Technical: macOS X Security – Part 1 – Boot Security

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Technical: macOS X Security

Part 1 – Boot Security

 

  Technical blogs, oh how I loathe thee.  While one hand they are fun to research, and I do enjoy delving more and more into the inner workings of macOS X, To me these posts feel the most like actual work.  I do not get the enjoyment of taking photographs like I do for travel articles.  Or put myself in a well deserved food coma after reviewing a resturant.  It’s just mostly research, typing, and the screen shots that go with the article

 

They do provide a service to my readers and remain in the top viewed list continuously, so in there in itself is my reward!  Now that I have my belly aching out of the way, let’s start a new technical series on Brent’s World, macOS X Security, which will be a multi part blog on keeping your Mac, and your data safe!  We will begin with the boot loader, utilities available on the recovery partition and the vulnerabilities they impose and how to protect your system from these vulnerabilities.  Subsequent posts will deal with user accounts (Local, and network), file system permissions and access control lists (ACLs), drive and folder encryption, and ending with the sharing options offered with macOS X what they do, and how to lock them down.

So after that long winded preamble, lets dive into the heart of the matter.

Security, security threats, vulnerabilities, hackers, and bad actors.  This is something we hear about daily but as Mac users, especially standalone (devices not part of an enterprise environment.) is something we really take no notice of, these happen to other people, people who own PCs.  If we do anything at all we install an antivirus package such as Sophos and call it a day!  What if I told you there are many more threats out there then just viruses, worms, or ransomware?  Those risks raise exponentially if you are a Macbook or Macbook Pro user, simply because if you lose physical control of the device the thief can attempt to gain access at his leisure.  “So, my device is password protected!”  What if I told you, it is possible to get access to all your data and I don’t even need to enter your password, or that I could change your password from the recovery partition built into your Mac? Let’s take a look at some scenarios, starting from the simple and moving into the more complex.

 

  • The boot loader.

Rebooting or starting a Mac with the option key depressed will invoke the Apple Boot Loader. This will allow me to boot off an external drive such as a thumb drive or external hard drive.  Great for troubleshooting, imaging the operating system, or installing the OS if you have completely replaced the system drive.  It also opens up your system to several vulnerabilities such as allowing an unauthorized individual the ability to take an image of the system drive, or simply copy the data to an external drive

  • The recovery partition.
               Holding down Command – R after the startup chime will invoke loading the recovery partition, this is a hidden partition that contains a limited, bootable version of mac OS X that will allow you to set an OpenFirmware password (More about this later), access a shell via the terminal.app, Reinstall Mac OS X from a Time Machine backup, Reinstall Mac OS X, and Disk Utility. The recovery partition utilities are very useful when used for their intended purposes, but if left unsecured, by not setting an OpenFirmware password allow several holes into your system.  Let me demonstrate.

 

  • Single User Mode (SUM)

Holding down Command – S after the startup chime will place the macOS X computer in “Single User Mode” as the root level account (Even if root is not enabled.). The system volume is loaded as read only, but this can be changed by unmounting and remounting it as read/right.  This allows the person who booted the Mac into single user mode full access to any unencrypted data on the drive, the ability to mount removable media to copy this data off the drive.  The possibility of installing malicious code, as well as being able to change system preferences from the command line.   You may also change any user’s password on the system using Single User Mode.

So we have demonstrated 3 vulnerabilities present at the Mac boot loader, what can be done to harden your computer so bad actors will have a more difficult time exploiting these vulnerabilities?  You can set an OpenFirmware password that you will be prompted to anytime you hold down the Command Key during startup.  In order to enter the Recovery Partition, or Single User Mode you must enter the OpenFirmware password correctly.

CAUTION: If you lose your OpenFirmware password, you will need to take your Mac to either an authorized service center, or to the Genius Bar at an apple store to have the password cleared.  While older Macs (Pre-Intel), did have a reset button on the motherboard.  Newer Macs do not.  Zapping the PRAM will not clear the OpenFirmware password.

Let me now demonstrate how to set the open firmware password.

NOTE: If you sell your Mac, make sure you either include the OpenFirware password, or clear if before you deliver the Mac to its new owner.

These are the vulnerabilities that exist on your Mac during the boot process, while these might not have much impact if you are using a desktop Mac, it might be something to think about for mobile users. 

