Net Work
Alan Winstanley
This month, Net Work looks at the upcoming release of Windows 11 and the requirement for
TPM; Cloud backups; and the rise of Virgin as a satellite launch provider.
A
lthough Net Work isn’t a
lockdowns, the new OS places more
emphasis on making your desktop
more manageable and productive.
The aim is to better handle a newfound ‘hybrid’ way of working and
playing. Windows 11 promises to
connect people together more easily
using its group collaboration package,
Microsoft Teams. End users can expect
cloud-based services (Microsoft 365)
to be more heavily integrated in the
updated OS, which will also allow
users to see their most recent fi les
regardless of the platform (Android,
iOS) being used. There will be new
support for Windows gamers too, Microsoft says, and better exploitation of
touchscreen devices (which includes
some laptop screens).
It was Windows 1.0 that gave
IBM-compatible users a graphical user
interface alternative to the DOS prompt
(see the 1986 Steve Ballmer promo:
https://youtu.be/EtuDS0ntaJY) and
eventually Windows 95/98 and XP followed on. Mac users will be flattered
to see that the Windows ‘Start’ button,
previously tucked away at the bottom
left since the days of Windows 95 (see
the original W95 ad on https://youtu.
be/OPyWDMmYJhQ) has finally been
moved along to the bottom centre of
the screen in Windows 11, and pop-up
menus are now centralised along the
bottom edge too,
according to some
early screenshots.
It seems that applets and dialogue
boxes finally have
radiused corners
– gone, hopefully, will be those
stark and confusing ‘Metro’ tiles
and flat scroll bars
(maybe) that often
confuse or impede
workflow on busy
desktops. In Windows 11, desktop
layouts can also
be configured as
Early screenshots of Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows 11 operating workspaces optisystem show a centred task bar and Start button.
mised to handle
computer column as such, home
computers are omnipresent
in our networked lifestyles and
consequently the subject regularly
creeps onto the Net Work agenda. Our
own heritage was built on the Windows
and DOS-based PIC micro projects that
our late technical editor John Becker
famously designed from the 1990s
onwards, complemented by generous
amounts of free DOS or Windows
software. Generally speaking, we think
that most PE readers gravitate towards
using Windows PCs or laptops for
their technical work or hobby. From
the electronics hobbyist’s point of
view, ‘IBM-compatibles’ have over the
years proved more accessible, cheaper
and easier to support than highly
proprietary Macs running macOS,
which is why things are somewhat
Windows-centric around here, with
Linux voted a popular runner-up
among readers.
This brings us to the next big event
on the home computer calendar: the
release of Microsoft’s next operating
system, Windows 11, which is just
around the corner and likely to start
rolling out well before the year end.
Judging by Microsoft’s mid-year teasers on the new release, after users
battled with 18 months of Covid-19
12
A typical Trusted Platform Module (TPM)
intended for retrofitting onto compatible
motherboards. Windows 11 requires TPM2.0
to be present.
different tasks.
Details are still emerging, but Windows 11 is expected to be available
as a free download to existing Windows 10 owners. Microsoft remains
silent on the actual timetable, but
before considering upgrading their
W10 PC, readers need to be aware of
one very big catch: not every PC will
be compatible with Microsoft’s new
OS. There is a possibility that older
machines may end up stuck with
Windows 10 (already six years old)
until they reach end of life and are
no longer supported.
Windows 11 and TPM
A major aspect is that Windows 11
requires PCs to provide a Trusted
Platform Module (TPM). Windows
10 can already utilise a TPM (eg, for
Bitlocker disk encryption, or perhaps business applications that utilise
Windows Hello) but Windows 11
will make a TPM compulsory. This
cryptographic module plays a hardwired, hardware-level authentication
and privacy role that software alone
cannot ever achieve. Windows 11 will
require TPM 2.0 to be present on the
PC’s motherboard.
The good news is that many current-generation PCs probably already
have a TPM on board, either embedded
as part of a chipset, or alternatively
a header on some motherboards may
allow a TPM to be retrofitted. Needless
to say, as soon as specs for Windows
11 went online in June, the newswires
were electrified with talk of ‘TPMs’
Practical Electronics | September | 2021
and the price of retro-fit TPM 2.0
modules quadrupled overnight, all for
a new OS that won’t be released for
many months yet. So-called ‘scalpers’
moved in to scoop up stocks, and at
the time of writing the price of these
tiny modules has almost reached the
cost of a whole new motherboard. A
typical TPM module is made by Asus
(see: https://bit.ly/pe-sep21-tpm) but
enthusiasts are already bemoaning
the fact that supplies have dried up
– this on top of a global semiconductor shortage, remember.
