“The excitement home buyers feel when taking a new PC out of its box can be short-lived if the machine is vulnerable to the swarm of viruses and worms on the Internet. One senior administrator at a major research university recently endured a prolonged setup procedure with his new laptop. The administrator, who asked not to be identified due to the visibility of his position, purchased a laptop in May after encountering delays in obtaining the notebook, which was first introduced last March along with Intel’s Centrino technology,” Tom Krazit reports for IDG News Service.
“After connecting the notebook to the Internet over a dial-up connection, the machine started crashing repeatedly in a sequence that looked eerily familiar to the administrator’s experiences with the Blaster worm last August. Sure enough, a Google search quickly confirmed his diagnosis, setting the stage for a two-hour marathon download of Windows Update patches and the Blaster Worm Removal Tool from Symantec,” Krazit reports.
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Or you could just be smart about it and get a Macintosh.
moo.
boo
Just ask Tom at Oracle.com who must support various platforms (bottom half of page):
[My emphasis] Says it all, no?
First significant post in this thread!
[primal scream w’ upraised fists]
I was playing poker with some friends the other night, and during a break one of them brought up spyware. WHat happened next was a collective gasp of frustration. I felt I was at an AA meeting. Four guys going on and on about how their machines got messed up time and time again by spyware and viruses. I couldn’t helping sounding superior when I told them about the Mac. When one of them brought up the “Security through obscurity” myth I really got going. They really had a hard time with that. Nobody wants to have purchased the wrong stuff (especially at $800+).
The above MDN link to the “Full article” is in error. The actual article is at http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,116489,00.asp . I think it is rather poor journalism (extreme laziness?!) to quote a secondary source (Yahoo News) that is directly quoting the original source (PC World).
Why doesn’t MDN link to PC World? MDN does this rather frequently and make me wonder why MDN supports Yahoo.
If MDN wants people to go to Yahoo for whatever reason or give them some professional credit (me thinks MDN gets a few pence for sending people there), then it would be honorable to state…
Discovered at [1st link].
Original source at [2nd link].
…but, people would probably go right to the original source, and MDN doesn’t get their pennies.
Money over good journalism; welcome to America!
To Less is more…
Pick up a DW6000 instead of using a PC for your router.
You going with DWay?
I upgraded from the 4000 to the 6000….no more PC’s in my house
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Help!!
I do make a point to friends, and others(sometimes deliberately, sometimes innocently) about how my mac is so secure. I am not completely familiar what the facts are concerning why its not just “security through obscurity”.
Would anyone be so kind to list for me, the reasons/factors why OSX is so secure?
Thanks so much
MF
Here is the link you want macfreak.
http://www.macdailynews.com/comments.php?id=P2029_0_1_0
follow all the links at the bottom of the MacDailyNews Take after the article and you should get more than you need on this.
Cheers.
Just to save you some trouble, here is a good summary of some of the reasons from a very reliable source (from one of the links mentioned above)
New York Times: Mac OS X ‘much more secure than Windows XP’
Thursday, September 18, 2003 – 03:38 PM EDT
The New York Times’ David Pogue has recanted his recent propagation of the “security through obscurity” myth, writing today, “That, as it turns out, is a myth, no matter who repeats it… Mac OS X and Linux [are] much more secure than Windows XP. For example:”
– “Windows comes with five of its ports open; Mac OS X comes with all of them shut and locked… These ports are precisely what permitted viruses like Blaster to infiltrate millions of PC�s. Microsoft says that it won�t have an opportunity to close these ports until the next version of Windows, which is a couple of years away.”
– “When a program tries to install itself in Mac OS X… a dialog box interrupts your work and asks you permission for that installation — in fact, requires your account password. Windows XP goes ahead and installs it, potentially without your awareness.”
– “Administrator accounts in Windows (and therefore viruses that exploit it) have access to all areas of the operating system. In Mac OS X, even an administrator can�t touch the files that drive the operating system itself. A Mac OS X virus (if there were such a thing) could theoretically wipe out all of your files, but wouldn�t be able to access anyone else�s stuff — and couldn�t touch the operating system itself.”
– “No Macintosh e-mail program automatically runs scripts that come attached to incoming messages, as Microsoft Outlook does.”
Pogue writes, “…the conclusion is clear: Linux and Mac OS X aren�t just more secure because fewer people use them. They�re also much harder to crack right out of the box.” Pogue also covers Windows virus programs and other reasons why Mac OS X is simply more secure than Windows. Full article here.
Sorry, G5Man… I haven’t a clue what a DW6000 or a DWay is, or why you are suggesting I pick up anything other than a fine piece of tail.
I particularly like this article over at DaringFireBall.net which takes the old Security Through Obscurity myth and turns it on it’s ear.
