Why You Shouldn't Panic Over Mac Malware 370
Earlier this week, we discussed reports that Mac malware was finally becoming a significant problem. Now, reader wiredmikey points out an editorial arguing that everyone should slow down and analyze the situation more calmly so the threat can be accurately assessed. Quoting:
"According to Apple, the Mac installed base is approximately 50 million users. But according to Gartner, the number of Android handsets sold in 2010 alone exceeded 67 million units, giving it an installed base that is larger, and growing much faster, than the Mac base. If a large numbers of eyeballs is indeed the lure that causes criminals to write malware for a given operating system, surely Android is a more tempting target than Mac OS. ... I predict that the increase in perceived risks to Mac customers will give Apple the excuse it needs to increase its control over the Mac software ecosystem, by moving ISVs to the Mac App Store. It is no accident that the theme of the upcoming Lion desktop operating system is 'Back to the Mac': taking concepts that Apple employed successfully with the mobile version of OS X (iOS) and back-porting them to the desktop OS. One of those features is the introduction of the Mac App Store, an Apple-controlled storefront for selling and distributing applications. ... This provides buyers some assurance that their apps are from known points of origin and that they don’t contain malware, such as the Mac Defender Trojan horse.
Safari browser exploits (Score:5, Informative)
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The solution is obvisous, disconnect all the ethernet connectors, wifi, bluetooth, usb, firewire, cd-/dvd-drives and whatever else you can think of and lock it in a bunker.
While you are at is, remove the user too. :-)
Maybe it will be a bit more secure after that.
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Um, isn't that the direction Apple has been going lately? First they take the buttons, then they take most of the ability to install apps, all they need to do is require a password to turn the thing on and not give it out for the vision to be complete.
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There is an ethernet port on my current generation MacBook Pro. The machine was refreshed about 3 months ago, and they are still including ethernet ports. In fact, the only computer that Apple produces that doesn't have an ethernet port is the MacBook Air. Every other computer has a gigabit ethernet port.
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Every single Mac released since before the PPC era, and to this day, ships with an ethernet port with the exception of the Macbook Air.
All modern Macbooks and Macbook Pros have a gigabit ethernet port. GigE became standard around the time of the Powermac G4.
Re:Safari browser exploits (Score:5, Funny)
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I also find the comparison to Android funny;
But according to Gartner, the number of Android handsets sold in 2010 alone exceeded 67 million units, giving it an installed base that is larger, and growing much faster, than the Mac base. If a large numbers of eyeballs is indeed the lure that causes criminals to write malware for a given operating system, surely Android is a more tempting target than Mac OS.
Android has malware. And I think iPhone owners are better target money wise - mostly US rich kids.
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What has protected Macs and Linux in the past is that malware writers like all criminals are naturally lazy creatures, and there was plenty of low hanging Windows machines to snatch. Now that Android is popping up everywhere and the malware guys are starting to realize Macs=money I have NO doubt things are gonna change, just as I have seen Windows malware going from exploit based to third party to social engineering. Times change, targets change, and I have a feeling so many have bought the "Macs don't get malware!" meme that until some really nasty bugs hit Mac guys are gonna be easy pickings. I've already seen it myself, with having to argue with a customer who swore up and down his Macs couldn't possibly be infected even as the DNS Changer bug was redirecting everything.
The problem is, we've heard this same thing for the past 10+ years. The malware is coming. Just you wait. 10 years later, the flood has yet to materialize.
That's not to say that everything not-Windows is immune. Quite the contrary. There has been malware targeting other platforms to include MacOS and Linux. They just don't do well. And thus, those platforms continue to avoid being low-hanging fruit. There has to be a change other than just "oh hey - we CAN target these other platforms!"
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Safari browser exploits and other app exploits can still lead to installing malware on a machine.
The point is that
this is not true. Use of a Safari feature that is very useful for anyone downloading legitimate software allows malware to be downloaded and Apple's installer to be started. But "Installer started" != "malware installed". There is this tiny, tiny little gap that the malware cannot cross if the user has a brain: To install the malware, the user has to willingly enter their administrator password. No administrator password, no malware.
