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

InfoBulletin October 2014 - Smartwatches watching you?, Blanket Wi-F... http://www.coopsys.net/downloads/infobulletin_oct14.htm
October 2014
Issue 145
Always the best source
for IT ideas
NewsBytes
Windows 9/10, Office 365 eBook, HyperCat, misplaced
cloud fears ... and more
Always on the record
Whose smartwatch is watching you?
A strategy for blanket Wi-Fi
Configuring multiple Access Points
Tether your phone
How to keep working when the broadband dies
Here comes the new con ...
... same as the old con
The mobile printing scrum
Accommodate users without compromising the network
Q&A: How to suppress the "Open with"
menu in Windows 7?
Clicks of the Trade - Wean yourself off
admin rights
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04/07/2014 - InfoBulletin July 2014 - Remote control software, Phones that listen, Life
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13/05/2014 - InfoBulletin May 2014 - Thought your mail was private? Cryptolocker
ransomware, Wi-Fi pitfalls, Hire society
02/04/2014 - InfoBulletin April 2014 - Mobile Device Management, Shapeshifting
Office, Hybrid drives, A false sense of security, New roaming Wi-Fi
*** NewsBytes ***
1 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

Liberating Windows 9 ...
wait, that's Windows 10!
As the details of Microsoft's next operating
system gradually eked out to a waiting public,
a free upgrade was conjectured as one of the
carrots to lure existing users. During a press
event ahead of the 30 September launch, the
president of Microsoft France named the
successor "Windows 9" by accident. Though
the company line had been that the codename
"Windows Threshold" was still the official one,
Microsoft surprised everyone as Terry Myerson,
head of operating systems, announced
Windows 10.
The much anticipated Start Menu returns as a
mini hybrid, combining a traditional Windows 7
application list on the left along with a set of
Windows 8 Live Tiles on the right. This version
runs Metro/Modern apps from the Windows
Store will be able to run in multiple virtual
desktop windows too. The 'write-once, deploy
every where' approach of Windows Technical
Preview will be for developers only. Using an
adaptive new system dubbed Continuum, it will
run across the "broadest range of devices ever
from the Internet of Things to enterprise
datacenters worldwide", encompassing Xbox,
PCs, phones, tablets and tiny gadgets along
the way. Though small-screened devices won't
have the desktop, they will retain the Charm
bar. A single view for all open apps and files
now comes care of a new Task view button on
the task bar, allowing quick switching and
one-touch access to any desktop. Another
appealing aspect posed by Andreas Diantoro,
president of Microsoft Indonesia, is that
existing users of Windows 8 would get a free
upgrade the new OS. Interestingly this is one
leak that nobody has confirmed or refuted as
yet.
Delve: Office 365 gets its
own Google Now
Coming to
Enterprise Office
365 users and
then business
plan subscribers
from early 2015,
Office Delve
learns the
relationships between a user's data pools and
their activity. By tapping into Microsoft-powered
data sources, this new Office
assistant delves into business-subscribed
email, OneDrive, SharePoint and Yammer,
Microsoft's social network. The list of
Office 365 virtually
anywhere, free eBook
This all-rounder
from Microsoft
Press aims to
introduce
beginners and
team leaders to
Office 365. The
first tenth
contains a fair
bit of
promotional
puff - to be
expected if they want hook readers as
potential new subscribers - and a primer of
cloud computing and collaboration. However
those who understand or are responsible for
basic admin - the ones likely to have the most
purchasing clout - should skip straight to the
admin section in chapter 3 to get acquainted
with some edifying screen shots. For example,
SharePoint serves up 6 handy roles (view,
read, contribute + enhanced, design, full
control) as well as permitting customised
variations, invaluable for realising a hierarchy
of site collaboration. The excellent Office Web
Apps allow users to create, edit and share
their work as usual but the guide is up front
about the limitations too - no format painter or
tracked changes being just two. We also find
out that the single file size limit of 50MB can
be increased with some "behind-the-scenes
wrangling". The title "Microsoft Office 365:
Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere,
Anytime" says it all really. The neat ambiguity
displayed by "collaborate, virtually anywhere"
or "collaborate virtually, anywhere" illustrates
the power of implementing the kind of cloud
computing any team can just pick up and run
with. Download the epub (22MB) and mobi
(8MB) formats from the Microsoft Press blog.
88% fear risk of their
data in the cloud
... though only
2 percent have
actually
experienced a
breach. Nearly
half of
organisations
changed the
way they use
cloud services
following
revelations
surrounding PRISM, according to a poll of 250
senior IT business decision makers conducted
by the cloud industry forum (CIF), while a
further 9% switched cloud service providers
completely. Ranking highest amongst concerns
were backup/disaster recovery, data storage
and personnel/payroll. Chiefs and partners at
CIF put the experience mismatch down to the
fear, uncertainty and doubt promulgated by
media stories, and cite their CIF code of
practice as a route to helping cloud service
providers (CSPs) build trust within their clients.
Dying for a sit down
2 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

