“Microsoft, the world’s most valuable software company, is looking like a player in one of those computer games who is being zapped on all sides by alien missiles – and as soon as one is disabled another takes its place. Yesterday the Seattle-based giant announced a warning of yet another flaw in recent versions of its Windows operating system that is resident in over 95% of the world’s computers,” The Guardian reports.
[MacDailyNews Note: 95%? Prove that figure, please. Source(s)? If you’re going to report it as fact, proof is expected here.]
The Guardian reports, “[This latest flaw] lies deep within the code and could give potential hackers ‘complete control’ over computers. Microsoft was warned about this flaw months ago but, understandably, waited until it had a fix before confirming its existence in case potential attackers got wind of it. This latest outbreak is separate from the havoc caused in recent weeks by the MyDoom virus that has led to widespread criticism of the company.”
“It would be wrong to heap all the blame on to Microsoft for the damage caused,” The Guardian reports.
[MacDailyNews Note: Correct. Microsoft is only about 99.99% responsible for the damage its swiss cheese family of OSes has caused. And “it’s understandable” to The Guardian that Microsoft took over six months to create a patch for their junk? Just what exactly is The Guardian smoking?]
“The main reason it is being targeted is that it is so big. Its main competitors (Apple and the free operating system Linux), though more stable than Windows, are too tiny to attract the attention of virus writers and hackers,” The Guardian reports.
[MacDailyNews Note: Wrong. Mac OS X is simply more secure than any version of Windows. Period. 70,000 Windows viruses and worms vs. 0 (zero) for Mac OS X attests to that fact. We’ll repeat the facts until they stick.]
“The real villains are the vandals who wreak enormous damage on computer networks on which the stability of business and, increasingly, personal life depends. Corporations are clearly not taking the proper precautions by downloading the fixes that are regularly posted on the internet, let alone installing filters to ensure that the affected mail does not reach employees. Users, corporate and personal, are also at fault because if they took simple precautions – like not opening email attachments without proven provenance – then the problem could be contained,” The Guardian reports.
[MacDailyNews Note: Blaming everyone and their mother, and hardly mentioning the real problem – those who created the messy, slovenly, and bloated operating system – is pure crap. Yes, crap.]
At least The Guardian finally regains a modicum of sanity to print Microsoft “has fallen short of the standards expected of such a powerful company. It has been found guilty in the US courts of illegally maintaining its monopoly (though not of illegally acquiring it). It ought to be throwing as much of its cash mountain as it takes to provide an operating system that is secure. If it does not then it should be unsurprised if there are fresh calls for it to forfeit its monopoly.”
Full load of B.S. here. As you read this, The Three Stooges – Enderle, Thurrott, and Dvorak – are probably trying their damnedest to get Windows to print out this steaming pile of manure from The Guardian for framing.]
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Is Mac OS X really inherently more secure than Windows? – August 26, 2003
BusinessWeek’s Haddad gets it wrong; thinks low market share spares Macs from viruses – August 28, 2003
Shattering the Mac OS X ‘security through obscurity’ myth – August 28, 2003
Fortune columnist: ‘get a Mac’ to thwart viruses; right answer for the wrong reasons – September 02, 2003
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’ – September 18, 2003
Columnist tries the ‘security through obscurity’ myth to defend Windows vs. Macs on virus front – October 1, 2003
Gates: Windows ‘by far the most secure’ system; tries to use ‘Mac OS X secure through obscurity’ myth – January 27, 2004
Mac OS X has no viruses; what’s wrong with Windows? – February 11, 2004
I’m almost thinking this has has to be satyrical.
What is the motivation for The Guardian to print this tripe? How much does MS contribute to The Guardian in advertising dollars?
$10 to MDN from me using the PayPal link at the top right of the page. The least I could do. Keep up the good work!
Whoa! What are they smoking? It’s definitely in the same league as Thurrot and Enderle. Man, I gotta scrub my screen from reading that pile of garbage.