PC hobbyists can easily check
whether their motherboard has a
separate TPM header, but there’s no
guarantee that older motherboards
may be compatible with the newer
standard TPM2.0 module required
by W11. Most systems from recent
years already have TPM capability
built in, we’re told, possibly under
another guise. For example, the author’s current home-brew PC has a
‘Secure Boot’ feature that can be enabled in the BIOS and (happily) its
maker Asus has already confirmed
that it will be compatible with Windows 11. This is despite the fact that
an early release of Microsoft’s TPM
Checker Tool reckoned my board was
not compatible when I tried it. (The
TPM Checker Tool has since been
withdrawn while Microsoft refines
it.) So, check the maker’s spec sheets,
and check BIOS settings too in case
you have to enable TPM manually.
Early shots of Windows 11 look
appealing and it’s worth keeping a
lookout for news of Windows updates,
as the upgrade may be delivered as a
‘routine’ Windows update. Windows
10 users can type ‘winver’ straight after
hitting the Start button, which will
confirm your current version (21H1
probably), or type ‘update’ to launch
the Windows Update applet to check
settings there.
Readers can expect to see lots more
news, views and confusion emerging
about forthcoming Windows 11 and the
need for a TPM, and more information
about TPMs is published by Microsoft
at: https://bit.ly/pe-sep21-ms. A somewhat glitzy introduction to Windows
11 is available on YouTube at: https://
youtu.be/Uh9643c2P6k
Last month’s Net Work summarised
some of the latest appalling ransomware attacks that have blighted
major Western utilities, commerce and
public services, yielding multimillion
dollar ransoms for the miscreants.
The scourge of ransomware continues unabated, and the news just gets
worse: on Friday,
2 July, just before
the 4 July holiday
weekend in the
US, a highly sophisticated attack
believed to originate from inside
Russia and perpetrated by the REvil
ransomware gang,
hit the US company Kaseya’s VSA
(Virtual Server/
A d m i n i s t r a t o r ) Amazon S3 Glacier is low-cost cloud storage intended for archiving
remote monitoring slow-moving data that doesn’t require instantaneous retrieval.
and management
software which is used by thousands data, perhaps utilising globally disof clients to manage IT infrastructure. tributed cloud-based solutions such
The result was that Kaseya inadvert- as Amazon S3 Glacier. This low-cost
ently distributed an infected ‘routine’ archiving service is designed with
update to about 60 managed service long-term backup in mind, and conproviders (MSPs). These are at the sequently it ‘restores’ more slowly
top of the tree, so they re-distributed – anything from a few minutes to three
infection down the line to their own to twelve hours to retrieve data – but
customers. This latest ‘supply chain’ various price bands are available that
allow customers to pick the speed of
attack may have hit up to 1,500 users
whose systems had to be taken entirely service. Costs also relate to the volume
offline. The attack reached five conti- of data transferred ‘in’ or ‘out’ of Glanents and, in one example, a whole cier. Large numbers of corporate and
local government organisations worldchain of Swedish supermarkets had
to go offline because their cash regis- wide now use Amazon AWS (Amazon
Web Services), and more details and
ter systems had been wrecked.
Ironically, Kaseya was already in the pricing of Glacier archive storage is
process of patching a newly reported available from: https://aws.amazon.
zero-day vulnerability (one that the com/glacier/
At home-user or small-office level,
software vendor knows about, but
has yet to patch it) when the hackers data stored locally on a network-atstruck, exploiting exactly the same tached storage can also be backed
vulnerability. This led to speculation up silently to the cloud. For examthat the hackers were maybe moni- ple, the author’s preferred Synology
toring internal communications and NAS offers various Diskstation packdecided to strike before it was too ages (not tested by the author) that
late, so they chose a key US holiday archive data on Amazon S3, Amazon
weekend when IT staff resources Glacier or Microsoft’s Azure, but
would be thin on the ground. It was Synology also offers its own cloudreported that more than 1,000 serv- based storage called Synology C2,
ers and workstations had their data hosted in the US and Germany. Synencrypted as a result, and a ransom ology owners can learn more online
note was delivered demanding $70m at: https://bit.ly/pe-sep21-syn under
payable in BTC (Bitcoins), making this ‘Package’. Coming soon are Synology
the worst case of ransomware ever C2 Password, an interesting-looking
service for storing credentials secureperpetrated. At the time of writing,
Kayesa were being very tight-lipped ly in the cloud (see: https://youtu.be/
about whether a ransom would be gEDCCq5COXw), and Synology C2
paid, but FBI and cybersecurity in- Backup that allows individuals to
back up all their Windows devices
vestigations are ongoing.
(https://youtu.be/u67BkolfBg4). As
Glacial backups
mentioned last month, consider too
So-called MSPs are juicy targets for taking a last-gasp ‘air gapped’ backup
supply-chain attacks like these because
onto a pocket drive or SSD.
just one lucky breach can snowball
globally, yielding high returns for Antivirus auto-renew rebates
Last month’s column gave a quick runthe blackmailers. For home users and
small or micro businesses, damage down of popular antivirus packages for
from a virus or ransomware might home computer users and typical prices
were given for versions that could be
be proportionately higher, so consider taking off-site backups of precious downloaded using an Amazon account
Practical Electronics | September | 2021
13
The scourge of ransomware
Virgin Orbit’s 747 carrier aircraft ‘Cosmic Girl’ takes off from Mojave Air and Space Port
in California with LauncherOne underwing for the company’s Tubular Bells: Part One
mission. (Image: Virgin Orbit)
– for example, for an introductory
price. Antivirus software is typically licensed by the number of devices
and the number of years they run for.
