Month: July 2023

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Yesterday, Apple published a new Rapid Security Response update for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura to patch yet another actively exploited WebKit code execution bug. But shortly after installation, users began having issues accessing certain websites, and Apple has apparently pulled the update to fix the problem.

According to MacRumors, affected sites include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Zoom, which began showing warning messages about not being supported following the update.

Luckily for anyone who has installed it, Rapid Security Response updates can be removed just as quickly as they were installed; on iOS, navigate to the About page in the Settings app, tap on your iOS version, and then tap “Remove Security Response.”

Enlarge / This image has a warm, nostalgic feel for many of us. (credit: SETI Institute)

Distributed computing erupted onto the scene in 1999 with the release of SETI@home, a nifty program and screensaver (back when people still used those) that sifted through radio telescope signals for signs of alien life.

The concept of distributed computing is simple enough: You take a very large project, slice it up into pieces, and send out individual pieces to PCs for processing. There is no inter-PC connection or communication; it’s all done through a central server. Each piece of the project is independent of the others; a distributed computing project wouldn't work if a process needed the results of a prior process to continue. SETI@home was a prime candidate for distributed computing: Each individual work unit was a unique moment in time and space as seen by a radio telescope.

Twenty-one years later, SETI@home shut down, having found nothing. An incalculable amount of PC cycles and electricity wasted for nothing. We have no way of knowing all the reasons people quit (feel free to tell us in the comments section), but having nothing to show for it is a pretty good reason.