'delve-able' source applications will soon grow
to include email attachments, OneNote and
Lync.
Inevitably Office Delve will be compared to
Google Now, but underneath its engine is
Office Graph, which employs "sophisticated
machine learning techniques to map the
relationships between people, content, and
activity that occurs across Office 365" says
Julia White, general manager of Office 365
Technical Product Management. And of course
Delve is mobile-friendly too,
as you'd expect of any
system that fetches
information for you rather
than having to go searching
for it. As for the application
itself, Office 365 admins
don't have to do any searching or waiting;
those on the First Release program can get
Delve simply by signing into their Office 365
online account.
OneDrive now shareable
and bigger
In the race to
offer ever more
free cloud
storage,
Microsoft has
taken a leap
that puts it
back in contention with Google and Dropbox.
Up from 2GB, Microsoft's OneDrive cloud
service is now syncing files up to 10GB size, in
its free allocation of 15GB. The company has
also rectified an omission that saw it losing out
to Dropbox, namely a link whereby a right-click
on a OneDrive-synced in the Explorer app on
the desktop (both Windows and Mac) opens a
sharing menu. The "Share a OneDrive link"
menu item creates a link that can be mailed,
IM-ed or shared via Facebook, Twitter, or
LinkedIn.
These features - among the top requested for
OneDrive - are rolling out over the next few
weeks says Microsoft.
Dell Mobile Workspace
tackles 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 their
hands: work is probably killing them, literally.
Sitting comfortably? Here's a bit of news to
make you squirm. With half the time of any
modern day worker spent sitting down, one
study has shown the associations of a
sedentary life with diabetes and cardiovascular
disease, while another at the British Journal of
Sports Medicine emphasises the importance of
exercise and standing up in preventing damage
during cell division. The otherwise shortened
chromosome-caps, called telomeres, display
links to heart disease, cancers, diabetes,
obesity and strokes. Thus, time spent stabbing
the screen of
our
smartphones
could be years
of our lives
saved, though
only if we do it
standing up,
and avoiding
texting
faceplants.
Shellshock: Macs and
Linux get a bashing
A flaw in the
basic
operating
system of both
Linux and
Apple Mac's
OSX was the
recent big
news discovery, if only because it lay hidden
for perhaps 20 years. In the past, Macs and to
some extent Linux have often been portrayed
as 'immune to viruses' but the fallacy was well
and truly shot down at the end of September
with the revelation that the so-called
Shellshock bug affects an essential piece of
software called Bash - the shell or command
line interface that allows a user to talk to a
Unix based system, and is one of the most
installed utilities on any Linux system. Security
experts are deeply concerned, like FireEye
Inc's Director of Threat Research Darien
Kindlund who reckons Shellshock is "horrible.
It's worse than Heartbleed, in that it affects
servers that help manage huge volumes of
Internet traffic. Conservatively, the impact is
anywhere from 20 to 50% of global servers
supporting web pages." The bug rated a 10 out
of 10 on the severity scale of the US National
Vulnerability Database. The team at Red Hat,
who discovered the flaw have written an FAQ
which cites the Red Hat release of patched
versions of Bash. Patches for many other Linux
distributions can be found via Lifehacker which
also presents the one line command (env
x='() { :;}; echo vulnerable' bash
-c 'echo hello') to test whether a
machine is vulnerable. Apple has promised a fix
for Mac users is on its way.
3 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