Most businesses and commerce hate
the idea of consumers re-considering
a service every year before renewing, in case of course they decide to
cancel. Instead, they try to sleepwalk
customers into seamlessly coughing
up a fee for another year (direct debits
are good like that) without thinking
about it. Indeed, we’re often told we,
‘Don’t have to worry about a thing’ as
the service/tax/insurance will be automatically charged when it’s due for
renewal – as if we should feel grateful.
I counselled against choosing ‘auto
renewal’ of antivirus software because subsequent years can quietly
slip through at a much higher price.
Because of this, the UK’s anti-virus
market has been under investigation
by the UK Competition and Markets
Authority (CMA), and Norton Lifelock
was finally taken to court for refusing
to provide the CMA with information
surrounding their auto-renewal policies. In June, Norton agreed to extend
the cancellation rights of auto-renewal consumer contracts, see: https://bit.
ly/pe-sep21-cma1
In May, the CMA did the same with
McAfee. Users of this product should
check the online judgment to see if
they (now) qualify for a backdated
refund: https://bit.ly/pe-sep21-cma2
Virgin Orbit and Spaceport
Cornwall
Net Work readers will know of the
remarkable achievements of SpaceX,
which is currently building a global
14
satellite network to beam broadband
services down to earth. One can only
marvel at the way in which 60 satellites are projected into LEO after each
launch and the re-usable booster rockets are recovered again, often landing
vertically on a drone ship like something straight out of science fiction.
The satellites use optical links and
trials are also under way to communicate by laser with airborne military
drones. SpaceX also offers ‘rideshare’
flights that enable individual satellite
owner-operators to hitch a lift alongside many others.
Despite all these advances in technology, one headache that SpaceX must
contend with is local weather conditions, which sometimes causes rocket
launches to be postponed until another launch window opens. It’s also not
viable to launch a rocket without a full
payload. Meantime, aviation entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson (the name
behind Virgin Records, Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Galactic – see July 2021
issue) is offering a more affordable and
flexible launch service for small satellites that will avoid customers needing
to queue up for a rocket launch: just
book a ride on a 747 instead!
Operating jumbo jets is something
that Richard Branson knows an awful
lot about. By adapting a 747-400 to
carry his ‘LauncherOne’ rocket slung
underneath, his Virgin Orbit business
aims to offer a fast-track, lower-cost satellite launching system and the service
is already at an advanced stage of testing, Virgin Orbit says. Kendall Russell,
speaking for Virgin Orbit, told me that
although the LauncherOne rockets are
expendable, the 747 itself does most of
the work in reaching the upper atmosphere and is of course entirely re-usable.
At the end of June, they successfully completed a rideshare mission
deploying seven satellites into space
using an air-launched LauncherOne,
including four CubeSats for the US
DoD – who are always keen to explore
new options – and the Royal Netherlands Air Force’s first military satellite.
The Virgin Orbit mission was called
Tubular Bells: Part One as a nod to
the first vinyl album ever published
by Richard Branson’s Virgin Records
back in 1973, which some of us will
remember playing on our record decks
and transistor amps of the time.
Virgin Orbit has some ambitious and
potentially market-disrupting launch
plans, and it may well carve itself a
niche for launching small satellites
quickly and without operators needing
to queue up at a space port. There are
more exciting plans in store, including
building a launch facility at Spaceport
Cornwall in England, with launches
from a brand-new airstrip slated for
2022. Essentially, Virgin Orbit simply
needs a 747-sized runway and some
ground infrastructure in order to be
up and running in the satellite launching business. You can learn more at:
www.virginorbit.com
https://spaceportcornwall.com
OneWeb update
Finally, this month, London-based
satellite datacomms firm OneWeb has
been busier than ever, having successfully placed 36 more satellites into
low-earth orbit in July to complete
its ‘Five to 50’ (degrees latitude) coverage using 254 satellites. The firm
hopes to roll out commercial services
before the year end. Part-owner Bharti
Global is also aiming to invest a further
$500m into the part-UK-government
owned OneWeb, subject to regulatory
clearance, with Bharti becoming the
largest stakeholder in the firm, hard
on the heels of a $550m investment
from Eutelsat announced in April.
This too is subject to approval, and
some discontent has been expressed
within the EU, citing Eutelsat’s possible conflicts of interest with potential
EU-based satellite broadband projects.
OneWeb also recently signed an MOU
(memorandum of understanding) with
Britain’s BT to explore the supply of
satellite-based broadband to hardto-reach areas of the UK, while also
looking to expand its services for BT
customers globally.
See you next month for more Net Work!
The author can be reached at:
alan<at>epemag.net
Practical Electronics | September | 2021
