MacDailyNews Take: ROTFLOFAO, he called what Ou does “research!” Please see related articles:
• ZDNet’s George Ou Exposed as Ignorant Microsoft Shill – RoughlyDrafted
• George Ou’s Greatest Apple Hits! – The Macalope
• George Ou: When Gerbilling isn’t fun enough – Artie MacStrawman’s Apple Orchard
• George Ou’s Bad Idea: Comparing Apple Ads to Nazi Propaganda – Wired
Espiner continues, “He found that Apple’s latest operating system, Mac OS X, faced more critical flaws than Windows XP and Vista combined… Ou made the comparison as an indicator of how many vulnerabilities might exist in 2008, rather than a comparison of the relative security of the operating systems.”
“Some experts have said that counting vulnerabilities is not necessarily reliable as a measure of security,” Espiner reports. “Tristan Nitot, president of Mozilla Europe, told ZDNet.co.uk this month that it was more important to take into account the time it takes to patch vulnerabilities.”
Espiner reports, “The amount of exploit code available in the wild also has an impact on security. While there are thousands of pieces of code that seek to exploit Windows XP vulnerabilities, exploit code for Mac OS X is relatively rare.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In “honor” of George Ou, we’re going to continue surfing the Internet unimpeded with our Mac OS X Firewall turned off for another six years.
Looks like he got shot by phasers on 180˚
That just means that M$ didn’t patch all theirs, not that the mac was insecure because Apple did patch a bunch.. M$ is probably still trying to figure out HOW to patch them..
Show us ANY actual users out in the wild that have ever been impacted by any of these so called vulnerabilities, and then we’ll talk….
And my boat is really water tight, because I had to patch it 34 times last year.
Apparently George Ou needs his brain patched.
It’s Mr. Zero U to the ‘rescue’ of MS and Windows’ apologists everywhere!
let him go back to Gerbilling….
It’s floating, isn’t it? Your WINDOWS boat is UNDER WATER!
I’m wondering why no one is bringing up this question:
How many of the updates issued by Apple vs. M$ would allow a malicious attacker to take over the system?
Another conspiracy attempt / FUD from the M$ proxies ie: ZNET.
A key gauge would be what actual vulnerabilities are out in the wild and being exploited.
I have a feeling the actual OSX vulnerabilities being exploited is no where close to the quantity for XP and/or Vista.
I was beginning to worry that all these reports of security issues might be true.
I too will ignore them all along with the false alarms that Apple itself sends out in the form of some ‘security updates’ to the OS and various Apple apps.
Man, do I love the Mac!
I guess Ou’s point is that he would rather have an operating system from a company which doesn’t acknowledge or correct errors rather than a company which does updates and corrections?
I think it’s rather amusing that people expect software to be perfect the first time it’s written, every time a new feature is added, etc. Software is written by people, and people are aberrated and make mistakes. Plus, a company cannot possibly test for every possible combination of software, hardware and user interaction. Thus, Apple corrects mistakes, etc. by issuing patches. And far before ANY malicious attack can be made.
It’s pretty remarkable how fast Apple had OS 10.5.1 prepared and released.
At least Apple doesn’t bury its head in the software sand and pretend the problem doesn’t exist.
Vulnerability does not equal exploit. All exploits are not equal. Macs don’t get turned into hackers’ spambots. If there are so many security issues with Mac OS X, where are all the exploits? Oh, there aren’t any, just Trojan Horse malware for the gullible and “proof of concept” stuff in the labs of security companies. Never mind…
Apple should be applauded for diligently fixing potential issues in a timely manner. The reason there have not been any meaningful exploits is because hackers can’t do anything meaningful (worth their time and effort) with these so-called “critical vulnerabilities.” The low-hanging fruit will always be Windows.
The one thing I love about apple is that they continue to patch – update there OS’s incrementally. I’ve only been a Mac user since panther and I can’t believe how responsive they (apple) are.
It’s great that they come out with the updates as often as they do, but I still do a backup before I install. I usually just wait till the weekend since I do my weekly Super Duper backup then. You never know when one of these things can cause problems. Better safe than sorry.
When will these idiots learn that vulnerabilities are not exploits?
A vulnerability is a potential problem. When someone takes advantage of a vulnerability, then it becomes an exploit.
I sometimes leave my house unlocked when I go out. That’s a vulnerability. I have two German Shepherd Dogs inside the house. there have never been any exploits.
The difference between Apple and Microsoft here is, Apple actually fix majority of the holes before someone exploits them, and Microsoft waits until 50% of windows user have some sort of virus. Even then they still leave it up to the anti-virus programs.
My Macs are very secure, self aware, and have high moral values.
My PCs have self esteem issues and criminal tendencies.
Don’t believe the hype. The shepherd has pulled the wool over your eyes for too long.
This article tells the truth.
MDN is blind to the truth.
The moron needs a logic patch!
ROTFLMAO! That guy HAS to be on heavy duty drugs! What a tool!
The keyword is ZDnet, which is worse than even Cnet if thats possible. These guys are real scum suckers. their breath smells like farts.
@ Realist
Perfect.
Realist = Pete
This BS stinks so bad even Ou couldn’t put his name on it!
I addressed Microsoft’s disgusting tack of redefining security via any measure other than attacks in the wild a while ago:
Microsoft: Building better security through statistics.