Thank you for visiting Brent’s World, please come back frequently for more great content.  If you wish to be notified by email when new content is posted, please register, by clicking here!

Book Review – The Second Korean War by Ted Hallstead

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Book Review – The Second Korean War by Ted Hallstead

  I was feeling a little guilty pushing back the normally scheduled technical blog by a couple of weeks, (which I promise will be worth the wait!) until I realized that is has been almost a year since I published my last review on 2 books The Devil Dragon Pilot, and Defector -Click Here To View-. 

  Let’s face it!  I read, I read a lot!  When I am not working, eating, or sleeping you will find me with my nose buried in the Kindle app on my iPad!  It is not often that I come across a book that is so captivating that no matter what I do I cannot put it down, or will stand out in my mind forever.  Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy, (Which is the first book I read of his), Blindsight, and Godplayer by Robin Cook, and The Lord Of The Rings trilogy by JRR Tolkien to name a few titles.

  The Second Korean War by Ted Hallstead is just such a book!  Like Larry Bonds Red Phoenix (Which coincidently follows the same general format and prose of Red Storm Rising). Takes place in present day Korea, Kim Jon Un has died in a plane crash and the new North Korean leader has a plan to reunite the Korean Peninsula by force and replacing their government and using a political/economic system similar to China’s one country two systems policies of Hong Kong and Macau Special Administrative Regions. 

  How can North Korea hope to succeed? By threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb under the heart of Seoul itself, and to keep the US Military from coming to their allies aid a nuclear device has also been smuggled into a large US city and will be detonated if the United States interferes. 

  The only fly in the ointment is that an honest and hard working Vladivostok police detective has stumbled onto the loose ends left by the arms dealer who sold North Korea an old and forgotten about man portable nuclear weapon (Suitcase bomb).  With the help of an FSB agent they track down the device in the United States.  Will they be in time?  Will the North Koreans be successful in detonating the device in Seoul? 

  The book was well written, and did not bog the reader down with technical details or drone on about military strategy, or political details like Clancy’s books tend to.  While the editing needs a bit of work as there are spelling and grammatical errors, the book is still very enjoyable.  I pulled an all nighter in a coffee shop unable to put the book down while I was supposed to be out practicing nighttime photography in Seoul!

  If you are looking for a good entertaining military thriller, based loosely around current events, I highly recommend picking up The Second Korean War.  When finished you may also want to read Red Phoenix by Larry Bond (Though somewhat dated, still remains a good read, and hypothesis of what a second war on the Korean peninsula would look like.

  The Second Korean War can be purchased in book or Kindle form by clicking HERE.  Please note, Brent’s World is not monetized in any way!  I do not receive money or credit from Amazon.com if you purchase from this link.

  Be sure to come back next weekend for our regularly scheduled blog article on OS macOS X security, Securing the boot loader.  If you want to ensure that you do not miss any great new content from Brent’s World, be sure to register by CLICKING HERE.  You will receive an email whenever new content is posted.

Seoul Restaurant Review – Doma (Cutting Board) Sushi.

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Seoul Restaurant Review

Doma (Cutting Board) Sushi.

It’s Sunday!  Not only is it the start of a new week, but it’s also time to belly up to the computer and catch the latest blog from Brent’s world!  In case you missed it, last week I took a day trip to Suwon one of the strangest museums in Korea, Mr. Ducks Toilet Museum (Click Here In Case You Missed The Article).  This week was are going to take a step back to normality and review a Sushi restaurant I discovered quite by accident.  They say the best things are hidden in plain site and such is the case with Doma Sushi, as it is located in a pretty non-descript building amidst a street of cloths and coffee shops down the street from the Shinyongsan Post Office.  In fact after spotting it and filing it away as a restaurant to try, I could not find it again when looking for it.

The non-pretentious exterior give way to a spacious and cozy interior.  Which provides a pleasing quiet dining experience. 

 

  Once you place your order, your sushi is prepared quickly by their amazing chef, who pays close attention to beautiful presentation.

  There are several set items on the menu, with several courses of Sushi.  Which contain Ahi tuna, salmon, shrimp, cod fish, scallops, and mackerel.

I am trying a piece of the fresh salmon.

  We also ordered a couple orders of this thinly sliced flank steak on rice. Though expensive it is positively delectable!  The thinly sliced steak just melts in your mouth.

