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A tale of two school systems: Windows schools crippled while Mac schools unaffected

Thursday, August 21, 2003 · 3:40 pm · 26 Comments

“Bowling Green City Schools Technology Coordinator Lee Jordan thought the system

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26 Comments

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Fester Bestertester

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:18 pm · Reply

You can’t get better press than this.

Btw, I spoke with an H.S. Principal who had cast the tie-breaking vote (of teachers) to consolidate on the Windows platform the day before the Klev (sic) virus hit, disabling all the Windows PCs, but leaving their Macs unaffected. He then quickly changed his mind and switched his vote and the school is now running entirely on Macs running OS X Jaguar.
Seahawk

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:37 pm · Reply

ALLELUIA

The University of California at Santa Barbara has banned the use of Windows in the dormitories.
“We have to consider the overall health of our network when dealing with vulnerable operating systems, virus protection, and network security threats.”
— UCSB Staff notice

There might be a new age of awareness rolling on…
Aryugaetu

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:40 pm · Reply

“Jordan said the county lucked out because it has mostly Apple computers,…”

There is no luck at all involved. Whenever any person or organization considers a Mac rather than Windows as their preferred computer, Mac’s vastly superior virus protection is always a factor in the decision. It is not a secret nor a trivial feature, especially when an organization has to administer hundreds or thousands of computers on their network.

For any organization to consider using a system in the industry’s minority, there must have been a significant amount of research done to come to that conclusion. You don’t just stumble into an Apple store and say, “We’ll take 200 of those for our schools only because you are closer to the mall entrance than the Dell dealer.”
Seahawk

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:41 pm · Reply

It is getting so bad Windows users look at you suspiciously if you have a cold!

LOL
Seahawk

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:43 pm · Reply

Well, you know Ary, PC users STILL do not fully believe that. They keep asking “How comes your OS X does not get infected”

They are so pathetic.
Jack

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:52 pm · Reply

“Jordan said he�s not sure what can be done to prevent such occurrences in the future.”

What an idiot!
He’s quoted as saying that the other county was largely unaffected because of the Apple computers.
Then goes on to say he’s not sure what can be done?

Hello? McFly???
fred murtz

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 5:53 pm · Reply

Do you have a link for that UCSB staff notice? My department (at another UC school) expressly forbids macs on the network, and this might help.
Fred Mertz (the real one)

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 6:00 pm · Reply

Here you go, “fred murtz.” Please change your “name,” thanks:
http://infosecuritymag.techtarget.com/2002/oct/digest10.shtml#brief3
fred murtz

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 6:20 pm · Reply

Ah…so they did NOT ban Windows, just Win2K. Worse, they actually reccommend Windows XP.

A step in the right direction, I suppose, but not exactly an endorsement for Macs.
Atomic Bomb

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 6:57 pm · Reply

I initially thought “Wow, despite its shaky academic reputation, UCSB made a really smart move.” Then I read about the recommendation to move to XP Pro. D’oh!!
Dan

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 7:40 pm · Reply

With regard to what Seahawk said:

UCSB ResNet did not ban Windows in dorms. It only banned Windows 2000 and suggested that students upgrade to Windows XP Professional. You can read it from the horses mouth: http://www.resnet.ucsb.edu/information/win2k.html
Douglas Metcalfe

Thursday, August 21, 2003 - 9:20 pm · Reply

There is a mindshare that is accumulating over these continual attacks with viruses, worms, and trojans that seem to only take down Windows based systems.

Eventually people will learn that there is a solution out there and Apple is it’s name. Tell a friend.
Seahawk

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 2:53 am · Reply

My bad. Sorry for the incomplete information. It was reported on “The register” which did not specify Windows version. I came to fast to the conclusion that was concerning all Windows flavors since they all have been affected. Maybe a step but it is not stopping them to be attacked next time again.

Next time I’ll cross check. If it is too good to be true…
Seahawk

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 3:01 am · Reply

This is actually something not reported on the press. If the same virus affects practically all Windows flavor it is because it exploits the very SAME flaw. Microsoft can change the names to all its OSes but essentially virii and worms prove that their guts practically never evolved.

Users update and spend money for a new package and different eye-candies plus some pacthed layer on top of what was pre-existing.
Seems like new M$ OS are esentially re-launch of old ones with a new packaging. More like when Pepsi changes the tin can decoration and opening system. It still is Pepsi.
John Hudson

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 3:01 am · Reply

Can’t wait for the day when we’re (mac users) crippled with some monster virus, it’ll almost be a case of celebration: “We’ve arrived damn it”…..
john

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 3:51 am · Reply

I may not have been “infected” by the latest round of viruses, neigher on my PC or my Mac, but I have certainly been “affected” with 100′s of virus ladden emails arriving in my inbox each day.
BadDog

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 5:53 am · Reply

” There is no luck at all involved. Whenever any person or organization considers a Mac rather than Windows as their preferred computer, Mac’s vastly superior virus protection is always a factor in the decision.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m the biggest Apple fan out, but the Mac doesn’t have ‘vastly superior virus protection’, it’s just that fewer people write viruses (viri?) targetting them. Unless you have a firewall or anti-virus software on it it’s just as vulnerable to attack as any other computer on a network.
Xerox

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 7:59 am · Reply

In reply to John (2 posts up):

Create a Mail rule to block the w32.sobig.f spam worm:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030820063155258
Drew

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 9:24 am · Reply

-> Baddog.

Mac’s are not inherently immune. But you have to intentionally open up the mac’s network port’s to make it as vulnerable as an XP machine is when it comes out of the box.

Secure programming is expensive, and til now it has not been clear that there is economic incentive for MS in its monopoly position, to pay for it. Up til recently they have been able to charge for the security fixes users insist on in the form of upgrades and subscriptions. MS likes to give the impression that security is a new thing. It is not. I did a computer science degree in the 80s and much of it was on combatting improper access and viruses. Trained programmers understood the principles of secure programming. MS chose not to follow them, in the interest of profits.

Apple’s history has been different. Apple was networking its machines in school environments from nearly day 1. While security probably wasn’t priority 1, it was one of the features the Apple built-in to the now ‘classic’ mac-os because school-staff needed their machines to be secure from students. Old Mac’s were basically un-hackable over a network unless the user opened up the machine.

Unix’s history of open source and peer review has also made it very secure. Clever CS students have been searching the source code for vulnerabilities and causing mischief where they can since Unix’s beginning. Again, unless its ports are intentionally opened, there just isn’t a whole lot you can do.
baquiano

Friday, August 22, 2003 - 9:42 am · Reply

Windows is so crummy that even the virii written for it has bugs. Not kidding, the sobig.f and the MSBlast worms have bugs.

I’m really fed up with having my inbox full of random emails from infected Win32 machines. It affects me as a Mac user, especially when downloading mail from dialup.