employing today's piecemeal measures to reign
in the bring-your-own-device wave, Dell offers
a single application where employees access
corporate email, calendar, contacts, the
intranet and documents both on or offline.
Mobile Workspace satisfies the requirements of
managers, data controllers and IT admins,
providing remote lock, wipe and passcode
policy operations within the application, but
without taking total control of the device, thus
maintaining privacy concerns of the phone
owners. Employees even get a separate
business phone number on their existing
smartphones or tablets with the Business
Phone. The firm's cloud storage service facility,
Box, allows staff to access its organisation's
files and folders securely across a range of
devices. Mobile Workspace supports Android
4.0 upwards and iOS 7.0 upwards on Microsoft
Exchange 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 to
mould employees as in-house spies?
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
The 'wearable tech' world of James
Bond has arrived and it's watching you,
even as you boggle at its capabilities.
Timed to arrive at for a lucrative
Christmas take-up and a blast into the
New Year, a slew of renowned
smartphone companies pitched their
offerings into the smartwatch race in
the second half of 2014:
LG rolled out its initially
somewhat dull rectangular G
watch followed by a more
exciting round G Watch R running
the android Wear operating system
Samsung produced a range of Gear watches, based on its home-grown Tizen operating
system as a lever to disengage itself from the stranglehold of Google's Android
Motorola's Moto 360, was a well received and water-resistant Android device with a circular
and bright face, though as iFixit discovered, its battery capacity turns out to be a bit
confusing
Apple, puffing up to the finishing line, announced one rectangular watch in 2 sizes with a
touch/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 of
Google Now, Cortana, and Siri will be a given. To respond to a user's wishes, wrist-borne data
input will be automated as far as possible so that a picture of the user's environment is always on
hand, 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 that
an even more insidious trend is about to bubble up, this time from technology on the arm instead
of in the pocket.
4 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

Looks like a watch ...
Feels like a watch ...
Watch doppelgänger ...
Er ... one to watch?
Testing 1, 2, 3
These devices are as packed with sensors
as the smartphones with which they are
intended to be paired. Stuff like Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, accelerometers, compasses, and
gyrometers for GPS positioning, and heart
rate sensors for fitness are taken as read,
but these wrist buddies don't stop at just
tracking their owners.
The Samsung Galaxy Gear sports a 1.9MP
camera while the Arrow smartwatch
contains a 360° rotating camera for selfies
or incognito filming. Microphones on
smartphones are fairly capable of picking
up sound from any direction (since most
now bundle second mics to suppress
background noise in conversations), while
the Smartwatch 2 Camera app turns a
remotely placed smartphone into a kind of
video baby monitor.
Thus the capabilities of bugging equipment
toyed with only by professionals and
thriller writers a decade ago is trickling
down to consumer-level. So will bosses be
logging every word and movement at
meetings? Perhaps colleagues will join in
as well, just to cover their backs. Monday
morning round-ups could become a tense
affair!
Transparently rejected
Google Glass is blatantly obvious by its
mere presence, and also to its 'subjects'
that recording is live/on air as it were. The
sheer barefacedness of Glass already saw
its use being banned - even before the
concept had made it to production - in
places such as bars, restaurants, banks (id
protection), gyms, and cinemas (as an
anti-piracy measure), while a mounting
clutch of US states including West Virginia,
Illinois and New Jersey have proposed
legislation banning drivers from "using a
wearable computer with head mounted
display", despite potential enforcement
hurdles.
If all this weren't enough to severely dent a
Glass wearer's ego, a worse fate is to be
labelled a 'Glasshole', and Google itself
publishes an etiquette guide of Glass
Explorers Do's and Don'ts to help users
avoid humiliation at least. However, like
cartoon Comic Book Guy, self-inflicted
Glass nerds could already be flip-flopping
between denial and depressed acceptance
of a life as the new social outcast.
Hidden in plain sight
In the wake of face-worn tech, more stylish
successors are inevitably becoming
fashionably acceptable, but potentially
more useful. Ron Amadeo found that after a
month and half's ownership of Google Glass, his costly hi-tech specs ended up in the drawer and
he 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
5 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

