Posted on 08/12/2008 6:01:43 AM PDT by BRK
Apple has taken the place of Microsoft for disclosing more vulnerabilities than any other vendor, according to an IBM security report. The company rose from second place in 2007 to take the top spot away from Microsoft, which had fallen into third place behind open source content management system Joomla.
(Excerpt) Read more at infoworld.com ...
Two years ago I bought an Apple I-Pod with a two year warranty, the thing quickly proved itself to be a piece of cr*p. Hard drive always crashing. I sent the thing to Apple, they sent it back, “Nothing Wrong”. The I-Pod continued to work for a while and then crash, now it has finally crashed and burned for good. Good riddance, to Apple products.
Your post is somewhat thoughtful, so thus far, not a single post from a true Apple zealot has been made. I guess they are indeed under a rock. I know I would be.
Well, in the case of “free development” we had some downsides from that as well.
Many of the GPL/OSF developers “in the wild” have no idea what it means to work “in the large” — ie, on millions of lines of code, with thousands of engineers.
We’d put changes into some of the development s/w we used and kick the changes out. Our changes had very definite purposes - supporting development “in the large.”
The “free development” we got in return was all too often our changes pulled out, or modified to a point where they were useless - because the ideologically pure developers on the outside knew oh-so-much better than us what was going on.
After awhile, we decided that we’d opt out of the “free” software movement and just contract with Cygnus to do our changes to tools and let them deal with the GPL/FSF/OSF mobs. We had contracts that feature X would be supported. We no longer cared how that happened - just that it did.
The next problem down my list of issues with the GPL/FSF crowd is this: while they’re often very talented in isolation, they most often don’t get along well with others, if at all. This is why there are so many forks in the Linux/GPL “movement” - these guys have the social graces of a barrel full of constipated and pissed-off badgers. They’re all so rigidly attached to their ideologies that they’re going to take their ideas and fork off from the group, which just distracts from a core mission.
Well, in the corporate world, almost nothing big and profitable is accomplished by lone wolves any more, and this is why much of their output is increasingly of little use.
In the BSD world, there isn’t the same tendency to playing the “screw you guys, I’m going home” games. FreeBSD, rather than have a mob of the masses and two high priests at the top, has a meritocracy where the work is spread out along functional lines, and those senior people in their particular functional area are gatekeepers. People have to get along more/better in the BSD model.
And it shows in the end result.
I’m not saying that nothing useful comes out of Linux - they certainly do some important and useful work, but in my experience, the Linux/GPL movement has created some big downsides for themselves.
Honestly, it’s not that Apple never had security issues, it’s that Apple never had the market share to make hacking or developing a virus for it worth it.
Now that Apple has increased it’s market share, hackers and the virus developers now have a reason to exploit the vulnerabilities that are inherent in any OS platform.
People have to realize that there is no such thing as a perfectly secure OS, you can secure any OS and make it completely unhackable, but that renders it’s almost useless for normal use.
Just look at the military’s definition of a completely secure computer, no mouse, keyboard, monitor, or network connection, that’s the only way they you can make any computer no matter what the OS secure.
So to all Apple computer users, welcome to the real world of greater market share and all it’s foibles.
I just replaced my white MacBook for.................... a black MacBook! Life is good! :-)
Mac may be a marginally better product. But the price difference is anything but “marginal”. Overpriced piece of junk that you could build for 15% of the cost at home using FreeBSD/OpenBSD or Linux “yes i said linux!”.
The PC is still the best platform out there per $. This MAC craze simply exists because of the Ipod.
"Microsoft held on to the top spot for the number of public exploits"
Vulnerabilities are theoretical, as in "If someone did this and this and had access to this and a user clicked this and then this, then someone could possibly compromise the machine."
Exploits are out there hurting people, right now.
If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.
You are probably right. This is what I was told by a former tech who was a colleague and was responsible for Windows Infrastructure, but who also supported PC and Mac on the WAN. He also had Mac at home.
BTW he was the go to person in dealing with viruses.
There are? Name them. Proof-of-concept laboratory wonders do not count. They have to be in the wild.
I can think of about three trojans... not self replicating, self transmitting viruses. No spyware.
And your own life is improved how, exactly? Hoping for the destruction of others is a form of envy; the same kind of envy exploited by Dems when they yammer on about soaking the rich.
My husband bought me a MacBook for moms day and I could not be happier. I think it is a matter of personal taste and for me this is the best machine I have ever used.
Ummmm... gloat away. Name ONE vulnerability that has cause a single issue in the “wild”... just one. Go ahead... I am waiting...
(crickets chirping.....)
The difference now is that Apple is staying ahead of the vulnerability game. While Windows users actually start getting attacked via vulnerabilities, Apple releases info on them after they have been patched.
Also - not how many MS vulnerabilities are open in standard operation, and compare that to the supposed Apple vulnerabilities, which far more often than not, that are generally confined to features or settings that are not active by default.
Further - I challenge you - remove ALL antivirus protection from your Windows PC. Allow unfettered access to the internet. My PowerMac is on a high-speed connection 24-7 with ZERO antivirus software and zero other extra efforts to “protect” it. I am so disappointed that nothing bad has happened to my machine.
So - go ahead and gloat. That’s fine. But when you can come up with a single vulnerability that could have ANY affect on my machine - give it a whirl - send it my way....
Hmmm... for high-end users, comparable hardware is significantly LESS expensive to go with Apple (Mac Pro).
From the consumer side of things, there is a price differential - but Apple hardware IS better for a variety of reasons. Notice that several NON-Apple publications have shown that Windows actually runs BETTER and FASTER on Apple hardware. Why? Apple doesn’t do the typical “buy what is cheapest” and throw it together. Apple picks and chooses, then develops specifically for that collection of components.
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.
I double checked, because I was pretty sure that I neither said nor inferred that I was gloating.
Nor did I infer that I thought that Mac was inferior. I openly stated that I use Mac at home. I happen to use PC at work. Each has different applications and functions that it has to offer.
For Later Reference.
BattMan was refering to my gloating and I am still doing it. GLOAT GLOAT GLOAT. We have a few MAC types crawling out into the light and making all these lame excuses about “viruses in the wild” and “thoeretical blah blah blah”. Bottom line is that NUMBER ONE is still NUMBER ONE. And who is NUMER ONE in reported security vulneribilities? APPLE! All Apple all by itself in the number one spot. Spin it all you want, but these are the facts.
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