I only got as far as the first MDN note. Since when is proving anything required around here? I can think back to yesterday when “10% mac installed user base” was accepted without attribution or evidence. Try to be fair.
I expect the Guardian journalists are just badly informed. I might mail them on this.
So does anyone know if anyone has yet tried to sue Microsoft for damage to business etc – I notice they assured the great mass of the deluded that “no the mydoom worm did not walk through the great gaping hole in our system it got through one of the secure bits”.
Jack Schofield who writes for the Guardian and other publications has come out with the biggest load of Microsoft/Windows biased bull$hit over the years – I suspect this was written by him.
If so, well done Jack – this time you have your head so far up Microsoft’s ar$e that you can see their tonsils…
Joe, the 10% is supported indirectly at least. Apple – due to its relatively *small* base? – accounts for number of Macs around. They report ~25Mil Macs around. IT statistic junkies report ~250Mil consumer desktops around.
World-wide web sites statistics report ~12% to ~15% come from computer claimind to be an Apple PowerPC computer. In addition to that Macs – contrary to PCs – can fake themselves as PCs to web sites. Why? because mediocre webmanagers have HTMLs which supposedly work on Wintel IE so that a Mac user has to tell his/her browser to announce itself as Wintel IE.
If that surprises you well, it is a Mac: it does things your Wintel acolyte will tell you are not possible. So even those as high as 15% of consumer desktops is not correct: some Mac contribute to Wintel PC statistics on those moronic “This site only works with Windows IE vs crap.crap rev.shit” kind of web sites,
So, there is nothing around that goes against a 10% figure but people still talk about the quarterly 3% sales which is a totally different statistics. But we know that already: the majority of the population has trouble adding up grocery list prices so how they could ever understand statistic figures.
Last: the 3% market shares is Apple figures (high end consumer desktops and laptops) against total sales, including dumb corporate terminals, PC used as card registers, cash registers etc.
Is it THAT difficult to understand that the 3% figure counts everything hence tells nothing? Silly how people builds theories on Apple longevity solely based on that figure.
My comment is that one would be crazy to call BMW doomed because Volvo and Renault sell millions of trucks around the world and compare % of BMW drivers against Volvo and Renault drivers – trucks included.
Sounds laughable but it is what happens in IT with Apple and – say – Dell and Acer.
Is this a Mac news website or a MS news website?
I’m sure I read somewhere that The Guardian had recently migrated from Macs to Windows. Seems like someone is trying to justify their decision.
Dave H
I read in MacUser that they’ve recently moved to InDesign on OS X…
Maybe the author of this BS is on his way out of the door to become PR Consultant for Longhorn.
I stand corrected. Ta.
Maybe the Guardian actually meant 95% of all computers in the world with Microsoft OS installed. A little editorial miscue, you know.
If I knew a priori that a certain computer operating system was inherently flawed, was associated with a high risk of infection by viruses and worms, and I purchased this system anyhow then I would be considered an absolute idiot.
Surely, the renowned Guardian with its massive staff of investigating reporters should have picked up on these simple facts, too. But, if they did understand the problem and ignored the risk willfully then they have proved conclusively how slow witted they are.
Makes you wonder about the veracity of all other “news” that the Guardian reports.
Smucker Makes you wonder about the veracity of all other “news” that the Guardian reports.
Journalists are basically the same as business users, they have an area of expertise, but most don’t really know much about computers. This is why I get users buying 60GB MS Access based research products, and have to bang my head against the desk explaining why it’s such a bad idea, even after they’ve spent �30k on the damn thing.
Sorry. I completely hijacked your point to get something off my chest there.
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The problem with Microsoft is that it’s a BEAST, it has embedded itself everywhere and can’t react quickly to emerging threats or betterment of it’s OS without breaking thousands of third party software and hardware.
Apple on the other hand is more agile and third party companies have to follow Apples stricter standards or their stuff gets broke really quick.
Microsoft isn’t focused upon consumer satisfaction, never was.
http://teammacosx.homeunix.com/
CRAPPLE fanatic and psychopath : “MacDailyNews Note: 95%? Prove that figure, please. Source(s)? If you’re going to report it as fact, proof is expected here”
Yeah?
