If you like the Intego Mac Podcast, be sure to follow it on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or Amazon<\/a>.<\/p>\n Intego Mac Premium Bundle X9<\/b> is the ultimate protection and utility suite for your Mac. Download a free trial now at intego.com<\/a>, and use this link<\/a> for a special discount when you\u2019re ready to buy.<\/p>\n Get Apple security news delivered straight to your inbox, for free.<\/b> Intego\u2019s twice-monthly newsletter will keep you informed about Apple-related privacy and security, along with tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Mac or iPhone. Subscribe for free<\/a>\u2014no strings attached.<\/p>\n Voice Over 0:00 Kirk McElhearn 0:49 Josh Long 0:58 Kirk McElhearn 1:11 Josh Long 2:19 Kirk McElhearn 2:59 Josh Long 3:24 Kirk McElhearn 3:44 Josh Long 4:13 Kirk McElhearn 4:49 Josh Long 5:01 Kirk McElhearn 5:25 Josh Long 7:07 Kirk McElhearn 7:31 Josh Long 9:16 Kirk McElhearn 9:42 Josh Long 10:01 Kirk McElhearn 10:20 Josh Long 10:30 Kirk McElhearn 11:30 Josh Long 11:33 Kirk McElhearn 12:26 Josh Long 12:31 Kirk McElhearn 13:00 Voice Over 13:08 Kirk McElhearn 14:19 Josh Long 14:24 Kirk McElhearn 16:37 Josh Long 16:44 Kirk McElhearn 16:50 Josh Long 16:56 Kirk McElhearn 17:30 Josh Long 18:18 Kirk McElhearn 19:14 Josh Long 20:11 Kirk McElhearn 21:51 Josh Long 23:05 Kirk McElhearn 23:49 Josh Long 23:53 Kirk McElhearn 24:03 Josh Long 25:31 Kirk McElhearn 25:40 Josh Long 25:45 Kirk McElhearn 26:58 Josh Long 27:06 Kirk McElhearn 27:12 Josh Long 27:18 Kirk McElhearn 28:22 Josh Long 29:03 Voice Over 29:06 \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\tKirk McElhearn<\/b> writes about Apple products and more on his blog Kirkville<\/a>.
Transcript of Intego Mac Podcast 380 <\/h3>\n
This is the Intego Mac podcast\u2014the voice of Mac security\u2014for Thursday, January 23 2024. This week\u2019s Intego Mac podcast security headlines include a warning about dangerous materials being used in Apple watch bands, the FBI has been able to quietly remove malware from computers remotely, and it\u2019s not the first time we try to make sense of the TikTok situation in the United States, and the latest Apple updates for beta testers contain more Apple intelligence features, but how many users will opt out. Now here are the hosts of the Intego Mac podcast. Veteran Mac journalist Kirk McElhearn and Intego\u2019s chief security analyst, Josh Long. <\/p>\n
Good morning. Josh, how are you today? I\u2019m doing well. How are you, Kirk, I\u2019m doing just fine. We had some updates to Apple operating systems yesterday, but not for everyone.<\/p>\nApple\u2019s latest OS beta updates automatically opt-in users for AI<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Right We got the release candidate for iOS, 18.3 that just came out. And I think there were some other release candidates as well that all came out yesterday, as of when we\u2019re recording this, which was Tuesday.<\/p>\n
All the dot three release candidates. So macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, I think TVOS as well, I\u2019m not sure, because I don\u2019t install TVOS betas. So this is a big deal because is, this is the next dot release of features that Apple announced last June. In other words, actually, there\u2019s not much new in this, in terms of Apple intelligence. But as we\u2019ve been seeing since the dot zero released into September, each additional dot release. So dot one, dot 2.3, has added more features in Apple intelligence. One of the interesting new features in the dot three is that Apple intelligence is enabled and you have to turn it off. You have to opt out to disable this. Previously it was not enabled, you\u2019d have to go into the settings, which says Apple intelligence in Siri, you have to turn it on. After that, you have to download the necessary software for it, which we\u2019ll talk about in a minute. But now it\u2019s requiring an opt out. And this is kind of, I mean, for a couple reasons, this is bad. First of all, they\u2019re still calling it a beta, so you don\u2019t make people opt into a beta by default. <\/p>\n
Well, yeah, it\u2019s, it\u2019s, it\u2019s not letting them opt in. It\u2019s opting them in, which is, yeah, that\u2019s kind of a weird practice for for a beta. So that\u2019s a little bit awkward. But I mean, you can still turn it off, like, if you really don\u2019t want to use it. And again, as we mentioned many times, not everybody actually gets Apple intelligence. So on the iPhone, if you have a 15 Pro or any of the 16 models, then you get Apple intelligence, and it will be on by default in iOS 18.3 if you have any other iPhone model besides those, when you get iOS 18.3 you\u2019re not going to get Apple intelligence on it. So it\u2019s not something you need to worry about one way or the other.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s one reason why you might want to turn this off on my iPhone, 16 plus 16 Pro plus 16 pro Max. Sorry, I get confused with all these weird naming conventions of Apple. It takes up almost six gigabytes. Now, on the 16 Pro, it starts with 256 but on the basic 16 models, it starts with 128 gigabytes. You might not have space to add an extra six gigabytes of system software to your phone.<\/p>\n