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To install the malware, the user has to willingly enter their administrator password. No administrator password, no malware.
But wait, Macs don't get malware. The hip guy in the commercial was making fun of the old fart for that. So since there's no malware, anything that wants my password must want it for a good reason, right?
Live by the incompetent, die by the incompetent.
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I truely wish that were true. But if it were, there would be no malware for Windows Vista and Windows 7, since they also require that the user acknowledge a prompt before installation. And there would be no malware for Windows XP either (since it prompts users because a program downloaded from the internet might be dangerous).
Unfortunately a UAC prompt (or sudo prompt) doesn't stop the "I really want to see the dancing bunnies" problem - people will bypass any dialog box you put up to run their applicatio
Re:Safari browser exploits (Score:4, Informative)
You're silly, and you've obviously never worked in tech support.
Here's the thing: even in the dreadful, woefully unsafe world of Windows '98 and ME, over 80% of malware infections could've been avoided by having the user learn some simple, seemingly obvious security tips such as do not install fucking Bonzi Buddy EVER AGAIN, you piece of useless, ignorant trash!!!, *ehem*. Yeah, like that.
Social Engineering is still the surest method to gain control of another machine, and the user is still in nearly all cases the most vulnerable part of a given system's security. So far, the only thing that has kept Mac users relatively safe so far has been their relative insignificance in the world of computing as a whole, but if black hats start targeting them seriously they'll buckle just as fast as their Windows brethren.
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IE isn't integrated in Windows, just like Safari isn't integrated into OS X. Safari and IE are merely chrome around their respective HTML renderers - WebKit and Trident. Neither of which is "integrated" into the OS but both are used extensively by first party and third party applications.
Qubes OS (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll admit I bought a macbook in 2009 with likelihood of system vulnerabilities in mind. I *did* consider a number of other things, so I'm not a bad person, I swear.
Some say it's a case of going to a FOSS operating system... or specifically a BSD family kernel... or even of going to OpenBSD exclusively. Some say it's a case of knowing our OpenBSD software inside out and testing thouroughly *and* putting various in safeguards.
However, they're all missing a piece of the puzzle. Qubes OS should be on everyone's radar, especially since it's starting to progress. Sadly, it's one of those things that unless you give it some time to read up about you'll only hear bits and pieces about and then sadly ignore it.
Qubes, with Joanna Rutkowska at the helm no less, is a solid framework of ideas that results in the security we should all expect of an operating system. Fear that you'll have input sniffed or root compromised? Have your system disconnected from the internet - "what?", you say, before you read on and realise how silly it is in the first place.
Everything is in a VM instance, each VM instance can boot from the same image and run a (single, if you feel like it) program. The data that instance *thinks* was written to disk was instead pushed to a copy-on-write block device which can be thrown away when you're done.want files between different VMs? Message dom0 with the request from inside the VM and then accept the dialogue box that your isolated dom0 greets you with.
Sadly, I'm not the best ambassador. Sadly, I'm in a rush and haven't supplied my best effort in communicating how significant Qubes will be. Sadly, it's taken until now to have decent security on a desktop. But now I can be confident.
The universe is smiling down on me for this post with a captcha of "secure", and rightly so if you hop aboard.
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It's not about the OS, it's about the user. Don't run in admin mode, install an antivirus and OS/Apps updates, don't install crap from just anywhere, avoid Flash, IE, Firefox.
Been doing that in Windows for me and my parents for years, got a virus once, when an ex called bout a failing hard drive and I dumbly just connected it to my spare PC to try and salvage the files.
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Indeed.
Although one annoying thing about OS X is that if your main user isn't an admin, software update doesn't check for updates periodically: you won't know there are updates to install if you don't check manually and/or log in as an admin.
Re:Qubes OS (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know whether your post is serious or a reference to some meme I am unfamiliar with, but anyway.
