A Note About my Apps and Windows Security…
Computer security is something that everyone needs to take seriously and as threats have increased, in part due to AI, operating systems are making it increasingly complicated for developers to distribute their apps to users. This has implications for the users of the Windows versions of my software.
The Problem
TL;DR: Windows Defender may well warn you that my software is not downloaded frequently or that it appears to contain a malicious virus/malware/trojan. This happens, at least in part, because I am not a registered Windows developer and thus my Windows apps are not code-signed. I host my software on a Proton Drive which is very secure (and private). My Windows virtual machine where I prepare the installer is scanned continually for malware. I make every effort within my technical ability to ensure that malware does not infect the apps that I write and post for download. Because malware detection software uses digital signatures or fingerprints that are not always unique to malware, it can issue false positives for software that is, in fact, perfectly safe to install. This is a well known issue in the Windows world.
However, no software vendor/author, commercial or otherwise, can guarantee with 100% confidence that their software is free from malware. Thus, if you choose to download and use my software you assume all risk that that entails; I am not responsible if your computer becomes infected in the course of downloading and using my software.
A Workaround
At present, Stereonet seems to be triggering, what I think but cannot guarantee, are false positives by Windows Defender. This appears to be directly related to downloading the software in Windows Edge Browser. For those with access to both Windows and Mac computers, here is a workaround that I have tested and appears to work:
On a Macintosh computer, go to my website and download the Windows version of the installer for Stereonet (SetupStereonet64.exe). You may also be able to download the software on an Android or iPhone or iPad device but I have not checked those.
On the Mac, you may wish to scan the file for malware with any virus program that can detect Windows malware (most can).
Copy the installer to a USB flash drive.
Inset the USB flash drive into your Windows computer and drag the installer file to an appropriate place (e.g., the Desktop or Documents directories). You may wish to scan the installation directory again with Windows Defender.
Run the installer. You will be warned that the software is from an unknown developer (because it is not code-signed). Once installed, you should be good to go.
The Rest of the Story…
All of my software development is carried out on a Macintosh computer and I have been an enthusiastic user of Macs for my entire career. I am a registered Mac developer and all my Mac software is notarized by Apple.
Why don’t I become a Windows developer and code-sign my Windows software? Because my software is free, I don’t use it in my own research, I am retired and am no longer teaching students who use Windows, and, finally, because it would cost me a substantial amount of money and complexity on a regular basis to code-sign the Windows apps.
The software compiler that I use can create both Mac and Windows version of my apps with a single click of the button so, in the past, it has be easy and straightforward, with no extra effort on my part, to generate Windows versions of those apps so that Windows-using students and colleagues can avail themselves of my free programming efforts. This system has worked well for decades: in the last 15 years, at least half a million (500,000) users have downloaded the various version of Stereonet alone. But, I am not sure that this is sustainable in the future and most of my software development now focuses on iOS and Mac apps.
The (AI) Future
Even today, AI coding tools allow anyone to create any app that they want or need without writing a single line of code. I recently gave an AI coding system the prompt: “Write an iOS app to download the project that I specify from my StraboSpot account and display the results using geologically appropriate symbols on an Apple Maps satellite view.” Within a day, I had an app that I could have posted to the iOS app store. All you need it to pay for the tokens needed for AI to create the app for you (the experiment above cost me about $60 in tokens).
I anticipate that, in the near future, the process of creating your own apps will be even easier, less cumbersome, and maybe even less expensive than it is today. This is a double-edged sword, however: to create good, reliable apps with AI, you need to know exactly what it is you want the app to do and be able to give the AI prompts that are well structured and specific enough to get there. Today, it is important that you be able to read and verify the code that AI produces so you can correct any hallucinations. This means understanding the math behind the algorithms. In the future, depending on your view of the AI apocalypse, it may still be necessary to be able to read to code to make sure that the AI itself is not doing something nefarious. One thing that seems certain, however: most programs and apps in the future (and increasingly even today), will be written largely by AI.
I used to worry about what would become of my software when I was no longer able or willing to maintain it. That concern has largely evaporated: a number of people will have AI write different versions that accomplish the same thing as my software that works exactly the way that they want it to (not the way that I think it should be done!). And, someone will have AI write a cool app that no one ever even thought of before that might change the way we do geology. That is both exciting and scary!