Glasshole.sh is a script that can be used to kick
Google Glass off your local wireless network.
Written by Berlin artist Julian Oliver, it can be
installed on a Raspberry Pi or Beaglebone.
The Stop The Cyborgs store has published
downloadable PDF banning signs.
geek look and keep that giant smartphone slab tucked
away, but the advantage of discretion that makes them
socially respectable could also be their failing: they're
inherently covert.
The banning restrictions on Glass could apply to the
pervasive capabilities of smartwatches but enforcements
will be even more fraught. Workplaces could be concerned
not only about the devices' lifeblogging capacities but the
potential to leak organisational data should control of these
wrist-worn devices end up in the wrong hands through
viruses, remote attacks or disgruntled workers.
Not on my watch
Perhaps there's not as much to be feared here as might
first appear; there are severe impediments to operating a
smartwatch in slick fashion. However many buttons, jog
dials and tap sensors are packed into the device, two hands
are still required for response and control. Wrist-flicking
and voice recognition algorithms don't pass any subtlety
etiquette in meetings, while a smartphone, by comparison,
can still be silenced inconspicuously with one-handed
operation.
Over several decades we've got used to what we must now
presumably call 'feature watches' - those esteemed lumps of precision stainless steel driven by
quartz 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, effectively
around 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 the
record 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.
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
When small organisation wants to expand into a
neighbouring office, staff usually need to have
access to Wi-Fi. The existing Wi-Fi router signal
often doesn't reach where they want it so should
they buy a repeater?
This is a typical stumbling block of Wi-Fi
expansion. Thick walls, water pipes and metal
mesh all conspire to block off the Wi-Fi signal,
and even metal filing cabinets being shifted
around can play havoc, especially near the 30
metre limit of Wi-Fi transmission.
A decade ago, repeaters were seen as one
solution but the technology effectively halves the
bandwidth for connected computers as they
process and rebroadcast the signal. While router
bandwidth always tends to be much greater than
that of an broadband Internet connection, it could make internal PC networking slow, and anyway
6 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

there are better solutions these days, either using existing Wi-Fi technology or the incoming
generation of routers and antennae.
Change the channel
A common strategy is to buy additional access points (AP) and place adjacent APs on separated
channels to prevent interference, but all broadcasting with the same SSID, so that staff don't have
to worry about several SSID names and which one might be the 'right' one. Thus, a primary
router's Wi-Fi and its two connected APs could all be called "acme-airside" but allocated to
channels 1, 6, 11 (and in the UK 13) for 802.11b/g protocols. On 802.11n, it's possible to use a
narrower 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 a
static 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 channel
allocation 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, etc
Channel 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 with
channel 11 by default. It's
neither impossible nor
completely disruptive to others
to operate with Wi-Fi
broadcasting on nearby overlapping channels (look up CSM/CA), it's just less efficient. Software
like NetStumbler can help to locate other broadcasts in the vicinity.
Channel widths (and therefore separations) also vary depending how much each AP signal drops
off as it gets attenuated and how much power is allowed by country.
Better APs can assign
channels automatically by
polling each channel at
random intervals and
choosing the most separated
one from other existing
channels, while some
manufacturers offer wireless
management devices to
control a whole group of
APs - you get what you pay
for. However not everyone
recommends these because
the algorithms doing the
calculating can be quite
basic.
For more sophisticated seamless roaming Wi-Fi solutions, check out HomePlug products like
Devolo for home use, or Cisco's Meraki for the workplace.
Contacts
The overlapping channel problem JANET library advisory services
7 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

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 broadband
replacement to keep your main computer up and running.
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
When that red light appears on your router, it could be that your
broadband 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 and
share that connection out to other devices such as a desktop, a laptop, or even another mobile
phone. This is achieved using the phone's mobile data, whether that's a pay-as-you-go allowance
or a contract.
So-called mobile tethering can be set up via a USB cable, or Bluetooth, or via Wi-Fi, also known
as 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 mobile
data quota (say 1GB) when behaving as if the connected laptop or PC is still hooked up to tens of
GB at landline capacity. Avoid video, audio and any sort of streaming until the main broadband is
back 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 end
into 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 30
metres at best, again barring metal or thick masonry in its path. It's possible to tether more than
one device this way.
Print out the relevant page from links below, or practice how to set up tethering for your phone at
least once in advance, but do it before you need to reach for it in anger!
Android tethering
8 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

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 tethered
modem (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:
Installing and uninstalling BlackBerry Desktop Software on a Mac computer:
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, Bluetooth
SPP for Android tablets and Bluetooth PAN (not with BlackBerry 10) for OS X and
Linux 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
9 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

If your plan does not support Personal Hotspots, you will see a link labelled "Set Up
Personal Hotspot" which will tell you how to contact your carrier and update your
plan.
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 carry
out tethering, it's more likely the manufacturer of the phone hardware has taken out an agreement
with the mobile carrier to limit tethering, or specifically exclude it.
For those blocked by carriers and/or manufacturers (typically where deals are done to extract
extra 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 cost
money, so ensure that they work on your phone and carrier. PdaNet has a trial version to check
out 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 is
self-contained way to escape a broadband crisis, as long as 3G or 4G coverage is available in the
building. Furthermore it can be a financially delineated alternative to using up the data allowance
of 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
10 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