Everything is in a VM instance
If this is the (only) reason why it is "secure", and the official website seems to say so, you may want to go with OpenBSD anyway. To quote Theo de Raadt:
You are absolutely deluded, if not stupid, if you think that a
worldwide collection of software engineers who can't write operating
systems or applications without security holes, can then turn around
and suddenly write virtualization layers without security holes.
Rutkowska definitely has an impressive resume, but I don't think that even someone like her can make a system secure just by using virtualization. However, I will make sure to keep an eye on that project, it looks quite interesting even though it won't replace my current setup.
What a load of crap (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason Mac users are now targetted is because they are less computer savvy, have deep pockets and have been educated to open their wallet on command.
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Mac users less computer savvy? Not really I've seen a lot of IT- and multimedia-pros using them. I've never understood why geeks don't appreciate useability...
For me the Mac is Unix + hardware support + hot souce!
But I'd have to thank Linux as it made me fall in love with *nix-systems.
And exploits? I only get my software from trusted sources, no remote services are on, never connect to public wifi. On the other hand, if you follow this advice you are very unlikely to get infected, even on windows. But I jus
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Insightful)
Sort of the same for me.
For me the route was also windows -> linux -> OSX.
However, during my linux period i grew accustomed to finding great software doing almost everything i could wish for within a few clicks/google searches.
For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?
For now, after long searches i end up installing untrustworthy programs, because i'm used to get it all for "free" (he, i am Dutch). My problem, sure. But a lot of people like me would fall into these kind of traps.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
However, during my linux period i grew accustomed to finding great software doing almost everything i could wish for within a few clicks/google searches.
For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?
Not learnt anything during your Linux period? Ok, I'll help out. The answer to your question is: Are you writing them? No? See, that's why they're not there.
It's s smaller pond (Score:5, Informative)
For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program. Nothing wrong with that, but where are the Free/Libre alternatives?
Well, OS X is still a vastly smaller community than Windows, and I suspect that although Linux (desktop) users outnumber OSX users a disproportionate number of Linux users are also programmers. So its not surprising there's less choice. That also means that the money to be made from true "honesty box" shareware is probably smaller, so developers are more likely to require payment. Also, historically, Mac OS "Classic" developer tools and documentation cost an arm and a leg - of course, since OS X they've been free (or very cheap, for iOS), but the early days may have set community expectation. Finally - I don't think OS X is the easiest platform to develop for (however elegant) and OS X users tend to demand nice GUIs on everything.
However - its not all bad: First, OS X is Unix: Install "fink" or "macports" and you'll get access to a huge number of Free/Libre packages from the Linux/Unix world - albeit most of these are command-line or X11. If you don't want to roll your own, lots of major "free" projects offer OSX versions: (off the top of my head and at random: LibreOffice, Eclipse, InkScape, VirtualBox, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Mozilla) not to mention the stuff that is already present in OS X (Apache, PHP, Ruby, Python, Samba, CUPS...) I hope the latter list doesn't diminish too much as projects move to GPLv3.
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For OSX its the opposite. For every small task that i want to accomplish, i seem to need to pony up. Every small time programmer tries to make a buck with his little program.
You might want to look into using the NetBSD Package system, called pkgsrc [netbsd.org], on on OSX. [aydogan.net] The NetBSD community is used to porting things around, and the NetBSD package system itself has been ported to run on a lot of different OSes. It's a very source-based packaging system with a robust dependency chain.
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How does pkgsrc compare to ports?
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You have pretty much that, if you want your GUI application to run under X11 (well, some things are a bit different, but not that much).
But if you want native OS X applications, then the free alternatives are usually outnumbered by the shareware ones. Shareware has been strong in the Mac ecosystem since before OS X whereas it has been mostly non-existent in the Linux ecosystem.
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Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, you mean.... the majority of people aren't computer savvy????? STOP THE PRESSES!
I'm not sure why people find this so hard to understand. Most people in this world
a) Don't understand computers
b) Don't really give a shit about understanding computers
c) Simply just don't care
That goes whether they're running Windows or Mac -- and for those who use a Linux their more computer-savvy relatives installed on their computer. And these days I strongly expect more and more Linux users to be computer un-savvy. That's the whole point behind Canonical's ethos is to grow beyond people who enjoy recompiling kernels, after all.