It is something you need to be aware of, and Apple does tell you how much space it\u2019s going to require to install the update. So presumably, this Apple intelligence that will now be included by default and no longer a separate download, will be rolled into the requirements on how much space you need in order to install the update.<\/p>\n
Is that what they\u2019re saying? Because when I downloaded the release candidates, I just saw the size of it as, I don\u2019t know, seven gigabytes, which is probably what a release candidate is, or maybe that included the Apple intelligence with the update to the Apple intelligence software. See before what happened is it didn\u2019t download until you turned it on. So maybe the reason that they are forcing people to opt in is to make sure they download it so they don\u2019t have to wait to download it if they do turn it on, but it\u2019s on if they turned it off and then turned it on. You see my point? <\/p>\n
Yeah. So I guess that is a question I and I haven\u2019t seen whether, because, of course, my device that I\u2019m using the release candidate on is actually not an Apple intelligence compatible device. I have not put the release candidate yet on my main device, which does support Apple intelligence, and I already have Apple intelligence enabled on all my devices that are capable of it. So I don\u2019t really have, like, a test device that I can see whether there\u2019s an additional download that still happens after you do the update, if you had it turned off previously. So I guess there is a question about that.<\/p>\n
It makes me wonder, as they update the Apple intelligence models, will this require large updates? And the problem again, for people who don\u2019t have a lot of storage on the device that might not be able to install the updates.<\/p>\n
Well. And you know, to be fair, you do have to have at least 128 gigs of storage on your device, because Apple intelligence doesn\u2019t is not compatible with any phones that have less than 128 right? Probably the same, I think, for iPads, I would guess, as well. And on the Mac, of course, you don\u2019t ever really have 128 gigs of storage. You always have more than that.<\/p>\n
Well, I think in recent years, the smallest was 512 if you go back to the m1 the early M1 Macs, you could get 512 gigabytes. On my iMac, it takes up only around five gigabytes, so almost a gigabyte less than it does on the iPhone. This is because the iPhone has the visual intelligence, right, which isn\u2019t on the Mac. So there\u2019s probably the Apple intelligence software depends on the device and the features it has, so my iPad is too far away for me to reach, but it probably uses less space than my iPhone does. Anyway, it will take up more space if you don\u2019t want to use Apple intelligence, turn it off so you\u2019re not annoyed when you press and hold the wrong button and something pops up. One other thing that changes in the dot three is that Apple has turned off temporarily notification summaries for news and entertainment categories, and this is because we talked about this a couple times recently, there have been some really weird notifications that notifications that sort of combine things and make it looks like something happened that didn\u2019t happen. If I look on my iPhone settings, notifications. Summarize notifications. Here are the apps where it\u2019s marked temporarily unavailable for notifications. Game Pass, because it\u2019s an entertainment app, Mubi, which is a streaming service, the mute apples, music app, Netflix, NET News Wire, which is an RSS reader, New York Times, The Guardian, Sonos, which really the notifications aren\u2019t, you know, it plays music, but that\u2019s it. Steam and Xbox. So all of these are just because of the two categories, entertainment and news. I don\u2019t know that entertainment apps had a problem with notifications, at least not that I heard about.<\/p>\n
