Posted on 05/11/2006 1:24:06 PM PDT by quidnunc
There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help.
Here are a few questions about computers I've received recently from people like you, and my answers. I have edited and restated the questions a bit, for readability. This week my mailbox contained a question about security software for Macs.
If you have a question, send it to me at mossberg@wsj.com, and I may select it to be answered here in Mossberg's Mailbox.
Q: There's been a lot of press lately about increased virus activity on the Macintosh platform. Should Mac owners now be running the same kinds of security software that Windows owners use?
A: There is no sudden security crisis on the Apple Macintosh platform. In fact, for average Mac users, there isn't a security threat of any significance, at least not yet. It is laughable to compare the real, massive and burdensome security problems on Windows with the largely theoretical security problem on the Mac.
As I have said in the past, no operating system is invulnerable to attack, including Apple's Mac OS X operating system, which powers Macintosh computers. It is possible to write malicious software for the Mac, including viruses and spyware, and it is possible for this software to spread in the wild, infecting many Macs.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at ptech.wsj.com ...
Maybe he has never fornicated with OS X as you apparently have.
You are close to crossing the line, Echo.
I went back through Ed Stroglio's articles on OSX and he is someone who WANTS to use OS X on a PC platform. He has opinions... but not necessarily informed opinions. His exposure to Macs and OS X is very limited.
Gezz, the guy uses both and knows more about computers than you do.
1M or 2M
OS X, Linux, BSD, etal get just as much attention from the zombiefiers, spammers, and other criminals as XP and 2000. There's some nasty rootkits that target the *NIXes. It's just reality, you close off ports, comment out as much of xinetd as you can, load up your hosts file with 10k+ entries, and most of all, don't run as root or admin or whatever. And do the firewall thing, the XP included firewall is fine, turn on the Tiger firewall. Tiger has an outbound firewall, Little Snitch, I've found it worth the $40. I don't know of an outbound firewall for XP, perhaps you can enlighten me.
Yes, Tiger does shunt off the root account, and with effort it can be restored, but don't run as admin, it isn't "just another user account."
My main point is that the *NIX applications will almost always run as a limited user. For the Mac, Photoshop (version 7 anyway), happily runs as LUA. PS CSII for XP generally has to run as admin. QB for Mac runs as LUA, QB for XP is generally run as admin, although it can be forced as LUA. I make the compromises to run QB XP as LUA, I think it's worth it.
I've roundly criticized XP for it's stupidity, but if you can run it as LUA and do those other things, you'll likely be without trouble.
Provide proof that Ed uses Macs. I see no evidence of it in his articles. I see a PC user/geek who would LIKE to use OS X but only if Apple is willing to do it HIS WAY. I would be glad to change my opinion if you provide proof.
Does he know more about computers than I do? I don't know if he does. You do know that I make my living servicing and maintaining PCs and Macs? I have been in the computer industry for 25 years (since 1981). I studied computers and compuer programing in college back in the late '60s, when access to the college's computer was through a windows where you turned in your box of punchcards and later picked up a pile of computer paper output for debugging. I've sold computers, done programing (including a complete custom Accounting package), beta testing for vertical solution applications and a major Desktop Publishing app, training, written operator manuals, consulted at both businesses and educational institutions, etc. I have built and overclocked PCs AND even overclocked Macs and Mac clones as well.
While it used to be fun to work on PCs and MS Windows, after so many years of cleaning them up after disasters, I developed a shear hatred for them. I made a deliberate decision to eschew Windows computers for my personal use and selected Macs and OS X. It's extremely nice to come home to a computer that just works that I don't have to tweak it, download daily virus and malware definitions, and run protective applications in the background stealing CPU cycles, or spend time doing maintanence to get it to do so.
Does Ed know more about PCs than I? Perhaps he does about the latest and greatest way to tweak a little bit more speed out of processor while keeping it cool enough not to fry... and maybe even more about XP now that I really don't spend much "quality" time with it... but does he know more about OS X? I doubt it.
Since IE is no longer available for the Mac, the Mac gets an instant leg up on security over MS. Don't use Safari, it's not very good.
Show us your score, hurry up.