technology.
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
When communications technology moves at a fast pace, it's
the older generations or the technically naïve that suffer.
There has been a rise in the number of reported phone
scams where the fraudster asks the 'mark' to put the phone
down and then ring back, a common method to verify the
caller is genuine.
What the victim doesn't realise is the fraudster is still on
their end of the line, and simulates the expected ring tone.
They then 'answer' just as if it were a real banking call
centre.
Using this kind of deception, scammers have swindled
thousands of pounds from individual victims, maybe their entire savings. That the scam works at
all is largely because old analogue telephone lines may keep the line open for as much as 5
minutes after the receiving handset is put down, allowing the fraudster to perpetrate this kind of
electronic ambush.
Decades ago, when the only sort of telephones available were analogue ones, making call was
very expensive. Similarly the introduction of mobile networks brought relatively costly tariffs to
consumers and lucrative revenue to mobile phone providers, all of which made for an equally
punitive hostile environment for swindlers to enter.
Now however, the cost of vocal communication is small, meaning that in this case at least, the
con 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 emailing
because despite the plummeting call costs, it's not just a matter of hitting Send, sitting back and
waiting for clicks from the gullible to roll in. The voice call costs may have dropped but executing
each 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 lethargic
savers into panic stricken movers of wealth, paradoxically powered by the very fear about the sort
of trouble they are getting into.
At the same time as educating new audiences to the risks of 'baring all' on social media and
incoming assaults via phishing, we're having to keep one eye at our backs for senior users who
fall prey to time-worn scams in a new guise. Witness online dating frauds that promise happiness
to vulnerable dating rookies in exchange for helping to release potential partners from some
fabricated plight abroad. Or supposed telecom support people cold-calling to sort out a
non-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 engineering
tricks, though new technology makes the deceit look cleverer than it really is. For those who
provide IT support, it's a wake-up call to hone their skills of communication: explaining the risk
while adjusting the 'techno-babble' to suit the competence and understanding of the audience on
the receiving end, whatever their age.
Contacts
Read the Scams Checklist from the Citizens Advice Bureau
Report fraud at Action Fraud
Bookmark
5. The mobile printing scrum
11 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

Just when would you use mobile printing, and why is it a prescription for a
punch-up?
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
Like it or not, workplaces are increasingly buzzing with
peripatetic employees and visitors who are stepping into
the office scrum for just an hour or so, and the result is
that their mobile devices have become a nearly universal
work tool.
Often they'll walk up to a meeting and - despite the
ballyhoo that hypes everyone's ability to work directly on
screen - they'll want to print an agenda, or a graph, or
have a diary week shown on paper, or
use the lowest-tech means of putting
a copy in someone else's paws.
Sure, we have Bluetooth and Wi-Fi
and Dropbox, and any number of
digital transfer mechanisms, but road
warriors are frequently those that live
by tried and trusted means. Because
they exist mostly at the sharp,
customer-focused end of business, the
demands of these 'fly-halves' often
carry clout.
However, simple zero-setup printing
doesn't exist at the level these people
require and their tried and trusted paper stalwart then becomes vexatious and stressful, because
giving 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 up
strange new devices that might well be let loose rogue pirate copies of Angry Bird upon their
protected 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 if
they're quick and painless, a new standard looks like it could be the
way forward.
Enter the Mopria Alliance, a non-profit membership organization of
leading global technology companies with the shared goal of
providing 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 this
relatively new Mopria standard, HP
launched its colour LaserJet Pro MFP
M476 series offering important
advancements that help mobile users
with direct hassle-free printing.
Wireless direct printing - allows
Wi-Fi capable phone, tablets,
etc to make a direct wireless
connection to the printer
without needing an in-house
router. access point or network
Touch-to-print - devices
enabled with near field
communication (NFC) chips can
simply be touched to the
printer's NFC antenna to print a
document
Secure connections - standard
WPA2 security with 128-bit
encryption 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 passphrases
Easy user authentication - to keep things simple for mobile users, printers feature a
configurable passphrase for setting up authentication based Windows®/Kerberos, LDAP,
12 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