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I've never understood why geeks don't appreciate useability..
I'm design oriented and can flip this around...I've never understood why I can't get a good grasp on basic programming logic. It seems it's a mindset of WYSIWYG vs. I'm-super-logical-and-need-to-do-this-myself.
I'm married to a programmer, so I live this dichotomy every day ;-)
Mind you neither are better than the other, just different. Of course, "design mode" IS better...for me...because I can get faster nicer looking results...FOR ME...but my wife can knock out 100 times the functionality in half the time
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Most CxOs don't care how it works or whether it really works at all, as long as it seems to work, looks good, and the colours agree with them.
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I always tell them I boycott apple and refuse to even try to learn, which I'm sure I could.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, it's all about Android.
Any hacker will tell you that the smartphone is the juiciest target of them all. Loaded with credit card and direct billing capacity, and with manufacturer-customized OS's that are rarely updated or patched, and thrown together under tight deadlines.
Smartphones are the low hanging fruit of the decade. And of that fruit, Android is the juiciest because of it's relative lack of manufacturer updates.
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That might be, but what precisely does that have to do with malware that affects an OS which can't be made to run on a handset?
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Around CS and math departments at universities, it seems to me that macs are becoming almost universally adopted. Same is true for the best back-end oriented tech companies (e.g., google). I think it's likely that there are two peaks for computer skill for mac users-- very competent folks who are willing to pay more for an easy-to-use unix laptop, and those less savvy folks that you seem to have more experience with.
Re:What a load of crap (Score:5, Funny)
Unpossible. Haven't you read the comments? Only people who are STUPID and have DEEP POCKETS use Macs. Neither of these describes college students.
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You don't have to tell me that. I'm just perpetuating the myth that Macs are a) expensive, b) elite, c) not used in CS programs. I guess you missed my sarcasm.
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The reason Mac users are now targetted is because they are less computer savvy,
*citation needed
have deep pockets
Probably because they have jobs and moved out of their mothers' basements.
and have been shown to be more educated than Windows users.
FTFY, which probably explains your second point as well
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20056815-71.html [cnet.com]
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What "type of issues" would that be? It's an OS that will let you install software, and there are people that are writing software to do bad things. How is that a fault of the OS?
Not quite. (Score:2)
There's no need to deflect attention,, this is not about Android, this is about Apple computers having the type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of.
Except an important aspect of the "type of issues for which PCs have always been made fun of" was the lack of a credible security model in "old" Windows, combined with Windows' huge albatross of "legacy" software. Even after the deficiency was rectified in NT and XP, this leads to users running as "admin" and/or being so bombarded with security warnings that they ignore them.
OSX and Linux use a "sudo" model which is fundamentally more secure than "old" windows or even XP in its typical "all users are supe
App store as a preventative? On a Mac? (Score:3)
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It'd be hard for Apple to make it mandatory, but at the very least they could simply alter their warranty terms to exclude any system using software installed outside their Mac app store. They could cripple the OS for "security" reasons. They could lock you out of online services. They could do a number of things which may not make it mandatory, but pretty much force you to do as they say anyway.
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It'd be hard for Apple to make it mandatory, but at the very least they could simply alter their warranty terms to exclude any system using software installed outside their Mac app store.
Then they're going to have to stop claiming POSIX compliance, et cetera. In the USA, the Magnuson-Moss warranty act prohibits any such shenanigans; if you follow the API then your programs meet specifications and therefore the warranty cannot be voided for running them.
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I don't know why it would
given that all they have to do is make it so.
They might catch a lot of flak from existing developers (the ones that weren't secretly let in on this change and thus already have their Apps for Mac ready to go on launch date) but those will readily adopt the Apps for Mac Store rather than see their software have zero market.
They have little to fear from the end-users, though:
On iOS people are already defending Apple's subscription framework due t
Astroturf. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice bit of Astroturf there.
