Posted on 08/21/2005 5:35:07 PM PDT by bizzyblog
As a 20-year Macintosh user going back to when the machines didn't even have hard drives, I confess to being a big fan of Apple and the Mac OS.
I also confess to being a nearly-insufferable Mac evangelist (some would say "delete 'nearly'") until about seven years ago, when, as a result of Windows 98, the differences between Windows and the Mac as a platform for the average user became so small that they didn't matter. Those differences remain small, despite the exceptionally cool advances in the Mac OS through Jaguar, Panther, and Tiger.
(snip)
Also cooling my ardor for the Mac is the remarkable air of condescension still present in "the Mac community," which is pretty amazing considering Apple's puny market share. I believe that the attitudes of too many current Mac users prevent a lot of those who might consider ditching Windows from doing so, simply because they don't want to be seen as joining what has almost become a cult (some would say "delete 'almost'").
So, in the interest of knocking Mac users down a peg or two, I offer three reasons, based on news of the past week or so, that we in "the Mac community" should cool it on the arrogance. At the same time, I'll knock down three myths about the Mac and its users (bolds are mine in all three reasons).
REASON 1--Exploding the myth that Mac users are so much more civilized than the rabble who use PCs:
Seventeen injured during used laptop sale
(Excerpt) Read more at bizzyblog.com ...
Now you have enough info to easily find this on Google for yourself and see it is no joke. Apple has since fixed the issue; however, it does exist with a build of OS X that is/was in the wild.
Once again, where on earth did I ever say that? I take it your about 12 years old, so I'll ignore all your future posts because you're not even in the same conversation I'm in.
Yes. I'm 12, and I won't be ignoring your posts. You feigned disdain for the same kind of attitude you've displayed here. You've made a huge deal about ONE virus attack on ONE Mac computer and you just want me/us to ignore the sheer stupidity of the argument. Do you know how many years of daily Mac viruses it would take to equal what you Windows folks have had to deal with? I'll take security by obscurity, but the indications are that it's security by UNIX. What is it about you that makes that so difficult to admit? Apple didn't write UNIX. You don't have to love Apple to appreciate that they used a better foundation than Windows. Can't you take your Windows shades off for even a minute? And they say we're cult like!
That's an attack. Not a virus. I know for example that AFP was susceptible to man-in-the-middle attacks due to the way SSH works, but then AFP was designed for use over trusted LANs, not over the Internet.
Sounds like auto-update attack, not a virus. IMHO, you would need to show a self-replicating example in the wild, one that then performs its own man-in-the-middle to compromise other computers, starting a chain reaction. I would definitely concede your win if you could show that. I would also be highly impressed.
I agree that would be impressive, but if you read swordswallower's comments he acts like these types of things are impossible on a Mac. For the record I never said Windows was more secure than Mac, just that Mac isn't bullet proof.
"The pool of computer users has always been composed of 10% competent users and 90% clueless people."
Correct. Users should not notice the operating system. Users should run applications and programmers should write operating systems.
I find both Linux and OSX to be no better and in some ways worse than WinXP for the average user. Operating system updates should run in the background and be invisible to the users. Unfortunately, we have not reached that level yet with any operating system. In that regard, they all suck.
having thought about it for 30 seconds...I believe it would be possible to replicate the attack from one machine to another. One you kick it off and attack one Mac. Then install the attack on that Mac, so that it now becomes the point of infection for the network...you take your laptop and go to another network...rinse repeat. Now as machines update they will be infected from other Macs on the network making it harder to trace who started the attack. Would that work?
No one here claims Mac is bulletproof. There have been enough security updates to show that it is not. We claim that it is tough to write viruses for it, and that none have been found in the wild. The only known success has been in duping a greedy idiot into manually installing destructive software. That's not exactly a virus, especially not of the type that is currently wreaking havoc with Windows machines.
Unless I am editing video or designing a newspaper page, I never use a Mac.
And even in those cases, I could get by fine on a PC and have.
Macs are for hippies.
Ease of use for the clueless does not imply superiority.
I find Macs incredibly annoying for lacking a taskbar. It takes forever to get to an open window if you have more than 3 programs running at the same time.
I love a PC for that alone.
I guess I was right, man-in-the-middle on the updater. It would be a pretty weak virus, not being able to expand itself beyond a LAN and requiring physical or trusted network access to that LAN to initiate. What does they group say, any think that would qualify?
Would that work?
If it did, I think we'd at least have seen a proof of concept, and maybe reports of compromise.
I'm not smug. Then again I'm not a liberal either.
I believe that's splitting hairs. An attack on your machine that the user has no "real" control over is a bad thing. In fact, I'd say a man in the middle attack is just as bad if not worse. But having said that, if you read the security bulletins from Mac, it shows there have been several buffer overrun issues that allows an attacker to run arbitrary code. Just because one hasn't written the virus, doesn't mean it can't be done. However, with Windows offering so many targets why waste your time on Mac? And that was my original point.
Analogy. I wrote an OS that does everything I need...it's secure because it hasn't been attacked by a virus. That is not a true statement. It's most likely not secure and it's just appears to be secure because no one has attacked it. Most times windows gets exploited AFTER they release the patch because hackers no enterprises don't apply patches quick enough. And that is a Windows problem (but it's also an industry problem). Windows has a bigger footprint in the environment so it's harder to ensure they are up-to-date enterprise wide. So once again why waste resources on developing a Virus for the Mac?
The results would be the Mac bigots would hate you and no one else would give a rats behind. Write a virus for Windows and all the ABM crowd will sing your praises til you die.
Actualyl in terms of ease of use, *yes it does*. That is a very important aspect of a desktop OS and apple has it over MS hands down..
Ah, there is a proof on concept :-)
You need to use Exposé. It's much faster at finding what you want than the taskbar, especially if you have a bunch of windows open.
I have never had much difficulty learning Microsoft, and I am not a programmer or something.
If you are new to computers, you could have problems.
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