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Hard to believe that people and corporations tolerate this worm, virus, and spyware crap so they can use Microsoft Windows. Why? Maybe it is an illness?

Dec 03, 08 - 11:01 am Comment from: Predrag

Yes. A mental one.

Dec 03, 08 - 11:02 am Comment from: Predrag

MDN calls it "The Stockholm Syndrome" (when a hostage victim sympathises with their hostage taker).

Dec 03, 08 - 11:11 am Comment from: JAYGEE

I look forward to the day there are viruses/worms/botnets effecting OS X. If Mac OS X were on 90% of the worlds machines, I'm sure there will be a few dangerous viruses/worms/botnets going around still.

No software is 100% secure. Just because OS X is more secure than Windows, doesn't mean it is impenetrable.

Dec 03, 08 - 11:20 am Comment from: Forrest, Forrest Gump

@JAYGEE:

Aha!
The ol' "good" idea of security through obscurity mith!

You are soooo informed.

"Why? Maybe it is an illness?"

No, thousands of IT jobs depend on it.

Dec 03, 08 - 11:31 am Comment from: HolyMackerel

But MS says Vista is the most secure version of Windows ever and everyone is buying it so just wait and these botnets will dry up and disappear so we won't need a virus checker ever again.

Our company is so confident in the security of Vista we had all the virus checkers removed and boy did our new PCs fly… until twenty minutes later when they mysteriously went slow again and the network traffic spiked all day. I blame the networks.

(Fingers crossed behind back)

Dec 03, 08 - 11:34 am Comment from: Superior Being

JAYGEE,

I suggest that you learn the difference between "effecting" and "affecting" before using either to convey your next illogical fantasy.

Dec 03, 08 - 11:48 am Comment from: Metryq

JAYGEE,

aside from the points already made above, yes it is possible to crack one Mac with a trojan. But that's as far as the malware will get -- unless someone else on another Mac is dimwitted enough to bite at the "social engineering" bait.

Jaygee, google UNIX and bone up on it. Once informed, go ahead and post.

Dec 03, 08 - 01:08 pm Comment from: JAYGEE

It doesn't matter how secure software is. There will always be holes in software.

Windows is a serious global threat and the media needs to acknowledge that. I guarantee that the nightly news will report this as a "computer virus" and say "computer users" are at risk. NO NO NO. It's a Windows virus and Windows users are at risk. Computers don't get viruses; Windows does.

JayGee-PeeCee: It doesn't matter how secure software is.

ok.................?

Read Growl above. Pretty much sums it up.

Dec 03, 08 - 03:12 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ JAYGEE

> I look forward to the day there are viruses/worms/botnets effecting OS X...

Until there is real world evidence for such a threat, such statements are meaningless. And why do you "look forward" to it? Envy, I guess.

> No software is 100% secure...

I agree. Mac OS X is not "impenetrable" to user stupidity, if they fall for a trojan and knowingly run a program and give authorization (user name and password) to install some malware.

But that's a case-by-case, person-by-person, security issue. A "virus" requires no direct user action (and stupidity) to self-propagate from system to system. That's why there are no Mac spambots. Because it's not worth the effort when the long-hanging fruit is Windows, not Apple. It has nothing to do with market share. Even if Mac OS X market share was 50%, criminals would still go after the softer target.

Using a Mac on the internet is like parking your car in a lot full of unlocked vehicles. The bad guys might be able to work out a way in, but why would they bother.

I love PC users.

Dec 03, 08 - 04:32 pm Comment from: Brulek

Blind freddy knows that Unix is fundamentally far more secure than the hopeless spaghetti code miasma that is microsh*t windows. One was designed and written properly with security embedded from the ground up, not a tottering edifice of bad code driven by expedience, profit and greed with piss weak security added on top as an afterthought (becase it was too difficult?).

Lets face it, at it currently stands microsh*t would do better to start again with security as a design consideration from the get go, rather than trying to shoe horn it into the mess that is windows. Perhaps they should support a legacy version of windows for five/ten years of so (like they could have with xp) as they moved people over onto a completely new windows platform. Vista could have been a right turn for microsh*t into the realm of computing paradigms of now, rather than those of the 80's where they still seem to be mired like a dying dinosaur thrashing about in the mud of a brave new world.

Microsh*t missed the opportunity. Big time. They couldn't bite the bullet...Apple did with os 9 to osX...and look at the result. They built on a great platform, which seems just to be getting better with each iteration. Windows on the other hand seems to be getting worse. Sooner or later hey have to let the past go. The world has changed. Microsh*t hasn't. Time to die....

Dec 03, 08 - 05:26 pm Comment from: MacRaven

Agree with Brulek.

Rather than admitting there are contemporary solutions to their problems, PC users prefer to ride the Dinosaur!

Hey, MDN Let's get a picture of Ballmer saddled up on a big lumbering Brontosaurus waving a cowboy hat!

Ride that baby into the ground! Whoohoo!

Microsoft should just write a Windows 7 GUI that runs on the Darwin kernel.

Dec 03, 08 - 08:17 pm Comment from: ken1w

@ PXT

> Using a Mac on the internet is like parking your car in a lot full of unlocked vehicles. The bad guys might be able to work out a way in, but why would they bother.

That's the best analogy I've heard.

Macs have another advantage is that it tell users in understandable language that something is being download so they can stop the stop the problems, or have an idea when the problem started.

One big problem for Windows is that kids learn programing on windows. By the time people learn to code for Macs they have gotten laid, a job, and a life. They no longer have something to prove to the world. Its not that people asshole hackers don't want Macs to have worms and viruses, they just don't know how to write them.

This may change. With iPhone SDK being free to download and easy to work with educators will start using it as programing 101. Then they will discover that they do not need to buy software to code on a Mac unlike Windows. The next generation of kids could learn how to program on a Mac. This will make Macs more popular, but more open to assholes.

I need to wake up.

Macs have another advantage is that it tell users in understandable language that something is being download so they can stop the problems, or have an idea when the problem started.

One big problem for Windows is that kids learn programing on windows. By the time people learn to code for Macs they have gotten laid, a job, and a life. They no longer have something to prove to the world. Its not that asshole hackers don't want Macs to have worms and viruses, they just don't know how to write them.

This may change. With iPhone SDK being free to download and easy to work with educators will start using it as programing 101. Then they will discover that they do not need to buy software to code on a Mac unlike Windows. The next generation of kids could learn how to program on a Mac. This will make Macs more popular, but more open to assholes.