“Technology commentator Bill Thompson is worried about the lack of herd immunity among his fellow Apple Mac users,” Thje BBC News web site states.
“These days Apple users are almost unbearably smug when the subject turns to malware. I was invited to appear on Radio Four’s You and Yours this week to talk about viruses and other malware and our focus was on issues with Windows since it is the most commonly used operating system,” Thompson writes for BBC News. “After the show we got dozens of e-mails from complacent Mac users pointing out that they were safe and suggesting that people simply abandon Windows if they want to be secure.”
“Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised by malicious software and opened up to exploitation by others
It would certainly be wonderful if the Macintosh computer and its operating system were immune to attack but this is just wishful thinking. Mac OS is certainly a lot better than Windows, but being better isn’t nearly enough,” Thompson writes. “Mac OS may not have the gaping holes that let viruses spread, but worms, spyware and even keyloggers are out there. They can’t spread as easily, and most would only be installed by a careless user clicking ‘Accept’ on a dodgy install dialog, but the regular stream of security fixes from Apple’s software update service makes it clear that there are real dangers. After all, Mac OS is built on top of the Unix operating system and it, like its close relative Linux, has many well-known security problems that can allow it to be compromised.”
“There may not be any Mac viruses at the moment, and the way the system handles user accounts and security means that they are unlikely, but we need to take steps to safeguard ourselves against other malicious software. As things stand, the Mac community has no herd immunity because most users seem to assume that they don’t need to take preventive action,” Thompson writes. “The Mac ships with a good firewall, and it should be used. There are tools to scan your system for known malicious programs or to check whether it has been hacked into, and they should be used too. Mac users demonstrate an indefensible smugness when it comes to the dangers of having their systems compromised by malicious software and opened up to exploitation by others. It’s time they started behaving a bit more responsibly.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take:
By SteveJack
Another boring “Mac OS X warning” in a stream of articles from various sources that just magically seem to pop up following a severe, long-standing, and stupid Microsoft Windows critical vulnerability. Without accusing Thompson, are some of these articles mere coincidence? Misdirection plays? Writers with nothing original to say? A bit of electrical fence to keep the herd contained? Without hearing the Radio Four program, I’ll assume Thompson and Co. failed to mention that the viruses and malware they were talking about all affected Windows. I’ll also assume that they never made mention of the Mac option, which is probably why Mac users emailed them. I would’ve done so, too.
Yes, Mac OS X users, use your firewall. Use your processor cycles to run AV software to protect Windows users against themselves, if that floats your boat. Don’t run as root. And, yes, don’t act smugly if you don’t want other to consider you smug.
While I’m at it, don’t be smug either, fish, of your immunity to fire – if a volcano happens to explode under the sea and less than .0000000000000000001% of you fish get burned, well, you won’t be such smug fish then, will you? Quick somebody ring up The Beeb! Fish smugness due to fire immunity needs to be highlighted in order to make other so-easily-burnable species feel better about themselves. Smug fish everywhere should be fitted with asbestos suits. Who cares if they can’t swim as fast in protective suits, or that they’re really not at risk? They’ll be safe from an underwater volcano fire and they won’t be so damn smug!
The analogy almost works, except in the Windows vs. Mac case — unlike the fish vs. burnable life forms idea — the “herd” actually has a choice to be safe from fire without wearing a protective suit, and 85% of them still make the wrong choice! Straight into the inferno they walk, clad with torn and ineffective protection, mainly because they have a herd mentality. Actually, to blame them for making the wrong “choice” is incorrect; most don’t know they even have a choice.* They’d instantly fertilize the pasture if they were actually told that tens of millions of people happily use Apple’s Mac OS X machines daily without AV software “protecting” them and without a care in the world. The herd would probably fall over sideways if you told them that many Mac users are 100% Microsoft-free.
The herd line up to get burned because:
• they’re worried that they won’t be able to get “free” (pirated) software from their office and friends if they get a Mac (since the rest of the herd has Windows)
• they don’t know they even have a choice*
• their company has shortsightedly shackled themselves and their workers with some Windows-only software
• they use their computers for games
• they believe the myths (no software, too expensive, incompatible)
• they’re too cheap for their own good
• they think the blue “e” is the Internet
• they can’t believe Mac machines have been virus-free for half a decade and counting and, when they see pieces like Thompson’s, they feel better about owning Windows machines, even though they didn’t choose Windows.* As they skim Thompson’s piece, you can almost hear them exclaim, “Oh, Macs are vulnerable, too! Whew! I just knew it couldn’t be true that they had no viruses.”
I’ve surfed the Internet and have gone to any website I damn well pleased for over half a decade on Mac OS X machines without any antivirus software installed. I have not had one virus or bit of spyware that affected my Mac OS X machine. If that makes me “smug,” so be it; my “smugness” is completely defensible. And if some of us Mac users do get a Mac OS X virus that magically propagates without requiring the user’s permission to install and actually is harmful to Mac OS X users’ data, then it will be one (1) Mac OS X virus to Windows’ 100,000+. I, for one, will still be “smug.” Although, after the mainstream (Windows-centric) tech media are finished with it, you’ll think it was a tie game at best for the Mac.
*Mac users almost invariably have used Windows (at work, at the very least) and, yet, they choose to purchase Macs with their hard-earned money. Very few Windows users have used both Windows XP and Mac OS X. Those that have, of course, are most likely Mac users now. Most people have not consciously chosen Windows over Mac, many aren’t even aware there is a choice to make.
SteveJack is a long-time Macintosh user, web designer, multimedia producer and a regular contributor to the MacDailyNews Opinion section.
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