Saturday, June 4, 2022

Recent Questions - Ask Different

Recent Questions - Ask Different

ICloud shows 3Gb messages, but top conversations shows 0kb

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 08:11 AM PDT

I can't back up my iPhone. I've removed many of my videos and photos from my iPhone and from my messages, but iCloud shows the largest storage is messages - 3Gb. When I click on messages, however, top conversations shows 0kb. How do I reclaim my space?

How to extract TOTP secret from an iCloud Keychain?

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 08:13 AM PDT

iOS Passwords application/pane (since version 15?) has 2FA codes (TOTP), here's an example:

iOS Passwords

Here I'm using Instagram as an example, because one can enable 2FA for his account only via their mobile application and without a chance to use any other password manager but the system one, as you never see the QR code or TOTP secret. At least that was the case for me on iOS.

How can I now extract the TOTP secret of that code (a value in the format like DKFUOLOFUJTDWKIEIS2LZRWGUFZOOAW9), so it could be stored in other password managers, such as KeePassXC, Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, etc?

I can also see the code in Passwords tab in Safari on Mac OS, so at least it is synced there, and iPhone isn't the only place where I have it:

Mac OS Passwords

And theoretically it should be easier to perform the extraction on Mac OS, as unlike iOS there is a proper access to the filesystem.

Is there a mechanism to get these secrets back out (iOS or macOS or web) as plain text after ingesting them to the iCloud Keychain?

Port forwarding

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 07:19 AM PDT

I would like to intercept the tcp traffic from a device on my network. I cannot change the destination but I set the router IP to the IP of my M1 Mac Mini.

I used to do this with ipfw on a virtual machine running Ubuntu. I used these command to accomplish the interception:

sudo iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -p tcp -d 176.58.117.69 --dport 10004 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.245.32  sudo iptables -A OUTPUT -t nat -p tcp -d 176.58.117.69 -j DNAT --to-destination 192.168.245.32

I want to obtain the same result with pf on MacOS Monterey. I added a new anchor file under /private/etc/pf.anchors containing: rdr pass proto tcp from any to 176.58.117.69 -> self

Sending a packet to that address on port 10004 from another computer with the IP of the Mac Mini as router IP and running nc -l 10004 on the Mac Mini does not return anything.

I checked that the rules do not contain an error with sudo pfctl -vnf /private/etc/pf.conf The rules were loaded with pfctl -ef /private/etc/pf.conf What am I missing?

Having trouble with Time Machine [closed]

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 07:10 AM PDT

I went through a nightmare. Couldn't open time machine backup. My drives were greyed out. Turns out the computer was apfs file system but external drives were hfs/os extended journaled.

You can go into Applications/ disk utility and click on the external drive options and select convert to apfs Leaves your files intact. To be safe do as I did.

Copied files to a different drive to be safe then tried it. I can now restore and retrieve files from time machine. Can't believe all the crap I had to deal w b4 I found this out. Apple support sucked

Resolve font duplicates

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 08:23 AM PDT

I'm installing this font on my mac: https://github.com/sunaku/tamzen-font

The installation is pretty straightforward: it's enough to go to the app "Font Book", click "Add font" and select the .ttf version of the downloaded font.

The problem is that Font Book see all the different variants of the font as the same: enter image description here

If I try to resolve the conflict manually, it just makes me choose the version to keep, and it doesn't understand that all those versions are different.

How can I make sure I can import all the different variants of the font?

Is it possible to add url to reminder through AppleScript in attachment (preview) style

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 06:03 AM PDT

reminders

Hi folks, I have an apple script question. Maybe someone know is it possible to add reminder with url in form of preview and not text (on screenshot I want a bottom variant)

Adding url in form of the text is pretty straightforward but I can't find anything on how to add it in preview style

osascript << EOF   tell app "Reminders"    make new reminder in default list with properties {name:"$name", body:"$link"}    end tell  EOF

How do I prevent Remote Access to my Mac?

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 06:14 AM PDT

I think I'm being hacked.
(This is a theoretical scenario, based on a real occurrence.)

I have clear evidence that someone unknown is able to remote access my Mac.
The Mac wakes unexpectedly, the cursor can be seen moving, windows & files are being accessed & opened. The attacker can also be seen accessing the webcam & showing the current view of the room.
My drive is encrypted. Why doesn't this prevent their accessing it?

I don't know whether this is being done from nearby or at a distance. If I switch off my router, they still seem capable of this access.

How do I analyse & prevent this from happening in future?

This question is 'poached' from SuperUser, currently closed & showing no signs of being re-opened. As such it will eventually be swept away by the system. Edit March 22 - the post is now deleted. The original question was a paranoid mess, but I thought the answer may be of benefit to Ask Different, so this is a complete recast of the question.

Is there a way for the host of a Zoom meeting running the Zoom app on a Mac to admit everyone from the waiting room via keyboard not mouse?

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 06:07 AM PDT

If I am the host of a Zoom meeting and people arrive at the meeting late and I want to admit them to the meeting without interrupting the flow of my presentation, is there any way to "Admit all from Waiting Room" from the keyboard? This is further complicated by the fact that if only one person is in the waiting room, there is no "Admit all" option.

Things I've unsuccessfully tried:

  • There is no pre-defined keyboard shortcut for admitting people from the waiting room
  • There is no menu item in Zoom to admit from waiting room, so I can't assign a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences
  • The "Admit all" button doesn't appear in the same place on the screen depending on how many people are in the waiting room, so it looks like simulating a mouse click at particular coordinates wouldn't work.

I don't know if there is a path forward with UI Scripting through AppleScript, or if I'm overlooking a simulated mouse click solution, or if there's something else I'm not thinking of, but I'd love to be able to admit latecomers to a zoom meeting from the keyboard.

How to prevent safari from opening links in third party apps on macOS

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 08:37 AM PDT

Some services like Zoom or BlueJeans have capabilities of working both in app or in the browser. However when an appropriate app is installed links are automatically opened in the app by safari (macOS) without even a prompt in case of BlueJeans.

So my question is: is it possible to prevent safari from launching app when I click a link that can be opened in that app?

Ideally I want the link to open in safari like a regular website without even a prompt to open it in the app. However, a prompt, like one you can see in the image below for Brave Browser would also be ok, because currently Safari opens the BlueJeans app without even asking a permission.

Just to be clear, I do not want to uninstall apps, because sometimes I do need them.

Prompt to open link in corresponding app in brave

macOS Big Sur Startup Error - "Backup and Restore has Encountered a Fatal Error"

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 07:07 AM PDT

I have been getting this error message constantly upon startup:

enter image description here

From some quick research, I found out that this might be related to permission issues for Google directory in Application Support. So I went in and typed the following:

 sudo chmod -R 755 ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google

Upon restart, it still creeped in. I am not sure what this problem is anymore. Could anyone help me?

Script opens two terminal windows

Posted: 04 Jun 2022 08:40 AM PDT

I coded this little AppleScript using Automator:

tell application "Terminal"  do script "myscript"  end tell

This perfectly works but has a side effect: when I close the window, there's always the Terminal window to close, so there are two windows, the one that executes the script and the Terminal.

Is there any way to have just one window running?
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