Security by Obfuscation??? It is Windows users who obfuscate this issue...
I think you are referring to that old canard "Security by obscurity."
Let's see... In the past two years, crackers have written a virus that attacked a hardware router with fewer than 40,000 installed base. They've written a virus that invaded a cell phone with fewer than 25,000 manufactured. The previous Mac operating system (OS9.2 and lower) had 113 viruses (including all variations) created for it by crackers.
Macintosh OSX has been in use for over five years, yet in those five years these crackers have come up with how many viruses for OSX??? ZERO.
There have been two trojans reported that impacted fewer than ten users who were greedy enough to think that a 400k file was a cracked version of Microsoft Office for Mac... and gave it permission to install on their computer and had it erase their user files... but it left the system untouched and operational. There have also been a couple or three proofs of concept announced (usually by an anti-virus company spreading FUD) who'e vulnerabilities were patched within a week of their announcement... all of them required ROOT access to work.
A expert programmer in both the Windows invironment and in various forms of Unix as well as a security expert, stated that on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is the difficulty of writing a Windows virus, the Mac comes in at a 9. Crackers write viruses for the accolade of their peers... and the greatest accolade would be for writing a virus that brings down the "arrogant, condescending, and smug" Mac users! Where is it, For-q?
There have been several substantial CASH prizes for writing a viable, transmittable and self propagating virus for the Mac (the last offering had to be withdrawn because of legal reasons) but all of them have gone unclaimed.
The US Army and the FBI have selected Macintosh OSX computers because of their inherent security...
The challenge is out there... write your virus. We are not worried.
really? I worked with Army and FBI guys all the time. I have never ever ever once seen/heard of them using a Mac. I'm not saying they don't ever use it, but they must not really be into it as they never use is and Windows is their standard desktop.
As far as the challenge, give me a link to the current challenge and the payout so I can determine if it's worth the money. Since there's a good chance I'll go to jail and have to pay restitution I'll need to see what the rules are before proceeding.