Go to this site,read and weep!
http://www.onestat.com/html/aboutus_pressbox24.html
Quotes:
“the number one provider of real-time web analytics, today reported that Microsoft’s Windows dominates the operating system market with a global usage share of more than 97 percent. The leading operating system on the web is Microsoft’s Windows XP with a global usage share of 38.48 percent. Microsoft’s Windows 98 has a global usage share of 22.56 percent and is the second most popular OS on the web.
The global usage share of Apple’s Macintosh operating system is 1.49 percent and the global usage share of Linux is 0.51 percent on the web”
Next?
Smithy read what Seahawk said. I myself have had to on many occasions set my browser to pretend to be a windows pc running IE to access a site that said I couldn’t view it on a Mac.
The idea here is you read what other people say before posting.
CRAPPLE fanatic :“Wrong. Mac OS X is simply more secure than any version of Windows. Period. 70,000 Windows viruses and worms vs. 0 (zero) for Mac OS X attests to that fact. We’ll repeat the facts until they stick.”
Hahahahahahahahaha!
As far back as 1998 we were getting up to 11 new viruses on the Mac per month,when it appeared that CRAPPLE’s market share was about to rise (something that went the way of all CRAPPLE “rebirths”. It simply petered out.)
Read this please: http://news.com.com/2100-1001-213879.html?legacy=cnet&st;.ne.fd.mdh
“In the last month alone, 11 new viruses that target the Mac have been discovered, including new variations on known ones and a particularly destructive program called the “AutoStart Worm,” according to Symantec, which makes antivirus software for the Mac platform…….
On the Mac, the AutoStart worm program attaches itself to the settings control panel for QuickTime version 2.0 or later on PowerPC-based systems. After doing this, an infected computer will suddenly begin to destroy data in a variety of files.”
What was that about zero viruses on the Mac again? LOL!
Been smoking that weed again,haven’t you?
I did warn you about those hallucigenic drugs…
More CRAPPLE security holes!
http://news.com.com/2100-7355-5098688.html?tag=nl
Quotes:
“Apple Computer said Friday that it plans to issue an update to older versions of Mac OS X to fix security flaws that were patched as part of the new Panther OS………
While some in the security community fretted that Apple would only make the patches available as part of the $129 Panther upgrade, Apple said it will also offer the security patches for older versions of Mac OS X. …..
“Imagine if Microsoft tried to charge for security fixes–people would go crazy,” Larholm said”</b>
Once again, Microsoft trumps CRAPPLE!
sirocco “Smithy read what Seahawk said. I myself have had to on many occasions set my browser to pretend to be a windows pc running IE to access a site that said I couldn’t view it on a Mac.”
Yeah?
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That’s quite a neat trick that.
Maybe we outta invite you to the magicians Hall of Fame.
AS well as the liars Hall of Fame too of course.
Smithy,
The artcile you reference above is from 1998 – before Mac OS X was even released. Typical Wintel retard. The article about Mac OS X – perhaps you should read it over and over until (if possible) you understand it – you’re making yourself quite the moron around here.
Smithy:
CRAPPLE fanatic :”Wrong. Mac OS X is simply more secure than any version of Windows. Period. 70,000 Windows viruses and worms vs. 0 (zero) for Mac OS X attests to that fact. We’ll repeat the facts until they stick.”
You can read that says OSX… right?
Also please check the numbers of OS8 and 9 viruses vs.. Windows viri for that time period. I believe at most OS9 ended up with something like 70 or 80 viruses total versus the multiple thousands that existed for MS at the time.
So, as it stands… OSX viri still at 0 and counting.
Oh, and I know this always comes up but why are PC trolls here anyway?
Smithy,
I have Safari’s User Agent set to “Windows MSIE 6.0.” This allows me to access sites that check browsers – Safari is so new that the sites display and work just fine, even if the site’s themselves don’t know it, yet.
No magic involved.