Fullscreen HTML5Med Res (??MB)HTML4

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