[Gasification] Off topic - open source software to replace microsurf office

[William Carr]

On Feb 3, 2007, at 3:01 PM, Mike Weaver wrote:

> ALL computers are susceptible to virii, worms and so on.  Even Macs.


Certainly, if there WERE any  "wild"  viruses for OS X, that would be  
correct.


In actuality, there are perhaps one or two concept viruses that some  
smartalec wrote just to prove it was possible.


There has never been a case of an OS X User getting one though.


That doesn't stop IT writers from persistently claiming to the contrary.


I recall a claim from last Summer, that was actually a Trojan rather  
than a virus.


If you have to type your password for it to take affect, it's not a  
virus.    A true virus has to have the ability to spread itself, and  
activate itself.




As for exploits other than viruses, yes, the UNIX layer in OS X can  
be hacked by an expert, but not easily.


Obscure,  highly technical flaws can be "exploited"  if the hacker is  
extremely proficient, (and being on your local network helps  
tremendously).



It's like saying the computer in a Toyota Forerunner "can" be  
hacked.   Sure it can, if somebody gets under the hood, has the right  
equipment and knows exactly what to do.

Big difference from that and being able to hack a computer on the  
Internet or one driving down the street.

***

Apple is pretty good at finding and fixing such exploits.


Recently someone found a trick to crash Quicktime and theoretically  
allow a remote hacker to send illicit commands, but as I mentioned  
Apple patched that in, mmm, 23 days.

No Mac user was actually affected.


As far as the most dangerous Malware, viruses you could get just from  
reading your mail and then spread themselves automatically, there are  
none at all that affect modern Macs.


I've read about one Trojan program that was spread on P2P, supposedly  
a hacked copy of Adobe Photoshop that was only 400Kb.


It required the user to download it and install it with their  
password before it could wipe out the User's data folder.

Basically, if you're dumb enough to do that, no security package in  
the world could protect you.


But of course it couldn't replicate, and even if it DID email itself  
to another Mac user, they'd have to be crazy to type in their password.

Instead of a virus affecting one computer, then 10, then 100, then  
10,000, until all the PC's in America go down,  with Macs and their  
password protection it would be more like 1, 1, 1, 1 ...



It will be interesting to see if Vista is all M$oft says it is.      
After all, many, even most, of the best-paid software engineers in  
the world work in Redmond, WA.


With all that money, and five years of work, can Vista really stop  
the virus escalation?


It would be in their best interest, of course, to build a perfect  
OS.   There would be a stampede of users upgrading.   But I doubt  
they can do it.


M$ should have just bit the bullet and abandoned backward  
compatibility, as Apple did 5 years ago.    Older Mac apps worked via  
emulation, well enough for most purposes, until OS X versions came out.