That one surprises me too, and it\u2019s really specifically news that I\u2019m aware of as being something that a lot of people have been reporting on as problematic. But maybe there are some entertainment news apps that categorize themselves as entertainment, and maybe that\u2019s why. But in any case, Apple has chosen those two categories news. I\u2019m not surprised about entertainment. That one is surprising to me too. I agree. <\/p>\nApple watch band contains harmful chemical<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, this isn\u2019t strictly Apple news, but I did want to mention this because the Guardian had an article that surprised me recently. Smart watch bands can contain major levels of toxic PFAs. Study Finds PFAs are per and polyfluoroalkyl substances which are considered to be carcinogenic. And a group did a study of watch bands for smart watches, and found that the levels detected in some of these bands were much higher than most PFAs we have seen in consumer products. Now, Apple has a number of different bands for the Apple Watch. The only one that\u2019s concerned here, as far as I can tell, is the Sport band, which is made of fluoroelastomer the solo loop is what they call liquid silicone. These are actually terms of art in the synthetic rubber industry. This liquid silicone is actually a term. It Apple didn\u2019t make it up. It sounds like Apple made it up. The ocean band is elastomer, so it looks like the only one that could be affected is the Sport band. But this is a problem, because these, these are called Forever chemicals, because they\u2019re hard to get rid of, and the Guardian article says it\u2019s commonly used on clothing, carpet, paper and insecticides, and is linked to liver disease. So I don\u2019t want to say that if you\u2019re using an Apple Sport band, you should get rid of it right now. The Guardian article does say that watches with silicone bands are a safer alternative, so that means the solo whoop or any of the textile versions of Apple watch bands, like the one you have, Josh, any of the metal bands are fine, you know, the Melanie\u2019s loop and all those. But maybe be careful, because you\u2019re wearing this. Some people wear it almost 24 hours a day. If they track their sleep, you\u2019re sweating on it, so the salt in your sweat might do something to get the chemicals to leach into your skin.<\/p>\n
One of the experts that they cite in this article says, at the very end. I don\u2019t need someone to rush to throw away their Christmas gifts, but next time you buy one, move away from those with PFAs. So that\u2019s the advice from from the expert. It\u2019s not that you necessarily need to get rid of these immediately, but they are considering banning this particular chemical in the EU and so it may also be a chemical that eventually gets banned in other countries as well. <\/p>\n
I haven\u2019t seen Apple say anything about this yet. Maybe they\u2019ll say something. Maybe they won\u2019t. We want to talk about how the FBI hacked computers to hack malware, and this always makes me uncomfortable. Like, okay, we hacked into your computer because it had malware. But if you could hack into my computer, if you\u2019re the FBI. You could hack into my computer? What else could you do?<\/p>\nFBI \u201chacks\u201d computers to quietly remove malware<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Well, that\u2019s exactly the concern, and one would hope that the FBI is only going to use this hacking capability for, you know, positive purposes, right? Where they\u2019re only going to be removing malware. They\u2019re never going to be installing malware through these hacking attempts.<\/p>\n
But not even installing malware. If they can get into my computer, what can they read? What sort of data can they collect? I mean, the FBI hasn\u2019t always been trustworthy in the past. <\/p>\n
Well, yeah, and I think that\u2019s that\u2019s the big concern here. When you see a headline like, FBI hacked 1000s of computers, it doesn\u2019t really matter what comes after that. It automatically puts people on alert. Like, wait, hold on. Wait, what they did, what to make malware uninstall itself? Is like, Well, okay, I mean, like, I guess maybe the ends justify the means, but but at the same time, like, if it were my computer that had malware on it, I don\u2019t know how comfortable I would feel with some intelligence agency hacking into my computer, why not just let me know so that I can clean up the infection? But I guess the idea in this case was that this was widespread enough that they felt it was in the public interest to take action on their own. Now this in this particular case, there were 4200 infected devices in the US that they say was infected with state sponsored malware from hackers in China. That\u2019s according to the the subheading on this article.<\/p>\n
Oh, so they were just uninstalling TikTok ?<\/p>\n
No, not TikTok, no. This was like, actual malware, not like, you know, okay, potential sort of spyware. But okay, yeah, no, no, this. This was the kind of attacks, sort of like we\u2019ve talked about Pegasus in the past, which many countries use to hack into the phones of people who are suspected terrorists, or, unfortunately, sometimes journalists and others who have not necessarily committed egregious crimes, but are just people of interest that a government wants to track. So this was a big deal that these computers had been attacked with nation state spyware or malware in the first place. So the FBI was doing something good by cleaning that off of these systems. The concern is that the FBI hacked computers in order to do that. <\/p>\n