Windows apologists have long argued that the only reason the Mac has been so strikingly free of security exploits is that it has such a smaller market share than Windows. This argument ignores numerous facts, such as that the Mac�s share of viruses is effectively zero; no matter how you peg the Mac�s overall market share, its share of viruses/worms/Trojans is significantly disproportionate. Or that the logical conclusion of this argument � that because of Windows�s monopoly market share, malfeasant hackers would logically only write software to attack Windows � would be to extend the argument to all software, malicious or not, and it�s quite easily disproven that �all software� is targeted only for Windows. Or that, despite the Mac�s relatively small market share, a successful virus/worm/Trojan attack against Mac OS X would likely garner significantly more notoriety and fame; considering the recent publicity given to non-exploited Mac OS X vulnerabilities, it�s reasonable to expect that an outright exploit would result in an avalanche of tech media hysteria.
The reason this argument is so popular with Windows apologists is that it�s a convenient bit of rhetoric. They say it�s so, we say it�s not. You can�t get past this argument, because it can�t be disproven without the Mac OS actually attaining a Windows-like market share.
So, let�s concede the point, just for the sake of argument: OK, fine, if the Mac had the same market share as Windows, the tables would be turned and there�d be just as many Mac security exploits as there are Windows exploits today.
Now what? Given that the Mac is never going to attain a monopoly share of the operating systems market � that merely expanding its share to, say, 10 percent would be universally hailed as an almost-too-good-to-be-true success � isn�t it thus only logical to conclude that the Mac is forever �doomed� to be significantly more secure than Windows?
As they say in bloggerdom, “Read The Whole Thing…“.
It is not just ‘New PCs’.
I was away for a couple of months (I live part of the year in Canada and part in Brazil) and when I got back and turned on my win box (unfortunately I need one for my work) and had all sorts of problems.
I knew I had to run all M$ updates I missed while away so the first thing I did was to boot the machine and run win update (tons of patches to run…). Well, I could not get to the end. As soon as I started the updates d’load I got infested by one of sasser’s variations (took less the a couple of mins online). Catch 22 situation. I could not download the worm removal tool ’cause it kept crashing.
Thankfully I had a Mac with me (my TIbook). I used it to download the patch from M$ site, burn it into a CD, reboot windoze (off the net so it would not crash) and remove sasser.
Bottom line, without a Mac I would not be able to repair a win box. Apple should use that: “Need to fix your PC, use a Mac!”.
Cheers
Hey Sputznik, Why would anyone want a Mac when they can deal with situations like this on their “superior” windoze system on a daily basis? Patiently awaiting your comments!
Says it all!
Any pc weenies reading this??
If so – then get a Mac!
[url=http://www.apple.com]http://www.apple.com[/url]
HUM
Ruindows
what is that?
DarcRoland, nice article, especially the conclusion.
Some people sees no difference between pee and champaign: both yellowish, with bubbles and funny taste. Still, Mac users “don’t tolerate shit” …and they drink champaign.
twice even: champagne, of course.
Let’s leave Champaign in IL
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(Agreeing with a point made above)
I’ve been pondering the Security Through Obscurity thing myself. I decided it was not really possible to tell if it was true or not. There are compelling arguments on both sides. I decided that even if it were true, well, is that such a bad thing.
Security through obscurity is still security. Isn’t it ?
Personally, I think it is a combination of the two–better security and obscurity.
While Apple’s better security keeps the evil-doers at bay, nothing is perfect–as the recent HTML-based security threats showed. This is where our “obscurity” is a benefit in that there are fewer evil-doers who have Macintoshes out there to take advantage of the problems. So while Macs may have a hole or two, nobody really bothers to do anything to take advantage of the problem.
Thanks Seahawk, but it’s actually Dak, not Darc.
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And Peter, you’re missing one of the big points of the article. Remember that within hours of the vulnerability being announced, there were already several free fixes made available and word was EVERYWHERE that Mac users congregate. And consider all the negative press this non-exploited vulnerability got, compared to how little Windows vulnerabilities/exploits/worms/viruses/trojan horses get with there being around a dozen per day. Why wouldn’t someone want to try and get notoriety for being the first to crack OS X’s secure reputation? Honestly, I don’t know if it’s that no one has bothered to take advantage of the vulnerabilities, but rather hasn’t been able to succeed at exploiting any vulnerabilities before the Mac community is even aware of them.
the one important thing to remember about ‘security through obscurity’ is that it doesn’t account for the faction of mac hating windows users out there. Now perhaps all the mac hating wintel’ers just have no programming skill at all, but you’d think that one, just ONE of them would have written some sort of virus if there was an opportunity there to do it.
DakRoland, I echo Seahawk, that is a GREAT article. I’ll be forwarding that link around
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I have a G5..and I’ve never had any problems with virae or worms… my recommedation to you all is stay away from Microsoft Windows Hardware,it’s cheap rubbish, and get a Mac….
My new 17″ iMac arrives in my office on Tuesday this week to replace a 3-year old compaq peecee! Can’t wait to fire it up and hear that sweet startup chime and see the silver Apple logo emerge on the screen! Ahhhhhh, bliss. Finally, complete freedom from all those worms, virii, etc., etc….