowsWi-Fi capable phone, tablets,etc to make a direct wirelessconnection to the printerwithout needing an in-houserouter. access point or networkTouch-to-print - devicesenabled with near fieldcommunication (NFC) chips cansimply be touched to theprinter's NFC antenna to print adocumentSecure connections - standardWPA2 security with 128-bitencryption for users, but IT administrators can also use HP's embedded web server (EWS)or Web Jetadmin remote management software to enable/disable HP wireless direct, touch-to-print functionality, or set passphrasesEasy user authentication - to keep things simple for mobile users, printers feature aconfigurable passphrase for setting up authentication based Windows®/Kerberos, LDAP,


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QuestionMark

and a user PIN authentication and integrate with existing infrastructure

Of course, HP isn't the sole supplier in themarket and Mopria-compatible printers fromother manufacturers worth checking out are:

Canon i-SENSYS laser MFPs,Xerox ColorQube and WorkCentreprinters,Epson WorkForce Pro printers andExpression Home series

It's rare to see a solution that satisfies ITgreenhorns and IT admins simultaneously,but a Mopria-compatible printer as part ofyour next upgrade should allow both partiesto get on with how they do things best -separately, but minus the foul play andwithout resorting to the sin bin.

Contact us for a review of your IT infrastructure.

Bookmark


6. Q&A: How to suppress the "Openwith" menu in Windows 7?

Hi Mark,

One of my users keeps opening imagefiles in Paint instead of Windows PhotoViewer. Because they always hit OKinstead of Cancel when closingeverything (grrr!), our shared imagesfiles often get altered and I have to goback and restore the original from abackup. Is there any way to stop thishappening?


One obvious answer is training, but frequently nobody has time for training and of course someothers are just bloody-minded. What's more, many of us have a habit of following the sameerror-strewn path of clicks as before simply because it looks so familiar from last time - withmany a grrr along the way.

The "Open with" context menu is the onethat pops up from a right-click, and mostpeople don't notice the pre-ticked box(Always use the selected program ...) at the


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bottom of the panel, so next time thedefault program behaviour is changed.

It's worth understanding the distinctionbetween the functions that variousprograms can mete out to their associatedfiles. Among the common files that can beboth viewed and edited are images (.jpg,.png, etc), Adobe PDFs (.pdf), and webpages (.html, .php, etc). It's significant tonote that a viewing role is the usually the default for this short list, whereas we've come toexpect office files (documents, spreadsheets, presentations) to open ready for viewing and inediting mode.

To preserve your images (or whichever filesfrom the list above) from being continually'hacked about', there are several approachesyou can try:

Change the Default programs via Start| Default Programs (located inControl Panel)Of course most users can find thiseasily enough to change it back

1.

Configure the image files (presumablyin a shared drive on your network) asread-only for everyone except thosewho should be editors of images, orrather configure the folders where theimages reside

2.

Uninstall the image-editingapplication(s).This would be a bit drastic if other users who come to the same PC still want to do editing

3.

The last two are registry edits so one has to take the usual backup precautions first, butassuming that users aren't going to reverse-edit, they offer some permanency.

Prevent an application appearing in the Open with dialogue box for file types it can'topen:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Applications ApplicationName SupportedTypes .ext1 .ext2 .ext3

If a SupportedTypes subkey is provided, only files with those extensions are eligible forpinning to the application's Jump List or for being tracked in an application's Recent orFrequent destinations list.

4.

Remove the "Open with" context menu completely

The NoOpenWith entry is an empty REG_SZ value as shown in the following example.

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT Applications MyProgram.exe NoOpenWith

The NoOpenWith entry overrides the SupportedTypes subkey and hides the application inthe Open with dialogue box.

5.

This latter edit also prevents pinning a file to an application's Jump List.

Discover answers in more Q&A topics

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More news


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You may also be interested in:

LASA ComputanewsBBC News Technology


Clicks of the Trade - Wean yourselfoff admin rights

--- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---


So many malware attacks these days succeed simply because somewhere aPC is the weakest link in the chain, and the reason for that is that its owneris running full admin rights.

Take this description of the clever banking subterfuge labelled "OperationEmmental". The two-factor authentication form the bank is only foiled if theuser's computer DNS settings can be changed, and that only happens if youare logged in as administrator. For everyone else, a User Account Control(UAC) prompt appears and the rest of the screen is dimmed in thebackground to indicate that significant changes are about to be made.

A UACprompt toapprove aninstallationof AdobeShockwave

It's a kind of "Did you really start this action?" double-check, because if theuser didn't, they should think twice about continuing. The prompt evenreveals which application or process is making the request to elevateprivileges to admin level.

For most purposes, it's an annoying but infrequent interruption because wedon't install new programs or mess about with our DNS and IP settingsevery day, and it's only a matter of typing the administrator logincredentials once for that session.

This UAC elevation has been around since Windows Vista buttoo many users still fire up their Windows Vista and Windows 7computers unprotected in administrator mode, and are


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probably the sort of people who click away prompts without a secondthought.

To protect small organisations and their PCs - even if it's just a handful ofmachines - it's so easy to set up accounts for everyday use:

Start | Control Panel | User AccountsManage another account | Create a new account

The elevated account doesn't have to be called "administrator" (and isprobably best avoided anyway), but "installer" might be a friendlier namefor users to understand what the new 'special' account is for. Obviously thisadmin or power user account should have a strong password.

The user's account should be downgraded to a Standard User account. Withthis regime, malware attacks that arrive by email or from a web site standless chance of gaining a foothold since the user has to type in theadministrator password (assuming they've given been allowed thatprivilege), so it's a more conscious act that simply clicking a button thatsays "OK".

This simple technique means the user or organisation isn't relying entirelyon updated anti-virus as a means of defence, but still allows them anavenue for installing new programs.

** try it now **

More Clicks of the Trade

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those with rolling work programmes.

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