Didn\u2019t they do something like this a couple years ago, I seem to remember we discussed a similar situation.<\/p>\n
Yeah, this does happen from time to time. It\u2019s definitely not the first time that we\u2019ve ever seen something like this, where an intelligence agency hacks in order to remove malware, and we\u2019ve definitely seen this before, also, I think, with routers and other things like that as well. So it\u2019s not just computers. There are lots of internet connected devices that can be infected, and sometimes they will stay pretty much permanently infected unless somebody takes action. In this time, it was the FBI that decided to take action.<\/p>\n
Okay, we\u2019re going to take a break. When we come back, we\u2019re going to talk about more malware. We\u2019re going to talk about TikTok and more.<\/p>\n
Protecting your online security and privacy has never been more important than it is today. Intego has been proudly protecting Mac users for over 25 years. And our latest Mac protection suite includes the tools you need to stay protected. Intego\u2019s Mac Premium Bundle X9 includes Virus Barrier, the world\u2019s best Mac anti-malware protection, Net Barrier, powerful inbound and outbound firewall security, Personal Backup to keep your important files safe from ransomware. And much more to help protect, secure and organize your Mac. Download the free trial of Mac Premium Bundle X9 from intego.com today. When you\u2019re ready to buy, Intego Mac Podcast listeners can get a special discount by using the link in this episode\u2019s show notes at podcast.intego.com. That\u2019s podcast.intego.com and click on this episode to find the special discount link exclusively for Intego Mac Podcast listeners. Intego. World class protection and utility software for Mac users made by the Mac security experts. <\/p>\nScammers lure Homebrew users to fake software sites<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, more malware, more fake Google Ads Homebrew. This is your kind of story, isn\u2019t it, Josh?<\/p>\n
Yeah, this is something that we\u2019ve been tracking for a while. In fact, we wrote an article about something called Cuckoo this was a malware family that was in the news last May, and how Intego had discovered some new variants of this Cuckoo Mac malware that was mimicking the Homebrew website. Homebrew is a package manager for Mac that basically allows you to install command line utilities that are really popular on Unix, like operating systems like Linux and things like that. In fact, macOS even has many of these types of utilities. Built in that you can run from the command line. Homebrew often will offer you newer, more up to date versions of some of these things we\u2019ve mentioned before in the past, that Apple includes a lot of open source command line software that unfortunately doesn\u2019t always get updated to the latest version very quickly. So Homebrew is sort of an alternative way to do that, the real Homebrew that is the problem here is that threat actors have created these fake Homebrew websites that look nearly identical to the official Homebrew site, and because of the way that Homebrew is installed, it\u2019s a little bit unusual. You copy and paste a string of text from the website and you paste it into the terminal app on your Mac in order to install it. Now, that should raise some red flags, because normally you don\u2019t want to copy and paste anything into your terminal. This can, of course, be potentially malware if you don\u2019t know the original source, so the official, real Homebrew site, that\u2019s a totally legitimate way to install that software. The problem is, what the bad guys are doing is they\u2019re buying up Google ads, so they show up at the very top of Google results. In the sponsored link at the very top of Google search results, it shows that it\u2019s going to take you to brew.sh which is the official Homebrew web page, but if you click on that ad, it actually takes you to a malware distribution site. If you copy and paste from there, you\u2019re going to actually be installing malware onto your Mac.<\/p>\n
So wait a second. How does Google get away with this? How is how are they not responsible for this sort of thing?<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a great question. Kirk, I would love to know the answer to that, because this has been ongoing for literally years at this point.<\/p>\n
But most of these ads don\u2019t have the actual URL of the site that they\u2019re imitating, right? <\/p>\n
