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To: saveliberty
As I said, this I had from a tech who had the responsibility for the Windows infrastructure and had to support both PC and Mac and that he had Mac at home.

Then he doesn't know what he is talking about. Ask HIM to name them.

If I had a dollar for every Mac FUD spreader who says something like what your tech said who then adds "I own one," or "I use one," I'd be pretty rich. They add that detail to give their FUD statement more gravitas (remember that word?) than if it just issued from the mouth of an only PC user. Usually they "out" themselves with some other comment such as "I wish Apple would get rid of the one button mouse, though!" I think your tech guy's comment about Macs have just as many viruses as PCs comes under that category.

I could list the proof of concept OS X "Viruses" that have been announced in the past seven years—usually to similar chortles as seen in this thread from pundits who should know better—and it would take very short paragraph. Usually, they have a news life cycle of about three days before it becomes obvious that there is no "there" there. None of them has been successful in the wild. There are over 300,000 various malware for Windows PCs—some pundits put the number over 500,000—while there are fewer than ten Proof-of-concept viruses and trojans for the Mac. There are a couple of OS X trojans in the wild—but a trojan is just an application that masquerades as something beneficial when it is really malignant relying on fooling the user into downloading and installing it.

Macs are 8% of the US Market and more than 3% of the world Market. All things being equal, Macs should have something between 10,000 and 24,000 of the world's malware. It doesn't. If the ones that are in the wild actually worked, it would be perhaps TEN. That's a threat rate that is between 1000 and 2400 times LESS than the average PC user is afflicted with.

It's not because of obscurity. Not only are there 33,000,000 OSX Macs out there, Apple is a high profile company which trumpets its security. That is a red cape to the hacker bulls out there. For those who claim that hackers are after money, 90% of Mac users run their computers naked, without AV ware of any kind. They are also statistically more affluent with more assets and disposable income than PC users. They should be a prime target for fleecing, but it hasn't happened (yet!). Why not? A very lucrative Spambot can be created with a couple of thousand computers. Show me even ONE Mac spambot.

94 posted on 08/12/2008 11:10:03 PM PDT by Swordmaker (Remember, the proper pronunciation of IE is "AAAAIIIIIEEEEEEE!)
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To: Swordmaker

Sorry, but you don’t persuade me. He was responsible for dealing with viruses. He is Mac friendly and your inference is that he is not.


98 posted on 08/13/2008 12:43:24 AM PDT by saveliberty (Prayer blizzard for the Snow family. Tony was a blessing unto us all. We will miss him.)
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