 For our sides we ordered some shrimp tempura (They also have pepper tempura, which comes with a mixture of hot and mild battered green peppers.).  and a bowl of udon noodle soup.  The sides were flavorful and filling and would definitely order again with a meal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We were also presented with this steak and onion salad, which was really good (How can you go wrong with steak and onions!!).  Mi Jung mentioned that we were given it to try because I was writing a blog on their restaurant, but whatever the reason I will not turn down free food!

  We have really enjoyed our meals the two times we have eaten at Doma, if you are looking for a quiet sushi experience in Seoul, and are near the Shinyongsan area, I highly recommend it.  We hope you have enjoyed this week’s restaurant review, and will come back soon to read more great content on Brent’s World!  If you want to make sure you do not miss great content, if you register with us you will be notified by email when a new blog is posted.  You can register by clicking HERE.

How to get there.

Bus: Take any bus bound to Shinyongsan station, and look for the Shinyongsan post office when getting off the bus.  Walk down the street to the right of the Post Office..  You will come to Doma Sushi, simply walk up the stairs into the restaurant.

Subway:  Take the light blue (Line #4) to Shinyongsan station, and use exit (Way Out) #1  as noted above walk down the street to the right of the Post Office.  You will come to Doma Sushi, simply walk up the stairs into the restaurant.

Phone #

796-2324

Technical – My Top 5 macOS X utilities

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Technical – Top 5 Utilities You Should Have For Your Mac.

   I cannot believe I’m doing this!  I loathe the internet’s fascination with creating top 5 lists for anything!  Next, I will be reporting that dogs and cats are in fact living together.  In our last article, I recommended buying a bigger USB thumb drive than needed for your rescue USB stick where you could create a second bootable partition containing useful troubleshooting utilities. What utilities do I actually recommend you putting on this partition or on your Mac for normal use? In this week’s quickie article, I will rate, and briefly describe my top 5 macOS X utilities.  All the utilities listed here are 3rd party utilities, so they must be purchased separately.  So let’s get started!

Paragon NTFS – While mac OS X gives us the ability to read NTFS formatted drives and partitions, it does not allow us to write to them. There is a way of enabling writing to an NTFS partition, but it is slow, buggy, and you may lose data.  Neither APPLE nor myself would recommend that method for anything other than an emergency solution.  This is where Paragon NTFS comes in.  Paragon NTFS allows reading, writing, and formatting/partitioning NTFS drives.  You may download and try Paragon NTFS for 10 days, after the 10 day trial you must pay $19.95 to continue using it.  Paragon’s website is found here: https://www.paragon-software.com/ufsdhome/ntfs-mac/

Carbon Copy Cloner – This next utility in my arsenal also highlights an annoyance I have right now with Apple. Did you know that Apple’s own Disk Utility does not like you image devices that are formatted with the new Apple File System (APFS)? Seems hard to believe. Right?  So what are we to do if you need to image a disk that has been formatted or converted to APFS?  This is where Carbon Copy Cloner ‘CCC’ comes in and why I recommend that you put this on your rescue utility disk.  Carbon Copy Cloner has full APFS support for disk images. Great for transferring or making backup copies of your system disks!  Carbon Copy Cloner by Bombich Software is available with a 30-Day trial license, and costs $39.99 for a full license.  You can download directly from Bombichs’ web site here: https://bombich.com/.

 

Stuffit Expander – If you have been a Mac user for a long time, you would know that Stuffit Expander is the Mac equivalent to Winzip. Stuffit ‘.sit’ archives was the predominant file compression standard before .dmg.  Stuffit could also uncompress .zip archives before mac OS X had the ability built in.  So if the most common format of compressed files in the wild today are now .dmg or .zip files, why would I need to concern myself with Stuffit Expander?  Stuffit Expander has the ability to decompress a wider range of formats than mac OS X can by default, one of those archive types is .rar files.  Which I have a time or 2 had the need to uncompress.  Since Stuffit Expander is free, why not add it to your tool bin? Stuffit Expander can be downloaded from SmithMicro at http://my.smithmicro.com/stuffit-expander-mac.html, or the Mac App Store

Sophos Anti Virus – I would include Sophos Anti Virus to protect yourself from malware, and to run a virus scan on drives without Sophos installed that you may not want to boot off of.