Yes, and that\u2019s exactly the problem, because the ad will show you that it\u2019s going to take it looks exactly like a legitimate ad would look for the software. It literally tells you that it\u2019s going to take you to brew.sh the real website, but it doesn\u2019t take you there. And it\u2019s shocking to me that Google is still allowing, after years of allowing malware makers to do exactly this thing. They\u2019re still allowing this to happen in 2025 like, How is this even still happening? <\/p>\n
I hate to say it, the only way they\u2019re going to change is if they\u2019re forced to change. And the only way that would happen is if there\u2019s some sort of class action suit or something. And since most of the people this happens to don\u2019t really notice it until after the fact, it\u2019s hard to hold them to account. The problem is, anyone can make a Google ad. It\u2019s not reviewed by a human it\u2019s probably reviewed by some sort of filter that looks for keywords, if not even an AI, right? The way Google Ads work is it\u2019s kind of an auction. You say how much you\u2019re willing to spend for specific keywords that people search for, and you have competitors, and so you put a higher price, and so the malware people are putting the highest price, so they always get the ads, or get them often enough. But this whole system is just designed to scam both advertisers and users. <\/p>\n
And in fact, if it\u2019s something that nobody else is advertising for that keyword, like maybe, if somebody\u2019s searching for Homebrew, this is just open source software, they\u2019re probably not buying up ads on Google. And so this is an opportunity for the malware makers to come in and buy ads for something that nobody else is buying ads for. So they can always just show up at the top of results. Now I say always. That doesn\u2019t necessarily mean that every single time you do a search for Homebrew, it\u2019s going to come up with a malicious ad. This is something that can happen, and so if you go and search for it right now, you may or may not actually see an ad for Homebrew that\u2019s going to take you to a malicious website. But this is a possibility, because over the past several weeks we\u2019ve seen this happen with multiple different websites. Now it\u2019s it\u2019s not just one website. It\u2019s not just once that this has happened. It\u2019s been at least two different sites that I know of off the top of my head, just over the past week and a half.<\/p>\nTikTok confusion in the US<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, time to talk about TikTok. Everyone\u2019s talking about TikTok, aren\u2019t they? TikTok has been banned. There was a bill that went through Congress. It was signed by President Biden. It went to the Supreme Court. The ban was supposed to take effect on the 19th of January, which is coincident with the last day of the Biden administration. The ban went into effect, and yet, apparently it\u2019s not banned, sort of maybe because the new president said, Well, don\u2019t worry, you\u2019re not going to get in trouble. But when you look at the legal process, a bill through Congress, Supreme Court, it\u2019s not like a president can just say, Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re not going to prosecute you. So TikTok went back into service in the US about 12 hours later, but Apple and Google are. Smart enough to know that they\u2019re not going to put it on the App Store in case they end up getting fined, because this is there were fines in the bill, and the Supreme Court validated this, etc. This is a very strange situation.<\/p>\n
One of the things that I think is interesting about this is that, well, first of all, Apple actually put out a support article about this. Talking about the article is actually called about availability of TikTok and bytedance Limited apps in the United States. We didn\u2019t mention last week that other apps, including cap cut, are affected. Cap cut is a popular video editing app that many people who use TikTok use it, but you know, even if you\u2019re creating Google shorts or any other kind of vertical, short form content you might be using cap cut that also now is part of this ban on apps created by or distributed by bytedance. So the interesting thing about this is, even though TikTok is now operating again, if you search for TikTok in the app store in the US, you will get a notification at the top that says, TikTok and other bytedance apps are not available in the country or region you\u2019re in. Learn more that will take you to the support article that we just talked about. So what could happen here potentially is that if the TikTok app, if some vulnerability were found in the TikTok app or cap cut and they wanted to push out an update, they couldn\u2019t get that update to you because Apple is now and Google as well. They\u2019re doing the same thing. They\u2019re not allowing anybody to download that app from the App Store, and that means that you\u2019re also not getting updates to those apps anymore. So although if you already had the app downloaded, you can continue to use it again, you can\u2019t get the app and you can\u2019t get updates for the app. So that is potentially problematic. <\/p>\n