So, we shouldn't worry about malware on the Mac because Oh LOOK here's some speculation about a completely different OS so don't pay attention to this story anymore!!!
And then the inevitable push from Apple to have total control over you system by the eventual restriction of apps to Apple market-approved programs only. Well that's sure a nice idea, too bad some of the Official apps like Safari also contain security weaknesses. So much for the safety of the walled garden approach. But it's not stopping them from trying, apparently.
No, I don't panic over Malware on my Mac. It has nothing to do with Android, or any other OS, or the App Market, or anything else this shit-for-an-article is talking about.
No need to panic, merely be more careful. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Correct, and this supports the one statement I always make when someone tells me that "their" OS is safe: prove it.
I run the 3 major ones (Linux, OSX and -now only occasionally- Windows), and only the Linux setup does not have any anti-virus and anti-trojan on it as it runs off read-only media. But on the Mac I have Kaspersky too. Not that it runs permanently, but I test anything that I'm interested in installing, and every so often I do a full check from an account with admin risks (my work account has n
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Little Snitch http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Snitch [wikipedia.org] (a software outgoing firewall for Mac OS X) is good too.
Have you ever found anything? - only Trojan.OSX.RSPlug. (changes Domain Name System (DNS) settings)
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MacOS is by design, with a greater degree of privilege and OS/Application separation, more resistant to attack than Microsoft Windows has been.
Could you describe that "design", please? I mean a few more specifics beyond the "it builds upon Unix" as if that is in itself a design. What separation are you referring to?
Re:No need to panic, merely be more careful. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes I have, and it's an attempt to retro-fit a useful security model to a system not designed to have such security from the beginning.
No, UAC uses the already user and process tokens which were in Windows NT from the get-go to strip any token of certain rights. Compared to OS X and unix whic were borne with 12 bits of security, the Windows model is much more granular. The fact that Windows model is built to secure any OS object - not just filesystem objects - makes it more suitable in this exact scenario. The *nix idea of allowing setuid or setgid "servers" to "drop from root" is thoroughly broken and has been the source of numerous vulnerabilities and exploits. Setuid is necessary because *nix does not have sufficiently granular privileges.
UAC is using capabilities which were already there, thanks to the initial design using tokens and handles.
Comparing Mac install to Android? (Score:2)
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I read TFA and the point I took from it was that OSX still isn't a juicy enough target, given other, more ubiquitous options. If you search my post history, however, you'll see I think that argument is totally bunk, because if I were a hacker, I'd go after the easiest target that has millions of users...it doesn't matter if one platform had 700,000 million users and the other only had 50 million...if the 50 million were easier to hack, I'd hack it. At some point the argument "there aren't enough Macs to be
OS X App Store a disappointment so far (Score:5, Informative)
So far, the OS X AppStore couldn't be called 'wildly popular' since its inception on January this year. Regularly, I checked my installed apps for availability in the App Store, because it allows for such easy updating. Lo and behold, only fairly trivial apps are there, the following list is not available in the App Store:
Now I agree that stuff like a bittorrent client (Vuze) and a network sniffing tool (KisMAC) would probably be refused in the App Store. But all in all, the OS X App Store could be called a disappointment so far.
Note that the Opera browser (which contains a bittorrent client) is in the App Store.
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That's because of the limits on the AppStore (Score:2)
As I understand the current rules, lots of the products you mention can't be delivered in the App Store because they need to be installed system-wide. E.g. you can get TextWrangler on the AppStore, if you want to install the command-line tools you have to download it from the website. Maybe these will go away with OS 10.7 (since the scuttlebutt is that 10.7 itself will be sold over the app store).
Also - GPL software is effectively barred from the App store.
OTOH, the App Store terms - use on any Mac compu
Have to disagree (Score:2)
Allow me to match my personal anecdote with yours. Since the Mac App Store opened I have been able to discover several new apps and also pick up a few for a much cheaper price than what was listed before they were posted on the store. I found the following apps I never knew where out there:
BarCalander
Numbers ($12 on the app store, was $70 in a box)
Mixxx
MonsterTrucksNitro
Pangea Arcade
Ringtones (got this for $1.99, was listed as $12.99 on their website)
VVVVVV (a very entertaining retro text-based game)
Virtu
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No, they'd rather give in to brick-and-mortar retailer extortion.