While not exactly a utility I highly recommend installing the Homebrew repository, which will allow you to add additional functionality to your shell environment, such as htop shown below. Additionally you might want to think about installing telnet which was removed from macOS X 10.13 due to security reasons (telnet is a non-encrypted protocol and sends everything in clear text, including passwords.  However it can be very useful for testing ports and protocols, as I am demonstrating below connecting to Google.com’s SMTP server.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you for taking the time to visit Brent’s World, Please come back next week for another great article about Korea.  I visit the Mr. Toilet House Toilet Museum in Suwon!

Don’t miss out on new context when it is posted, register today to be emailed when a new blog is posted.  To register click HERE!

San Diego Restaurant Review – Shogun Japanese Restaurant

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San Diego Restaurant Review

Shogun Japanese Restaurant

  Welcome stalwart followers of Brent’s World, except for a possible wrap up blog, this will be the final article in our “There Is No Place Like Home” series.  It is a great feeling to be able to put this series to bed!  I really enjoyed sharing our experiences visiting San Diego after being gone 5 years!  If everything works out schedule wise, I am looking to go back to visit sometime in 2018.  I cannot wait to get some more great content, and catch up again with friends and family.

  From almost the moment, we landed in Los Angeles, Mi Jung wanted to get Asian food, which we all found quit humorous, traveling all this way, and a whole bunch of new food options. Mi Jung wanted Asian food!  I was finally able to keep my promise by taking Mi Jung to Shogun, a Teppanyaki style Japanese restaurant in Kearny Mesa that I have been to a couple of times in the past. We have tried a couple of Teppanyaki style restaurants in Korea (Teppan –  https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/seoul-restaurant-review-teppan-hongdae/, and Dae Han Min Guk Han – https://www.catracing.org/hendrb/대한민국혼-republic-of-korea-horn-teppanyaki-korean-fusion-restaurant/). So, I was looking forward to hear Mi Jungs opinion after comparing our experience in Korea.. Shogun did have the advantage from the beginning with the fact that they served Sushi..  Mi jung loved the Ahi Tuna, and Salmon.. The presentation here is awesome.

Following the sushi we were served traditional Miso Soup, and some Chicken Yakitori.

After our soup and Yakitori our Teppan chef arrived, and began cooking our lunch, with the traditional Teppanyaki show. Here is the classic onion volcano.

 Tossing around the egg for our friend rice just takes way for coordination and manual dexterity than I possess.

Our final lunch entrée was the spicy chicken.

I really enjoyed our lunch experience, the food was great and the teppanyaki show is professionally done and humorous.  The show is much more refined then what we have seen in Korea.. A great dining experience.. We had no trouble walking in without a reservation for lunch, but if you are planning on going for dinner making a reservation is highly recommended.

Menu:

https://www.allmenus.com/ca/san-diego/29332-shogun/menu/

Phone #, Address, and web site:

(858)560-7399
5451 Kearny Villa Rd San Diego, CA 92123
Website: https://www.restaurantshogun.com/shop02.html

Hours:

Lunch
Monday – Friday: 11:30am – 3:00pm
Saturday & Sunday: 12:00pm – 3:00pm

Dinner
Monday – Thursday: 3:00pm – 9:30pm
Friday & Saturday: 3:00pm – 10:00pm
Sunday: 3:00pm – 9:30pm

How to get there:

Take 163 to Clairemont Mesa BLVD
Go East on Clairemont Mesa BLVD and make a left on Kearny Villa Rd.
Make a right into the parking lot at 5451 Kearny Villa Road

There Is No Place Like Home – Mission San Juan Capistrano

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There Is No Place Like Home

Mission San Juan Capistrano – Traditional Catholic Mass.

 

  It’s hard to believe that I grew up in a Catholic family and in 42 years have never seen let alone attended a traditional Latin Mass.  Since I have been trying to become more active in my faith by attending Mass with Mi Jung in Korea.  I thought it would be a nice Sunday outing to go up North and attend the Latin service in the old mission church the Serra Chapel. 

 

  We had an option to either take the train from Downtown San Diego, or drive in the rental.  We opted to drive so we could stop and sight see on the way back.  If you have the time I would recommend the train trip as it is a nice ride up the coast via the Pacific Surfliner.  The most difficult part of the trip was getting to the mission once getting off the freeway. It looks as if they have done a lot of road word because even the GPS got us lost.  The train would have alleviated a little bit of stress.

