[dayglored]

> That's not true. I'm on CERT's mailing list for work, as well as a multistate information security initiative, and I just found 68 bulletins issued by ISAC that affected OSX in 2007 and 2008. Granted, Mac has a much better track record, but it's not the answer to malicious code writers. OpenBSD is the answer to that, but until Theo DeRadt pulls his head from his butt and mingles with the "mere mortals", nobody's going to use his OS on any great scale.

Let me respectfully query on a few points.

I run a network of NetBSD, OSX-Server, Windows Server2003/2008, Solaris, Linux; my users have WinXP, Macs, and a couple copies of Vista. So I'd value your thoughts on the following:

1. Can you please differentiate between issues affecting the operating system, as opposed to the applications running on it? That is, a vulnerability in a cross-platform app that has been ported to OSX is a fundamentally different beast than one in the underlying OS itself.

2. Where is the Mac OSX malware? I'm unaware of any Mac viruses running wild. There are a small number (less than 10) laboratory curiosities created by researchers, but the only thing I've heard of released to the wild has gone nowhere.

   There are 30+million Macs running OSX, almost NONE of which have any sort of 3rd-party anti-malware protection, and most users run with administrative privilege enabled.

   Given that it only takes 10-20,000 machines to make a very useful botnet, how come none of the vulnerabilities listed in the 68 bulletins you mention have been exploited successfully?

3. OpenBSD is wonderful (I'm a Unix-head from 1985, BTW, and use NetBSD daily), but it's really not for everyone. The only way Unix makes headway into the public userbase is hidden beneath a great GUI, as in OSX. Do you really believe the main obstacle to Unix acceptance by the popular mass of users is Theo DeRadt?

   I think in Unix. If not for CygWin I'd lost my mind. My Macs run with more xterms open than GUI windows, most of the time. But I'm a Sys Admin, not Joe User.

[hiredhand]

I wasn't SPECIFICALLY talking about Adware on Mac operating systems. I should have made this clear initially. The CERT and ISAC bulletins that I have now are all with respect to commercially sold software products.

I was merely trying to make the point that Mac suffers from its own fair share of problems, and just because the instance of vulnerability rate is low, doesn't mean it's not there, or shouldn't be accounted for.