512 Pixels

Rob Griffiths has come across a super fun bug affecting Mac users right now:

But if you’re unlucky enough to be a Mac user in the month of December, 2017, then you’ll probably be seeing a lot of “Month 13 is out of bounds” messages in your Console. And by ‘a lot,’ I mean an exceedingly excessive never-ending stream of spewage…

Thousands and thousands and thousands of them — I’m getting anywhere from two to 20 per second, continuously. Ugh.

Sure enough, here’s a screenshot of my Console right now, with Skype running in the background:

This isn’t a serious bug, but it sure is exciting to watch Console freak out.

Today’s fix for Apple’s nasty root account bug has broken file sharing for some users, including on my iMac. Apple has published a fix, and I assume this will be resolved in a future, less critical software update:

1. Open the Terminal app, which is in the Utilities folder of your Applications folder.
2. Type sudo /usr/libexec/configureLocalKDC and press Return.
3. Enter your administrator password and press Return.
4. Quit the Terminal app.

Apple:

An attacker may be able to bypass administrator authentication without supplying the administrator’s password. A logic error existed in the validation of credentials. This was addressed with improved credential validation.

Stop what you’re doing and go install this patch.

Here is Apple’s statement, as relayed by Matthew Panzarino:

Security is a top priority for every Apple product, and regrettably we stumbled with this release of macOS. When our security engineers became aware of the issue Tuesday afternoon, we immediately began working on an update that closes the security hole.

“This morning, as of 8:00 a.m., the update is available for download, and starting later today it will be automatically installed on all systems running the latest version (10.13.1) of macOS High Sierra.”

We greatly regret this error and we apologize to all Mac users, both for releasing with this vulnerability and for the concern it has caused. Our customers deserve better. We are auditing our development processes to help prevent this from happening again.

Here’s a case where Apple forcing an update on systems is a good thing.

If you need a full-featured image editor and Photoshop isn’t your thing, Pixelmator Pro looks like a fantastic alternative.

In an average month, I edit and publish a whole bunch of podcast episodes on Relay FM. I edit every episode of Liftoff, Query and Ungeniused,¹ and sometimes handle Connected and Download.

I edit in Logic Pro X, adding music, removing crosstalk, tweaking segments and — as of about a year ago — adding chapters. These chapters allow a listener to easily skim around within an episode. We were slow to adopt them because there was a real lack of good tools to create and manage them on macOS, but with Forecast, Marco Arment changed the game:

The last thing podcast producers need is more tedious, manual steps to publish each episode. Forecast automates common workflows and saves time even if you never use chapters. And if you want to add chapters, it has never been easier.

Yesterday, Marco published the first public beta of the app. I have been using it far longer than that, and I can honestly say it has made my workflow better.

I now export a .WAV out of Logic, complete with chapter markers embedded in the file. I drag that .WAV into Forecast, which auto-fills the artwork, title and chapters for me. I can enter any other details I want, including chapter-specific art.

Here’s what episode 169 of Connected looks like in Forecast:

The app encodes the MP3 using a the standard LAME encoder, with a twist: Marco’s made it multi-threaded, so it’s crazy fast.

Once all my metadata is in, I can hit save and an MP3 gets saved to my drive, ready for upload.

If you edit podcasts on macOS, you should check this out. Even if you don’t use chapters, it’s a great way to encode an MP3 easily and quickly.

This week on Connected:

Myke returns with many comments about last week’s show and a surprise Black Friday purchase. Meanwhile, Stephen has installed Windows 10.

My thanks to our sponsors:

• Pingdom: Start monitoring your websites and servers today. Use offer code CONNECTED to get 30% off.
• Ting: A smarter way to do mobile. Save $25 on selected devices or keep it as Ting credit.
• Incapsula: Secure and accelerate your website. Connected listeners get one month free.

Greg Barbosa at 9to5Mac:

A newly discovered macOS High Sierra flaw is potentially leaving your personal data at risk. Developer Lemi Orhan Ergin publicly contacted Apple Support to ask about the vulnerability he discovered. In the vulnerability he found, someone with physical access to a macOS machine can access and change personal files on the system without needing any admin credentials.

Users who haven’t disabled guest user account access or changed their root passwords (likely most) are currently open to this vulnerability. We’ve included instructions on how to protect yourself in the meantime until an official fix from Apple is released.

Here are the tweets referenced:

You can access it via System Preferences>Users & Groups>Click the lock to make changes. Then use “root” with no password. And try it for several times. Result is unbelievable! pic.twitter.com/m11qrEvECs

— Lemi Orhan Ergin (@lemiorhan) November 28, 2017

The temporary fix involves setting a custom password for root. I hope Apple gets a patch out for this ASAP; this is a seriously bad bug. Check it out:

Welp. On macOS High Sierra anyone can get full access by logging in as root with an empty password. ???? pic.twitter.com/4UK9GOPy9D

— Austin Evans (@austinnotduncan) November 28, 2017

Holy crap.

Jason Davis at The Planetary Society has written up the complex situation NASA is in when looking at its next outer solar system robotic mission and the rocket on which it should launch.

I went looking for this article after making a joke on Twitter about this product:

…but really you wish you had one in your collection.

— John Siracusa (@siracusa) November 27, 2017

I’m not want to publish a blog post about new ads, but these are great:

Finally. Update: You can drag content into these apps, but not out of them, into other apps. Oh, Google.

Marco Arment has outlined what Apple should do with the next MacBook Pro to fix the errors with the current design:

The best laptop to ever exist should be in the future, not the past.

There’s a lot to like about the new MacBook Pros, but they need some changes to be truly great and up to Apple’s standards.

All in all, I agree with everything in the post, as I sit here, typing this on a last-generation model.

I don’t think we’ll get everything Marco lists in his article;¹ keyboard improvements seem the most likely to me.

I suspect putting in the far-superior Magic Keyboard in the MacBook Pro may be a bridge too far for Apple’s design team, but something has to be done to toughen up this keyboard.

Until then, I think Apple should open a Repair Extension Program for this issue. Early examples of the Late 2016 MacBook Pro are starting to fall out of limited warranty, and sticking customers with a $450 repair for a broken key is pretty poor form.