  Mission San Juan Capestrano  was was built in 1776 by monks of the Franciscan Order, named after  San Giovanni de Capistrano,St. (John Of Capistrano), a Franciscan friar and Catholic priest from Italy who was famous for leading a crusade against the invading Ottoman Empire in Belgrade.  The Serra Chapel built in 1782 and named after Father Junipero Serra has the distinction of being the oldest building in California still in use. 

  The Latin mass was interesting and the format very different from what I am used to, the most amazing thing was attending mass in such an historic building.  Here is the main altar area before mass.

  This elevated pulpit, where the priest reads the gospel and delivers the homily.

  One of the things I found really different from the traditional mass was that to receive communion you went an kneeled in from of the altar vs simply walking up and receiving the Eucharist from the priest or Eucharistic minister.  Here is the ornate altar and communion rail.

  The Walker Digital Organ (I thought this was a real historical pipe organ.  However, after doing some research, that is not the case.  You can read about is here in a blog by MSGR Aurthur A. Holquin who had this beautiful but more high-tech instrument installed here. https://rectoremeritus.org/blog/2017/5/9/serra-chapel-organ-at-mission-san-juan-capistrano

I apologize for not being able to get a better picture, when I rushed up into the choir loft after mass and asked permission to take a picture of the organ, I was given permission if I was quick about it!

Here is the full Choir Loft with digital organ.

Here is some of the historic artwork inside the Serra Chapel.

  We had a little bit of time after mass to walk around and take pictures,  though they really try to get you out quickly afterwards.  If you wish to keep exploring the Mission grounds, you will need pay and enter as a park guest.  The Mission was founded 30th of October 1775 by Father Lasuen, and was the 7th of the 21 Missions built in California.  The Missions were built to expand the territorial boundaries of the Spanish Empire, and spread Christianity to the native population of California.  Once the natives who agreed to move to the missions were baptized and given Christian names.  They were forbidden to leave the Missiosn without permission.   Mission San Juan Capistrano flourished and grew between 1778 and 1812, expanding it livestock and buildings. Here is a mold used to make the adobe bricks.

  Here is a kiln used for firing bricks, and blacksmithing tools.

  After 1812, the population at the Missions began to decline, after California was ceded to the United Stated at the conclusion of the Mexican American War, the Missions were given back to the Catholic Church in 1850.

  After touring the Mission grounds for a couple of hours is was time to take some portraits.

 

 

    I have always enjoyed San Juan Capistrano, and experiencing the Latin Mass was as added bonus.  If you are looking to learn more about the history of California I would definitely recommend a trip to one of the Missions.

  Information:

How to get there:
Take 5 North to the San Juan Capistrano exit.
Parking in free, but I would recommend getting there early.

  If you do not want to drive, you can take Amtraks Pacific Surfliner train from Downtown San Diego, or Old Station Stations to San Juan Capistrano Station.  The station is within walking distance.

  The Latin Mass is free of charge, you can get times and details here.  https://www.missionsjc.com/religion-spirituality/churches/basilica-mass-times/

  As mentioned above, you will need to pay to enter the park after mass.  Ticket prices and details are listed on the website below.  https://www.missionsjc.com/

  I would like to thank my frequent visitors who patronize Brent’s World!  Be sure to visit next week for our final San Diego Restaurant review Shoguns – Japanese Teppanyaki.  Which will conclude our series on our 2017 visit to San Diego, Ca.

To be notified by email when a new Brent’s World blog is posted, you may register by clicking HERE!

macOS X – Creating a High Sierra 10.13 USB Install Disk

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MacOS X – Creating Bootable Install Media For High Sierra

 We all know how to get to the OS X recovery partition, in the event we  need to reinstall Mac OS X High Sierra.  In case you don’t know or have forgotten, you simply power up or restart your Mac and hold down the Command and the R keys at the same time.  This tells the operating system to boot into a special hidden recovery partitions giving you access to a limited (And powerful set of utilities). What do you do if your recovery partition has become corrupted, or you have replaced your existing hard drive with a new hard drive?  Such would be the case if your hard drive failed, or you found it necessary to upgrade your existing drive.