One thing you were surprised about is the Marvel snap app. I don\u2019t know what this is, but there\u2019s a Marvel app that\u2019s made by bytedance Regarding updates. It\u2019s actually kind of interesting, because if you are not from the United States, and you go to the United States, according to Apple, you are unable to download update or make in app purchases and new subscriptions inside bytedance Limited apps while within the land or maritime borders of the United States. Now this is interesting, because when you\u2019re traveling, you can update apps that come from an account in the country you\u2019re from, or the region that your Apple device is set in. So why should they prevent you if you have, let\u2019s say, a UK account, and you travel to United States, why should they prevent you from updating or downloading an app? That seems to be a bit harsh, but maybe that\u2019s what the law says, that they\u2019re just not allowed to offer it in any way. You would, at least for updates, for security updates, it would make sense. But on the other hand, couldn\u2019t bytedance say it\u2019s a security update and add new features like, you know, more spyware and location tracking and all that that they don\u2019t want. So this is a real mess, in the sense that this is involved Congress, the Supreme Court and two presidents, and it\u2019s not going away anytime soon.<\/p>\n
By the way, I will mention that if there were, like a zero day vulnerability, like something where somebody could exploit this, some vulnerability in this app on your device, I do think that in that situation, Apple could pull its trigger to actually remove an app from your device or prevent it from launching. I don\u2019t know. I\u2019m trying to remember any specific scenarios where Apple has done this in the past, but they did say when they first implemented the App Store that they do have a kill switch that they can remove apps from iPhones if there ever is a situation where an installed app is known to be malicious, they can actually remove it from from devices. <\/p>\n
Can you imagine the controversy if Apple did that to TikTok right now?<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s exactly why I think there\u2019s a slim number of scenarios where that might actually happen. It would have to be a really serious vulnerability for Apple to pull the trigger like that.<\/p>\nMicrosoft\u2019s Copilot AI will cost you even if you don\u2019t use it<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Okay, we talked about AI Apple intelligence. Microsoft has added their Copilot feature now to all Microsoft Office subscription I\u2019m sorry they\u2019re calling it Microsoft 365 now they change so often. Two things are going on. One is they\u2019re raising the price of these subscriptions whether or not you want to use Copilot, which is Microsoft intelligence, right? The second thing is, it\u2019s really hard to turn it off. And a few days ago, I saw a lot of people on social media, I guess when they got the latest update to the apps complaining about this. And we\u2019ll put a link in the show notes to explain how to turn it off. The problem is, when you turn it off, you still see the Microsoft Copilot logo in your documents waiting to be clicked on. And you know how it is that you see a icon right next to text in Word, you just have to go see what it\u2019s saying, and it\u2019s telling you, well, you can\u2019t do this because your settings are wrong. So click here to change your settings. This is kind of evil. Now, to be fair, Google. It\u2019s the same thing in Google Docs, and we do our show notes in Google Docs, and we have a shared document, and I\u2019m looking at it now, and in the margin there are four icons. One says, help me write. One says, suggest edit. So those are the AI tools that come from. Was it Google Gemini? I kind of feel this is getting out of hand, because most people don\u2019t really want these features, don\u2019t really see the need to have these features. And Microsoft charging more for features that you may not even use is a bit they\u2019re really pushing it with this. I think.<\/p>\n
Yeah, this is one of those things that like it\u2019s sort of not everybody\u2019s going to be concerned about this, right? And some people are not really going to worry about it .<\/p>\n
Well, until they renew their Microsoft 365 subscription and they\u2019re paying $20 more.<\/p>\n