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Oh don't worry (Score:2)
Don't worry, huh? There are more Androids than Apple computers out there... While I believe some people store pretty important information on their phones and "pads", I tend to think that malware in a deskptop is a much more serious threat to people - maybe because most people store their most personal and sensitive information in desktops?
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Why You Shouldn't Panic Over Mac Malware (Score:5, Insightful)
That covers most people - many of whom actually should panic over Windows malware. But nobody should be too smug, not even Linux-only or BSD-only users, since every compromised machine (Windows or Mac or whatever) pollutes the internet commons.
Re:Panic? (Score:4, Insightful)
And you'll see why 2011 will be like "1984."
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The person who most passionately appears to criticise some ideology in his youth is most likely to follow it in his old age.
(Politicians doubly so.)
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[citation needed].
iPad (Score:2)
Information Purification App Devices.
Re:Now I am _really_ panicked (Score:4, Informative)
It's probably not a popular opinion here, but my experience with the Mac App store is very positive. It works well, no installation hassles, automatic upgrades,... and I have the impression that it drives the price down.
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Yeah, this story is complete bullshit. Apple is not going to lock down Mac OS X Lion. There's no way they can use this current trojan as an excuse to do something which makes no damned sense in the first place. Apple will not cripple Mac OS X. The only remotely possible thing is that 10.8 could have a security model that defaults to only allowing signed apps, but the user can toggle a System Preference to enable it. However, even this is of extremely low likelihood. Mac OS X and iOS are not the same OS. Wha
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Yeah, this story is complete bullshit. Apple is not going to lock down Mac OS X Lion.
I disagree. I think Apple probably will ship a locked-down version of OS X sometime in the next couple of years, and it'll be the default version of the OS. Yeah, you'll still be able to unlock it, but it may not be particularly easy - indeed, the ability to unlock may only be available in a separate "professional" version of the OS.
And I think given the stupidity of the average user (Mac, PC, Android, whatever), this is
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Maybe this part of a strategy to eventually get Macs back into the enterprise.
Hmmm. (Score:2)
Given that their current strategy is to include most of the facilities one would expect to find on a typical *nix box (of any stripe), that would be a big step to take. Since my use and support for Macs is
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To Apple, OS X is dead. Lion is the first push towards killing it.
From everything I'm seeing so far from Apple, They will be betting on iOS in the future for their OS offerings. It's got a huge userbase, has much more apps available, and has proven to scale very well to large format screens and processors.
I mean, when's the last time you saw a Steve Jobs E-mail that said "Sent from my iMac" instead of his iPad?
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I disagree. I think Apple probably will ship a locked-down version of OS X sometime in the next couple of years, and it'll be the default version of the OS.
So.. what, they're going to set OSX so that you can no longer have executables unless Apple okays them? You won't be able to run scripts anymore?
Sorry, I can't see this. OSX wasn't designed to support the idea of locking down where the software comes from like the iPhone/iPad has. When they make a laptop that uses iOS, however, then you'll see your 'locked down Mac'.
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It's not "crippling", it's revenue enhancement.
And, yes, they will certainly lock down OSX. You may still be able to buy a Mac Pro with an unlocked OS, but I'm willing to bet that soon all iMacs and MacBooks will be 100% walled garden.
Re:Now I am _really_ panicked (Score:5, Insightful)
And, yes, they will certainly lock down OSX.
Ahh, the inevitably incorrect Apple prediction. The most valuable tech company in the world that was predicted dead in 1997...the company that killed the floppy drive prematurely...the company that adopted USB too early...the company with the lame mp3 player.
You may still be able to buy a Mac Pro with an unlocked OS, but I'm willing to bet that soon all iMacs and MacBooks will be 100% walled garden.