  Today I am going to show you how to create a bootable USB installer for OS X 10.13 (High Sierra), as well as “useful utility” partition.  The only thing you will need is a USB thumb drive with a capacity of at least 8 GB of storage, however I would recommend getting one with 32 or even 64 GB, so you can have a bootable partition with your favorite utilities for emergencies.

   So, let’s get crackin!

  The first thing we want to do, Erase the USB thumb drive, and reformat it with the “GUID” partition scheme, 9 times out of 10 your thumb drive will come either formatted with the “Master Boot Record” scheme with a single “ExFAT or “NTFS” to work on Windows computers.  We will want to reformat the device to be used and bootable from your macOS computer.

  Open your utilities folder by selecting Go > Utilities, or pressing SHIFT – COMMAND – U.

           

           

 

 

 

 

 

Open Disk Utility

 

NOTE: By default Disk Utility will only show disk volumes.

I find it much more useful to display them in a hierarchical fashion, displaying the Volume and Partitions.  It provides additional visual references that make it easier to know exactly which device I am manipulating.  Very important when we may potentially lose data.  It would be a very bad day if I accidently erased my hard drive containing over 2GB of photo’s.

First we want to Erase the USB stick, and format it with the GUID Partition Scheme.

Select your USB Device, in this case it is named ‘General USB Flash Disk Media’

Click Erase

When Erase “<Disk Name>” dialog box appears.

                        Name the disk whatever you want, I will name it “OS X Rescue Disk”
                        Click the Format selection arrows and select “Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
                        Click the Scheme: selection arrows and select GUID Partition Map

Click Erase

When the formatting is completed, click Done.

Next, we will split the disk into 2 partitions., The Mac OS X install disk needs at least 8GB, as this is a 16GB drive we will create a new partition of equal size.  One will contain the Mac OS X High Sierra install media, the other will contain a bootable partition that we will keep useful utilities and documentation.

 

            Click on the drive, again this is the “General USB Flash Disk Media”

 

            Click on the Partition Icon.

            Click the + Icon.

  You will now see the drive broken into 2 equal partitions of 7.89 GB.  You can increase or decrease the size, but for this demonstration we will leave things as is.  Only changing the name of the new partition.

 

            Change the name of the new partition to “Rescue Utilities”
            Leave everything else unchanged, and click the ‘Apply’ button.

\You will now see a dialog box outlining the changes to be made to the drives structure, and are informed that No partitions will be erased.  This should NOT erase any data already present on your device.

DISCLAIMER!   This demonstration assumes you are using new media, or media that has already been erased.  As a precaution if you are performing these steps on a device that already has data on it, I HIGHLY recommend that you stop and take the time to back up the partition that has data.  I will NOT be held legally responsible for ANY data loss from you following these instructions.  By pressing the ‘Partition’ button as outlined in the demonstration you assume all risks of intended, or unintended loss of that data!

             Click on the ‘Partition’ button.
             Click the ‘Done’ button.

  You should now see the two newly created partitions.

   Quit Disk Utility.

  Now we must download the Mac OS 10.3 (High Sierra) installation utility.  This is done through the App Store.

           Launch the App Store.
           Click on the macOS High Sierra icon.
           Click on the ‘Download’ button.

  Depending on your internet connection speed, go grab a cup of coffee, or get lunch, or use the time to read some of the other great articles on Brent’s World.

  Once the installer has downloaded, we can now create the install media.  Verify that the installer has been downloaded it will be located in your /Applications directory.

Note: You need to be using an account the has permissions to administer the macOS X computer, or has been added to the sudoers file.  Open terminal.app by going to to /Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app or Command-Shift-U then double clicking terminal.app

Type the following at your shell $ prompt.

 $ sudo /Applications/Install\ macOS\ High \Sierra.app/Contents/Resources/createinstallmedia –volume /Volumes/OS\ X\ Rescue\ Disk

The \ is used in Unix/Linux paths when you need to add a space.  You may also surround the entire path in quotes.  Like this.

 $ sudo “/Applicatons/Install macOS High Sierra.app/Contents/Resouces/createinstallmedia” –volume “/Volumes/OS X Rescue Disk”

Press Enter.

You will now be prompted to re-enter your password to run the installer with elevated privileges.