But it isn't the same as a Windows Administrator Account. Accessing ROOT is not difficult if you are sitting at the Mac keyboard and have an administrator account and password... but you do have to activate it and provide a seperate, different Root user name and password. It is turned off by default and I can think of no reason to run in ROOT. Personally, I run in a limited user account... but that is because I have multiple users on my Macs at home.
OS X, Linux, BSD, etal get just as much attention from the zombiefiers, spammers, and other criminals as XP and 2000.
I kind of doubt that we get "just as much attention" because there is a just a little smidgeon of truth to the "security by obscurity" canard... and the zombiefiers and spammers have much easier targets in the Windows world where 90% of the users are using full Admin accounts.
Provide the proofs of "in the wild" infections on OS X. I have yet to hear of an OS X Mac being run as a zombie or spam bot. Is it possible? Perhaps. Probably, if the application were installed by the user. But provide evidence that it has happened. I would think that if it has happened, the FUD spreaders would be all over it like gravy on mashed potatoes. Since they aren't, it hasn't.
You do know that a Computer Science professor at the University of Wisconsin put an out-of-the-box, unprotected OS X.4.6 Mac Mini up on the internet for over 40 hours with the challenge to anyone to get in... and no one could. The test was supposed to run for 72 hours but the university shut down the unauthorized challenge early because the bandwidth was impacting their other activities as computer crackers tried to break in.
I don't know of an outbound firewall for XP, perhaps you can enlighten me.
There are some outbound firewalls such as ZoneAlarm for the PC... and industrial strength (and cost) routers. The firewalls that run on the computer suffer from the same vulnerability as any piece of software... if it is on the computer, malware can find a way to shut it off. About two years ago, a virus was discovered that was targeted at a specific brand of router... designed to disable its incoming and outbound firewall. There were only about 30,000 of these routers installed, but they were at major banks and security firms. The best solution is to keep the local machine as clean of malware as possible... and use a reasonably good hardware router with a hardware firewall.
As to your final points about the requirement that many popular Windows Apps must run as XP admin, I have to agree. I have run into that more than once and it irritated me each time. You can work around it with Quickbooks (not many small offices need to network it and you can have a dedicated accounting computer or tweak the settings per Intuit's instructions) but it is REALLY irritating to find vertical solutions software that does the same that DOES require networking AND internet access on all machines. For some reason, the programers never want to go back and modify that... I really think it so they can have back door access to their product.
I have one Mac client that runs a vertical solution appliction on a server and seven workstation iMacs... the App will run fine in a limited user account... but when it requires updating it has to update in an administrator account... and the publisher has it set to automatically seek out, download the update file, and attempt to update when the user starts the app. This stops the app and asks the user to contact the network administrator... me. Since the company is doing a lot of improvements, updates come often two or three times a week... Grrrr.
OOOOOOh, passion! You weren't innnocentbystander in a previous life?
Passion yes... I see too much FUD from people who confabulate their experience in the Windows world to what happens in the OS X world. As to being innocentbystander reincarnated... no, I have always been Swordmaker.;^)>
Why?
Your program is a PC executable... doesn't run on a Mac unless I startup VirtualPC... and I have no interest in the infinite places of pi.
its a windows program, im running Linux... and running it under "wine" so...
So? What's the point?
guess you are just afraid of showing us the raw power of your amazing machine build by God himself.
What has running an application written for, and obviously optimized for, an x86 PC on a PowerPC IBM970 Processor (G5) Mac got to do with anything? This application would not use the G5's Velocity Engine floating point processor since it would not even know it exists. Your challenge is idiotic and pointless.
How many frames per second does your Mac run HL2 at?
I guess the mac experience is just great until it comes to games right? then your stuck buying MS or Sony :)
It may come as a shock to you that there are people out there who use their computers to PRODUCE something. Some play games. For my game playing purposes there are sufficient Mac games to keep me happy.
You were aware that Microsoft used the Mac to develop their game system and write many of the games?
Since Half Life 2 has not been ported to the Mac your question is irrelevant... and on this thread, completely off topic.... unless you would like to answer the question: "How many of the 114,000 PC viruses will invade and damage an OS X Mac?"
Or is HL2 a virus?
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