Well, right? That\u2019s, I guess, where this is potentially problematic. But we\u2019re seeing this kind of thing, something similar to this happening across multiple industries. You know, for example, Disney plus and Netflix have recently announced huge price hikes. I mean, you know, it\u2019s a couple of bucks, but when you\u2019re talking about the percentage, you know, of the total cost of it, it\u2019s, it\u2019s not an insignificant price hike. And this is largely because they\u2019re deciding that they\u2019re now going to be bundling some sports content, you know, for example. And I think Apple TV plus is now doing the same thing as well. They\u2019re bundling sports content, and so that likely means that with all of these services, as they continue to add new things that you may or may not actually want to use, they\u2019re going to continue to get more expensive. And it\u2019s the same thing with Amazon spending a ton of money on TV series that you may or may not be interested in watching, but now the whole service is going to cost more money, so Copilot, I kind of understand raising the price for something like that, because Microsoft has had to invest a lot of money in open AI to get access to GPT four technology that now Copilot is based on, right? <\/p>\n
Yeah, but Microsoft is the master of having multiple adjective versions. I mean, why can\u2019t they have the Microsoft 365 Family Edition without Copilot?<\/p>\n
Yeah, I suppose, I suppose they could do that.<\/p>\n
What about for the enterprise? For businesses who don\u2019t want to use this, who absolutely don\u2019t want this on their computers? <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a fair point, because I do think there is a case for that. I know that there are some businesses that have decided we are not an AI business, right, like, as long as AI is potentially snarfing up our data, our proprietary information, and using it to train itself, we don\u2019t want any part of that, because either they\u2019re in an industry where they have to be really, really careful about that, for example, in the medical industry, right where there\u2019s HIPAA and or other laws in other countries that have really strict protections on what is allowed to happen with any sort of patient related data. And so there are scenarios and industries where they have to be extremely careful about AI and what can be trained based on what they\u2019re working with, right? So I think in a business environment, there\u2019s definitely a case to be made for giving users an option, or enterprises an option to shut that off completely.<\/p>\n
Okay, we have a story that\u2019s a couple weeks old that I wanted to talk about, about Samsung rolling out a smartphone subscription, because I think this is something Apple is going to do at some point. Samsung, as we speak, is doing their Galaxy unpacked live event where they will probably talk about this. So next week, we\u2019ll discuss smartphone subscriptions. If Samsung does indeed do this, I like the idea you pay a subscription for your phone, for your Apple Care protection, or whatever Samsung care, or whatever it is. You\u2019ve got your cloud storage, you put it all in one little box, and you have a monthly fee. I\u2019ve been thinking that Apple should do this for a long time. Anyway, we\u2019ll talk about that next week when we know more about Samsung until next week. Josh, stay secure.<\/p>\n
All right, stay secure.<\/p>\n
Thanks for listening to the Intego Mac podcast. The voice of Mac security with your hosts, Kirk McElhearn and Josh Long. To get every weekly episode be sure to follow us in Apple podcasts or subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and if you can leave a rating, a like or a review. Links to topics and information mentioned in the podcast can be found in the show notes for the episode at podcast.intego.com. The Intego website is also where to find details on the full line of Intego security and utility software. intego.com.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/9ffd73df6063179d7cdcb79109ff0a2d?s=60&d=mm&r=g\")
About Kirk McElhearn<\/h3>\n
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\nHe is co-host of the Intego Mac Podcast<\/a>, as well as several other podcasts<\/a>, and is a regular contributor to The Mac Security Blog, TidBITS, and several other websites and publications.
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\nKirk has written more than two dozen books, including Take Control books<\/a> about Apple’s media apps, Scrivener, and LaunchBar.
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\nFollow him on Twitter at @mcelhearn<\/a>.\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tView all posts by Kirk McElhearn \u2192\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n