WARNING: Creating an install disk will erase the volume you are using the create the install disk, answer Y to the next prompt ONLY if you are sure there is no data you wish to save on this volume.

Type ‘Y’ then ‘Return’ to continue.

The install disk is now being created on the OS X Rescue Disk partition.

Once the process is complete, we can now test our newly created install disk.

Restart your Mac, and after the startup chime, hold down the option key (Alt – If you are using a standard PC Keyboard).

You will now see the following screen where you may select a bootable device.

Click on ‘Install macOS High Sierra’ and click the up-arrow icon below it.  You should now be booting off your OS X Install partition.  Once the installer loads you will see a screen similar to the one below.

Once verified the disk is working, you can quit the installer, and your Mac will reboot.

Keep the USB stick in a safe place where you may use when needed.  In a later article we will install a fully working OS X High Sierra insall on the second partition ‘Rescue Utilities’ with some useful utitilites to Image, Restore, or repair a broken macOS X volume. 

Thank you for visiting Brent’s World, and please stop by again for more great articles!

You may also join our forums and discuss macOS X and other topics at www.catracing.org/hendrb/forum.
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Korean Movie Review – The Accidental Detective

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Brent’s World Movie Review

Korean Movie Review: The Accidental Detective.

 Another weekend, another blog!

Sorry for the delay getting this review out, I have been busy creating more content for Brent’s World! This week I will share a Korean crime/comedy film I rented from the iTunes Music Store. 

 

  The Accidental Detective, is a 2015 crime comedy loosely based on Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train. The Korean film is directed by Jeong-hoon Kim starring Sang-Woo Kwon who plays Kang Dae-man, a busy Korean family man, who because of his passion for criminal investigation and true crime stories seems to neglect his wife, 2 sons, and the comic book store that he owns.  His best friend Detective Joon Soo (Played by Hae-Joon Park) is accused and arrested for the murder of his wife.  With his friend in Jail and certainly to be found guilty Kang Dae-Man must now  work with a seemingly lazy and burned out Korean Police Detective Noh Tae-soo played by Dong-Il Sung to find the real murder’s and clear his friend.

 The completely mismatched pair struggles to work together and Kang Dae-man must juggle normal family life.  Which lead to some good humor throughout the film such as the necessity to babysit his young daughter while working the case. Which completely infuriates the grumpy, older Noh Tae-soo, who mostly resents the fact that he must work with an amateur to solve the case.  There are the light moments that you would expect from this type of faire.  However the comedy seems forced and out of place.  As with other Korean action films, I felt the story a bit too fast paced in places, and incongruous.  It might not have been as hard to follow the storyline if I was not having to pay such close attention to the subtitles.

  I would not go out of my way to buy or rent this film, instead I would direct you to Strangers On A Train that this file was based on.  However if you have already seen Strangers on a train or you are looking for a foreign crime drama to occupy your mind for an evening, I recommend giving The Accidental Detective a shot.

  You can rent or buy The Accidental Detective from the iTunes Music Store.

  Strangely enough this movie is not available on Amazon in either downloadable form or physical media.  I think this is one of the only times Amazon has not carried a title either digitally or in DVD/Blu-Ray format.

Thank you for stopping by Brent’s World, if you would like to share your thoughts on The Accidental Detective, please stop by our forums, and reply to the post in the Korean Movies forum.  You can access the forums at www.catracing.org/hendrb/forum

Be sure to come back next week for another installment of There Is No Place Like Home – Mi Jung and I attend a latin mass as Mission San Juan Capistrano!

There Is No Place Like Home – Balboa Park Part 2

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There’s No Place Like Home

Balboa Park Part 2

 

  In our last installment of There’s No Place Like Home, Mi Jung and I headed out to Balboa Park, where we rode the famous San Diego Carrousel and miniature train.  Later we took in some of the world famous museums. 

Here is the skull of a California Grey Whale.

I believe this was a bit before my time!

 Our next stop was the museum of photographic arts, which was of particular interest to me.

  Mi Jung is taking a close look at the exhibit.

I found this fascinating, the picture shown here is made of thousands of other peoples head and shoulder portraits.

Here is a portion of the photo zoomed.

