“I saw what Bill Gates had to say in a recent Newsweek interview about the Mac as compared to Vista,” Scott Granneman reports for SecurityFocus.
Gates in Newsweek: I mean, it’s fascinating, maybe we shouldn’t have showed so publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done. Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.
MacDailyNews Note: Please see related MacDailyNews article: Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
Granneman reports, “My reaction, like most knowledgeable people who read this, was open-mouthed astonishment. Now, either Bill is heavily drugged and delusional, which I don’t believe, or he’s just completely ignorant, which I also discount, or he knows exactly what he’s saying and has an ulterior motive. That’s my best guess.”
Granneman reports, “Bill Gates knows that he’s at best exaggerating and at worst completely lying through his teeth. So why’s he doing it? Because he also knows that Apple’s new ads are helping Macs to sell like hot cakes, and that security is a big reason why a lot of people are throwing up their hands in disgust at Windows and switching to Apple’s computers. Who reads Newsweek? Not computer pros, but Joe and Jane Computeruser, and Joe and Jane tend to believe what they read in the mainstream media when it comes to computers, especially when that nice, smart philanthropist Bill Gates is the one saying it. He’s Mr. Computer, after all, so he must be right!”
Granneman reports, “A few years ago, Steve Ballmer ranted about open source in the Chicago Sun-Times, bellowing that ‘Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. The way the license is written, if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.’ This is obviously horsehockey, and it’s just as obvious that Ballmer knew that it was horsehockey, but he said it anyway knowing that many readers of the Chicago Sun-Times would believe what he said because he is a rich, important businessman. Bill Gates’ claim that ‘security guys break the Mac every single day’ is just as ludicrous, and just as calculated.”
“In both cases, fear is the string these two maestros are plucking. The ignorant will come away from reading the earlier interview believing that Linux is dangerous and will doom their companies, while the later interview may keep a few more people from switching to Mac OS because it’s getting broken into every single day,” Granneman reports. “Apple [also] uses fear to sell computers, but it’s a heck of a lot more accurate in what it both says and implies, while Microsoft’s leaders tend to nakedly push the buttons of fear willy-nilly, facts and reality be damned.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “BillH” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Wow: Microsoft’s Windows Vista already hacked – February 09, 2007
Bill Gates unhinged with Apple envy; Microsoft on path to become high profile casualty – February 06, 2007
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
On another note, I am so sick of snow.
@TowerTone
ROFL.
It does amaze me that people make ridiculous assertions and don’t expect to have to justify them.
The emotional content of many of the sillier posts on here is misplaced, unhelpful and, frankly, only serves to reflect poorly on the poster…
But it is always good to see someone like this guy get caught out. I think it is always worth the effort. And it can be fun, as you suggest…
@sydneystephen
thank you for being the voice of reason, and yes it can be fun sometimes cathcing someone. i apologize for the emotional tone of my posts, i simply get angry when people say things that are either not true, or incorrect to the point of being useless.
Update – Feb 14, 2007
I sent the information to the email address given by “former mac user is a troller” on what is required from a legal standpoint to distribute malicious software for educational and/or research purposes. I’m still waiting for verification so I can send the waiver that must be signed prior to a demonstration of Mac OS X vulnerability.
<tapping fingers on desk> How long is it going to take? I want to see somebody on this forum put their money where their mouth is……..
@Former Mac User
You might wear a hole in the desk waiting…
It’s hard to resist getting caught up in the emotion… I try to resist it. If I take it on, it just upsets me and ruins my day…
Former Mac Guy seems to have a need to upset other people – there are a few other posters on this site with the same problem. I try to ignore the emotion and deal with the underlying issue – in this case it seemed worth pursuing. I guess that having been exposed, this guy will lick his wounds and then pop up using a different name and continue his anti-Apple posts. What he doesn’t realise is that by making such emotional, negative, posts he is also ruining HIS day…
i have replied to your email, and am awaiting a response from you
@sydneysteven,
are you confusing myself and former mac user?
@Former Mac User:
Here are the header comments from the Opener Rootkit script:
“To install this script you need admin access or physical access (boot from a CD or firewire/usb, ignore permissions on the internal drive) or write access to either /Library/StartupItems /System/Library/StartupItems or write access to any existing StartupItem (which you can then replace with this script) or write access to the rc, crontab, or periodic files (and have them run or install the script) or you could trick someone who has an admin account into installing it.”
After reading that and the Secunia bulletin, along with your own description of how you were victimized, it appears that the problem lies with the way the server was configured. Again, who was it that was the sysadmin? I own a software company and I’ve been doing data bases and data analysis for clients using any number of unix versions and programs written in assembly level languages, as well as compiled code over the last 30 years. I hire competent people to oversee my systems. I’ve never had a problem with an XServe machine. I wouldn’t consider much of what you are bragging about to be POSITIVE material on a resume submitted to my company. And BTW, in the last 5 years I’ve made a 1200% return on my Apple investments precisely because Windows is such a horrible piece of crap when it comes to security.
@former mac user user is a troller
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yes. sorry. typing fatigue must have set in…
When did I ever use propaganda in the form of FUD? Never, and for two reasons. The first is that I would never tell my customers anything that is untrue. (By the way, all problems relating to Windows XP are due to the fact that users installed virus protection – XP doesn’t need virus protection.) The second is that “Fear, Uncertainty, Denial” is what the Devil would have named his company in Cupertino. In case you’re not catching on, Steve Jobs is the apparent Devil, and of course he has turned Hell into a rotten Apple.
And it was officially rotted on January 30, 2007, so that life was only possible in Cupertino for the mentally insane. If you’re one of the mentally challenged people who tries to figure out the Macintosh, January 30 was the date of Vista’s release. Now, everyone’s brain is having a chance to rot away. Except mine. And Mr. Ballmer’s. If your brains are still intact, you will stop reading at this point.
Our good friend Zune Tang has been missing, in case you couldn’t notice, and he will take some time to recover. Fear, Uncertainty, Denial owes a big one for kidnapping him and adding numerous imposters. However, my keen intellect tells me to wait until ten days before the next Mac release to file a lawsuit.
If you were dumb enough to read on, go get yourself smarter with an Zune. Only $500 for a 3-song* model. $470. Whatever.
And the Russians have destroyed Windows 3.1. They cheat, with thanks to FUD. Then again, they don’t even know about Vista. Or Zune.
Your whining. Our wealth. Microsoft.
*Assuming that a song lasts approximately 10.8 seconds.