and a user PIN authentication and integrate with existing infrastructure
Question
Mark
Of course, HP isn't the sole supplier in the
market and Mopria-compatible printers from
other manufacturers worth checking out are:
Canon i-SENSYS laser MFPs,
Xerox ColorQube and WorkCentre
printers,
Epson WorkForce Pro printers and
Expression Home series
It's rare to see a solution that satisfies IT
greenhorns and IT admins simultaneously,
but a Mopria-compatible printer as part of
your next upgrade should allow both parties
to get on with how they do things best -
separately, but minus the foul play and
without resorting to the sin bin.
Contact us for a review of your IT infrastructure.
Bookmark
6. Q&A: How to suppress the "Open
with" menu in Windows 7?
Hi Mark,
One of my users keeps opening image
files in Paint instead of Windows Photo
Viewer. Because they always hit OK
instead of Cancel when closing
everything (grrr!), our shared images
files often get altered and I have to go
back and restore the original from a
backup. Is there any way to stop this
happening?
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
One obvious answer is training, but frequently nobody has time for training and of course some
others are just bloody-minded. What's more, many of us have a habit of following the same
error-strewn path of clicks as before simply because it looks so familiar from last time - with
many a grrr along the way.
The "Open with" context menu is the one
that pops up from a right-click, and most
people don't notice the pre-ticked box
(Always use the selected program ...) at the
13 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

bottom of the panel, so next time the
default program behaviour is changed.
It's worth understanding the distinction
between the functions that various
programs can mete out to their associated
files. Among the common files that can be
both viewed and edited are images (.jpg,
.png, etc), Adobe PDFs (.pdf), and web
pages (.html, .php, etc). It's significant to
note that a viewing role is the usually the default for this short list, whereas we've come to
expect office files (documents, spreadsheets, presentations) to open ready for viewing and in
editing mode.
To preserve your images (or whichever files
from the list above) from being continually
'hacked about', there are several approaches
you can try:
Change the Default programs via Start
| Default Programs (located in
Control Panel)
Of course most users can find this
easily enough to change it back
1.
Configure the image files (presumably
in a shared drive on your network) as
read-only for everyone except those
who should be editors of images, or
rather configure the folders where the
images reside
2.
Uninstall the image-editing
application(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, but
assuming 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't
open:
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
Applications
ApplicationName
SupportedTypes
.ext1
.ext2
.ext3
If a SupportedTypes subkey is provided, only files with those extensions are eligible for
pinning to the application's Jump List or for being tracked in an application's Recent or
Frequent 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 in
the 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
Bookmark
More news
14 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

You may also be interested in:
LASA Computanews
BBC News Technology
Clicks of the Trade - Wean yourself
off admin rights
--- Quick tips for happier clicks! ---
Help
at
hand.
Back
issues
just a
click
away
So many malware attacks these days succeed simply because somewhere a
PC is the weakest link in the chain, and the reason for that is that its owner
is running full admin rights.
Take this description of the clever banking subterfuge labelled "Operation
Emmental". The two-factor authentication form the bank is only foiled if the
user's computer DNS settings can be changed, and that only happens if you
are logged in as administrator. For everyone else, a User Account Control
(UAC) prompt appears and the rest of the screen is dimmed in the
background to indicate that significant changes are about to be made.
A UAC
prompt to
approve an
installation
of Adobe
Shockwave
It's a kind of "Did you really start this action?" double-check, because if the
user didn't, they should think twice about continuing. The prompt even
reveals which application or process is making the request to elevate
privileges to admin level.
For most purposes, it's an annoying but infrequent interruption because we
don't install new programs or mess about with our DNS and IP settings
every day, and it's only a matter of typing the administrator login
credentials once for that session.
This UAC elevation has been around since Windows Vista but
too many users still fire up their Windows Vista and Windows 7
computers unprotected in administrator mode, and are
15 of 17 23/10/2014 13:36

probably the sort of people who click away prompts without a second
thought.
To protect small organisations and their PCs - even if it's just a handful of
machines - it's so easy to set up accounts for everyday use:
Start | Control Panel | User Accounts
Manage another account | Create a new account
The elevated account doesn't have to be called "administrator" (and is
probably best avoided anyway), but "installer" might be a friendlier name
for users to understand what the new 'special' account is for. Obviously this
admin or power user account should have a strong password.
The user's account should be downgraded to a Standard User account. With
this regime, malware attacks that arrive by email or from a web site stand
less chance of gaining a foothold since the user has to type in the
administrator password (assuming they've given been allowed that
privilege), so it's a more conscious act that simply clicking a button that
says "OK".
This simple technique means the user or organisation isn't relying entirely
on updated anti-virus as a means of defence, but still allows them an
avenue for installing new programs.
** try it now **
More Clicks of the Trade
Bookmark
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Interpreting Information Technology
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