  Our next stop was the Timkin Museum Of Art, and once again here is Mi Jung enjoying the exhibits using one of the audio devices available for rent which describes the museum pieces.  There is a free iOS and Android app that you can install but we did not have our smart phones with us on this trip.   The art exhibits were nice, and there was only one area in the museum where we could not take photo’s.  I would definitely put thhe Timkim Museum Of Art on your places to visit list.

 

   We then went to the Museum Of Man, and spent a good hour checking out their exhibits.  One of the defining characteristics of this museum is that it is built in the style of a Spanish Church.

  They were hosting an exhibit on cannibalism, here Mi Jung is stranded on a raft, and must draw straws to determine who will be killed to be used as food to sustain the rest of the survivors.

 

  The park is also known for its street performers, This dancing mime was one of my favorites. 

 

Here is a man playing the Didgeridoo.

  The botanical gardens were already closed by the time got here, so we just took a breather by the large fish pond.

  As it was getting on 5pm and the museums were closing, it was time to take a final photograph by the fountain outside the Ruben H. Fleet Science Center call it a day.  You really do need a couple of days to really enjoy the park.  Something I plan on doing my next visit.

We parked in the zoo parking lot, which is free, and entered the park by the miniature railroad and carousel.

Balboa Park 

Address for GPS or Google Maps
1800 Zoo Place
San Diego, Ca

Walk towards the zoo entrance and turn to the left.

 Thank you for visiting Brent’s World!  Next week will be a special article as I have purchased our tickets for Star Wars – The Last Jedi!  I will not be reviewing the film per se, but blogging going to movies in Korea!  When was the last time you were able to buy deep fried squid at a movie theater in the states?!

ALERT!! – Major Security Flaw Discovered in Mac OS X High Sierra (10.13.x)

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ALERT!! – Major Security Flaw Discovered in Mac OS X High Sierra (10.13.x)

 

 

 

  I was originally going to blog with instructions on creating a macOS X High Sierra boot USB with utility partition but decided to blog instead of the MAJOR security flaw that was discovered in Mac OSX High Sierra (10.13.x).  If you have not enabled and set a password to your root account, someone may authenticate as the root user without providing a password. 

 Additionally If you have the Login Option ‘Display login window as: Name and password’ selected an unauthorized person may be able to bypass the lock screen, logging into your system as the ‘root’ user!  To make this even more scary, once the exploit has been sued, it leaves the root user enabled (If it was previously disabled), with no password assigned.  Leavening the system open to future attacks both at the computer and possibly remotely.

  Apple released an update November 30th, that should have already installed with no user intervention required.   If for whatever reason you are not able to install the patch for this security flaw, you may temporarily secure your system by enabling the root account and assigning a strong password (See below for instructions.)

  There is a caveat you should be ware of.

  As the security patch affects ALL versions of High Sierra, the security patch will be installed even if you are still running macOS X 10.13, when you update to 10.13.1, the patch will be removed and your system will be vulnerable again.

To verify you have the patch installed.

Open your terminal.app
At your shell prompt type

$ what /usr/libexec/opendirectoryd

If you see the following output you have the security patch installed.PROGRAM:opendirectoryd

PROJECT:opendirectoryd-483.20.7 <FOR OSX 10.13.2>
PROJECT:opendirectoryd-483.1.5 <FOR OSX 10.13>

  Another thing to be aware of, the security patch will disable the root user account, if it was enabled prior to the patch you will need to re-enable it.  I find it to be ironic that one of the things the patch does is disable the one thing that prevented this flaw to begin with, having the root account enabled with a password set.

 

To Enable/Re-Enable Root User

  • System Preferences > Users & Groups.
  • Click the lock icon and authenticate as a privileged user.
  • Click the ‘Login Options’ button.
  • Click the ‘Edit…’ button to the right of Network Account Server:
  • Click Open Directory Utility.
  • Click the lock icon and authenticate as a privileged user.
  • Click Edit > Enable Root User.
  • Enter a strong password.
    1. 8-15 Characters
    2. Containing at least 1 capital letter.
    3. Containing at least 1 numeric character.
    4. Containing at least 1 special character.
    5. Do not use names, birthdays, or dates/places of special events.
  • Close the windows that were opened.

 

 

Hopefully this patch will be included in the 10.13.2 update whenever it comes out!

If you have any comments or questions about this blog or macOS X in general please stop by our forums at www.catracing.org/forum.

Thanks for following Brent’s World!