That is possibly the most stupid prediction I've seen. Why would the company who is getting ready to consolidate OSX Server and OSX Home into ONE edition --OSX Lion-- start making different versions of the OS based on the user's hardware?
Keep predicting slashdotters, because my livelihood benefits from your terrible predictions.
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No, I make money on Apple technologies. The more your types make bad predictions, the more my salary increases every year.
And my apt examples of previous predictions of Apple doom are relevant to a discussion about how some random guy on slashdot thinks Apple will lock-in their OS. If anything, Apple predictions by the haters are usually the exact opposite of reality, and I expect that to hold true this time as well.
Re:Now I am _really_ panicked (Score:4, Insightful)
This is something Apple took the piss out of a couple years back, why would they start doing it with their own products?
To paraphrase SJ when he was introducing Mac OS 10.whateveritwas: "We have a Basic Edition that retails at $99. Moving up from that, you can purchase the Home Edition, also for $99, or the Business Edition for $99. And if you want the luxury of having all the features that we've built into Mac OS X, you can go all out and purchase the Ultimate Edition –at just $99".
They're not going to feature lock. This would just be daft.
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Apple purchased NeXT in 1996, not the other way around.
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I'd be willing to take you up on that bet. It would be suicide -- the number of people buying Macbooks (particularly Macbook Pros) would plummet. I use one because I like having a Unix with a tarty windowing system. Take that away and I put Linux on the machine instead and live with KDE or XFCE, and *everyone* working with me will do the same because we need the GNU toolchain to do our work and the ability to install niche software that's unlikely to appear in the App Store.
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It's not "crippling", it's revenue enhancement.
I first read that as "reverse enhancement," which strikes me as a great term for such theorized future features!
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The author was probably just pissed because he didn't get raptured and doesn't feel complete without some sort of end-of-days prediction.
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Apple will not cripple Mac OS X.
The immediate response that comes to mind is Apple 'crippled' iOS so why would a locked down Mac not work? Once Photoshop and some audio/video software is signed on would most people even notice? The average user spends most of their time on the web anyway.
That's why there are two OS's in the first place! Tech "writers" need to figure this out.
There are many reasons for having two OS's. (for instance at one point MS offered two fundamentally different lines of Windows before merging them). I personally don't think having a controlled software channel is the reason here. From Apple's standp
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Well, for me -- not being an artist, but a mathematician -- a Mac just perfoms best. Great huge screen, an OS which just works the way it should, a great TeX distribution, and good choice of programs for surfing the web, reading e-mails and organising my BibTeX references. I for myself have used Linux before and it does a great job but by now I feel more comfortable with my iMac...
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You fed the troll! Never feed the troll! But yeah, there indeed is "absolutely no reason to own an apple" for sure. Dammit, just feed the troll...
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Opps ... mea culpa... ;-)
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andLinux doesn't need a VM to run on Windows. Not that it doesn't make sense to get a Mac (I wouldn't know, almost never touched the thing, it's not even in my price range).
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Considering how hardcore anti-Apple haters are, I think it says a lot about OSX security that none of those dorks have ever managed to do any harm.
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Because I'm a Mac user, and therefore more educated, I have to tell you it's spelled "Baghdad".
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I guess I should have told you a ride a Vespa and like obscure bands too, since you didn't get it that it was a joke.
IAAAL, btw (I am an Arabic Linguist).
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1) hackers, malware makers will not find Apple interesting as they are too busy with android.
2) Apple's further monopoly on the distribution mechanisms for content and applications, creating an unphantomed money making machine, is their antivirus solution.
3) ...
4) Profit!
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This wasn't my contention, it was the so-called "tech writer's". His claim was, in part, that Android would sap away viruses from Mac OS X, because Android outnumbers the Mac. This conveniently ignores the fact that iOS *vastly* outnumbers Android. Yet somehow Android malware vastly outnumbers iOS malware...
In a strange way it does bolster his argument, but not in a way that flatters Android.
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There are more Android handsets therefore no-one could possibly want to write Mac malware? Nice "logic".
Heh. And they completely forgot about Windows.