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And this will get very little notice by "mainstream" online press outlets. It's too positive. So many tech. analysts are too wrapped up in their own cognitive dissonance.

OK, let's make sure the Media outlets hear about this result.

Other than what I presume would be the loss of use of the Mini for the test (or would it?), does anyone know why it ended after only 38 hours? I would have liked to have seen the results at 38 days or longer. And I agree, it'll be intersting to see what press coverage this test gets.

Mini computer, big cojones.

They have been exposed as the agenda drive org. that they are.....

ZDnet you are nothin but big, fat, stinky beatches baby!!!!!

The test ended because it was drawing so many hits and sucking bandwidth like crazy, the University IT dept had to be going nuts with all the activity.

From info I got at the site their bandwidth usage was roughly equal to streaming native DV out to the Internet, 3.75 Megabytes per second.

There were also getting hammered by a couple of DoS (denial of service) attacks.

The good news is, nobody was able to mod the mini and even with all the traffic slamming it the machine never went down.

Pretty amazing for a $499 computer running a stock OS without any 3rd party protection software.

Lets have a Reality Check on this, get a University to put up a Windows box and see if it can be exploited!

and...breathe

Loving It!

The theory that the media is too easy on Apple can now be laid to rest because we all know this story won't see the light of day. It is only when supposed security "flaws" are found that the media cares. I wish people would realize that mac users aren't zealots they just have to defend their platform from obvious media bias.

Now, let's see if Cnet or ZDnet will even mention this results.
This in contrast with other studies that show that the average Windows XP PC will be hacked in their firts 30 mins online.
Anti-Mac advocates shouldn't throw stones at our ceiling when their's is made of glass, and a cheapone at that...!

None of the black hats truly responded because of the conditions of the test.

Only a fool gives up their secrets.


Dave Schroeder created this publicty stunt and to insure it succeeded he came right out and stated it would be monitored, ip's recorded and Apple told of any successful hack methods.

Really fine way to temp people who really know what their doing.

Jacka$$.

I suffered from a DOS attack a long time ago. And switched to the Mac! (back when DOS meant amber screens, command lines, some pretty clever ASCII art and 300 baud was the norm)

Take that CNET. You and your phony stories - anti-Mac and Pro Windows selves.

I think it's time for CNET to eat some crow.

How do you temp people? Force them to take part time jobs?

Macs: Thanks.

macdude is an idiot...
you have to sign up to get on there..
im sure some guy who could hack osx was just like.. no.. cant do it.. gotta look out for my pride.
Right!

MacDude - you are one big joke.

Go away.

The ZDNet stunt was for bragging rights, not an attempt for monetary gain, which is always the excuse given for a lack of interest in trying to crack OS X, as there are fewer machines out there to crack and exploit for monetary gain.

If the temptation to be the first to successfully compromise OS X using a fairly real-world scenario isn't tempting enough for the blackhat community, what the hell does it take?

Kudos to UW!

So much for the Mafiasoft lapdog, FUD rakers!

I now very, very skeptical of anything I read in newspapers and other journals, on ANY topic. Who knows what their agenda is?

Dear MDN,

Can you please go Web 2.0 like Digg.com so we can KILL bullshit from the trolls like "MacDude"?

With all the ad revenue you get, it should be feasible.

Cheers!
MacMania

Your being conned.

Think about it most Mac users upgrade their operating system from a previously insecure version.

Right?

Marty, you're right; I did, anyway. It was known as XP Pro.

CNet is actually reporting this story and mentioning the earlier test was rigged to be too easy, which surprises me.

I was just reading it but I had to leaf by two other FUD stories to get to it, One titled "You hate your iPod" and "MacBook Pro comes up short" in order to get to it.

CNet is nothing more than a Microsoft FUD machine and anything they say should be taken with a grain of salt.

Yeah, they could have had a stock standard PC with all the MS dross included sitting beside the Mini and see what happened?

Ahhhh.mmm.... just as I thought. Put a real test out there and suddenly that easy 30 minute hack job became impossible! I myself had no doubt that no one would get in even if he left the test go on until the end of the year!

So much for the myth ZDNET story that OSX is not secure. Maybe next time they'll get all the facts before they write there fairy tales!

There were also getting hammered by a couple of DoS (denial of service) attacks.

The whole University network got slammed because of a "Slashdot effect."

It happens a lot because of all the hit traffic that site recieves daily.

http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/07/1324256&from=rss

What happens to Windows XP "out of the box" in 38 hours? Nice to see a comparison... Is there one around?

Can you please go Web 2.0 like Digg.com so we can KILL bullshit from the trolls like "MacDude"?

Your the troll, I was making a valid point that the test was flawed.

If you want to be moderated to death go to Apple Discussions or go to MacSlash and listen to the echos.

Echos don't click ads.

Can you please go Web 2.0 like Digg.com so we can KILL bullshit from the trolls like "MacDude"?
MacMania

Let it be MM, it allows freedom of expression so that you too can say whatever you want regardless if we agree with you or not-
Does the term :democratic" ring a bell?

The ZDNet article did not "fail to mention" that local access was given. It's mentioned in the second freakin' paragraph!

For those who didn't read the actual article (probably quite a lot of people judging from all the responses), the second paragraph reads:

"Participants were given local client access to the target computer and invited to try their luck."

MDN, any idea what local client access means? It means they were given a local account. Any UNIX sys admin with half a brain should have caught that.

So everyone please, stop saying that they didn't mention that local access was given. That disclaimer is in the first 100 words.

MDN Magic Word "final"

MacDude made a valid point "the test was flawed." If I had the ability to hack a Mac there is now way I would do it during a test that is monitored, the IP's are recorded and Apple being notified of successful hacks. But that's just me.

"The ZDNet article did not "fail to mention" that local access was given. It's mentioned in the second freakin' paragraph!"

Guess you were late to the party.

That second paragraph you refer to was ADDED AFTER the article was released and picked up by AP and others. The original story made absolutely NO MENTION of the fact that this machine was hacked from the INSIDE by someone with USER ACCESS.

It was inferred that the Mac was on the Internet when it was brought down by a hacker from the outside, in under 30 minutes.

BIG DIFFERENCE!

Maybe it is you that should bother digging a little deeper before sounding off eh?

Literate - The original ZDNet article did NOT have that paragraph in it. It was only after they got raked over the coals on their forum did they go back and add that paragraph. But by then a great deal of damage was already done.

I understand the explanation given for shortening the challenge period, but the unfortunate side effect of that is that it allows naysayers to claim that the challenge didn't run it's course and was pulled ahead of time.

Perhaps somebody could arrange for a similar challenge to be made on a Mac where it would be acceptable to leave it running for longer while attracting so much attention.

Where is the ZDnet 'News Alert'!??

Z

uh oh....

going to: http://test.doit.wisc.edu/

now says:

"Yesterday we discovered the Mac OSX "challenge" was not an activity authorized by the UW-Madison. Once the test came to the attention of our CIO, she ended it. The site, test.doit.wisc.edu, will be removed from the network tonight. Our primary concern is for security and network access for UW services. We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused to the community. "

Umm, I'm no expert on hacking. But, wouldn't a competent hacker have a relatively easy time masking his IP address? If I'm right, fear of discovery due to IP logging would not be a disincentive for would-be challengers.