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To: Swordmaker
I have a problem with this article, in particular where it says:
There is something unnatural about having anti-virus protection on OS X. I don’t want a background process taking up system resources – however small it is. Some suites on Windows can choke a machine and bombard you with pop-ups, notifications, and updates, and that would drive me insane.

Mac users are very complacent regarding the safety of their computer. Deep down we all know our beloved machines aren’t impenetrable – but we also know that OS X with its Unix/BSD base is built in such a way that makes it very hard to get to.

I have two things to say about this.
  1. There is nothing "unnatural" about protecting any computer against threats.
  2. While OS X is indeed built on BSD Unix, this means nothing in the case of a human engineered attack that uses the HUMAN OPERATOR as a vector.
I find the article disingenuous. That said, I don't bother with anti0=-virus on my Macs either. But I'm extraordinarily careful where I go on the internet, what I click on, and what I open in email.

These days the "BSD Unix" defense is not worth as much as it once was. And you know, Swordmaker, that I am a Unix-head at heart, and believe that it is the strongest operating system in common use, bar none.

As a System Admin, I see malware emails blocked every few minutes in my corporate firewall. Very few are the old-style direct attacks on an OS. They're almost all attacks on the users.

HUMAN OPERATORS can -- and DO -- compromise any operating system, no matter how intrinsically strong. I'm not sure I like the author's cavalier attitude regarding the real vectors in use these days -- particularly phishing and spear phishing attacks, never mind things like leaving a few infected USB flash drives in the company parking lot for employees to pick up and carry inside...

5 posted on 10/18/2015 10:57:13 PM PDT by dayglored ("Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.")
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To: dayglored
Oh yeah, something else:

> I don't bother with anti-virus on my Macs either. But I'm extraordinarily careful where I go on the internet, what I click on, and what I open in email.

I believe strongly in disaster recovery preventative measures. On my Macs, I use Time Machine religiously.

And I do a complete TM backup every so often IN ADDITION to the normal incremental one, as a total snapshot of my system in case the TM archive gets eaten or corrupted.

And I use a variety of separate media -- no point having all your backup eggs in one basket.

And my main archive is a mirrored RAID-1.

Belt, suspenders, and a skyhook.

6 posted on 10/18/2015 11:13:18 PM PDT by dayglored ("Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.")
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