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This is supposed to be how to invite to google+.

Here's the ZDNet article about using Yahoo as an exit.

"Also, note that Apple is only suing Samsung for producing a device that looks a lot like the iPhone in many more ways than just a rectangular icon grid."

Such as, say, the phone's shape?

Apple isn't suing Google over the Android UI, just Samsung for making the Android UI look more like the iPhone UI than other Android phones.

Which particular aspects of the iPhone UI do you think should be owned exclusively by Apple? If Apple were to sell its UI as a product (just the UI, not the operating system), what would the sales brochure look like?

Good thing you were able to find a Samsung phone that doesn't look like an iPhone, rather than looking at every news article about the suit. Like this one. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/yowza-apple-hits-samsung-with-lawsuit-over-iphone-clones/12360

Plus I've had Microsoft hosted Exchange for almost 2 years now and can't remember a single outage.

I call bullshit. I have had BPOS with my company for almost a year and have experienced several outages (I am keeping track because this was upper managments call against the advice of IT):

22 June 2011
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-confirms-bpos-cloud-outage
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/bpos_outage/

10-13 May 2011
http://www.katacinta.net/cinta/microsoft-online-outage-may-10/
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/386384/outage_hits_hosted_exchange_customers/
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/hosted-exchange-customers-hit-service-outages-981
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216697/Microsoft_explains_recent_hosted_e_mail_outages

6 March 2011:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesexchange/thread/7017abf4-a9d9-4c08-85ac-f66912124493/
19 October 2010
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesannouncements/thread/e72e8707-7457-4737-b246-2598769e54cf/
3 & 7 September 2010 & 23 Aug 2010
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-bpos-down-for-90-minutes-second-outage-in-a-month/7302
http://mcpmag.com/articles/2010/09/10/microsoft-reports-major-bpos-outages-slas-affected.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/09/08/meeting-your-and-our-own-expectations.aspx
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-apologizes-for-spate-of-recent-online-services-outages/7337

Plus I've had Microsoft hosted Exchange for almost 2 years now and can't remember a single outage.

I call bullshit. I have had BPOS with my company for almost a year and have experienced several outages (I am keeping track because this was upper managments call against the advice of IT):

22 June 2011
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/microsoft-confirms-bpos-cloud-outage
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/06/23/bpos_outage/

10-13 May 2011
http://www.katacinta.net/cinta/microsoft-online-outage-may-10/
http://www.techworld.com.au/article/386384/outage_hits_hosted_exchange_customers/
http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/hosted-exchange-customers-hit-service-outages-981
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9216697/Microsoft_explains_recent_hosted_e_mail_outages

6 March 2011:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesexchange/thread/7017abf4-a9d9-4c08-85ac-f66912124493/
19 October 2010
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/onlineservicesannouncements/thread/e72e8707-7457-4737-b246-2598769e54cf/
3 & 7 September 2010 & 23 Aug 2010
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-bpos-down-for-90-minutes-second-outage-in-a-month/7302
http://mcpmag.com/articles/2010/09/10/microsoft-reports-major-bpos-outages-slas-affected.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/msonline/archive/2010/09/08/meeting-your-and-our-own-expectations.aspx
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-apologizes-for-spate-of-recent-online-services-outages/7337

You're saying it wrong. On the iPhone and every other phone except Android, you could send texts by going to:

1. Grip the phone "properly."
2. Select SMS app.
3. Select recipient(s).
4. Type message.
5. Send.

On Android:

1. Select SMS app.
2. Select recipient(s).
3. Type message.
4. Send.
5. Cross your fingers and hope that it actually goes to the people that you sent it to.

This Top500 comes in handy after these:

http://www.brightsideofnews.com/news/2011/6/24/amd-insiders-speak-out-bapco-exit-is-an-excuse-for-poor-bulldozer-performance.aspx
Following our coverage on AMD's exit from BAPCo and blog post made by Nigel Dessau, we got a surprising call from the person at the heart of AMD which we had to check out. After the end of an eye opening conversation, we started calling our sources in order to confirm if the claims made by an obviously disappointed engineer hold any substance. We talked to our usual sources inside the company, as well as with a number of sources at their key partners and customers. The odd part was that all of our contacts said the same thing - the story checks out. Thus, we bring you the modestly edited version of our conversation, filed with comments.

AMD's BAPCo Exit is a Smokescreen
First and foremost, we started the discussion over the blog Nigel Dessau, AMD's Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer wrote, stating clear reasons why AMD decided to leave the BAPCo and why AMD considers SYSmark 2012 an invalid benchmark.

"When I read Nigel's blog and saw the press release from BAPCo it made me sick because our CMO talks about transparency and honesty and it's all smoke and mirrors. At the end of the day, we actively had internal teams and external organizations hired to promote/discredit SYSmark. Not because it was inaccurate, but because it is accurate. Back in the original Athlon 64 and Opteron days, when we were winning in SYSmark we were heavily promoting it in the public sector, who in turn used it as a benchmark on which they based many of their purchases on. It was us who actually got BAPCo and SYSmark inside several government tenders to win orders measured in tens of thousands of systems. SYSmark was used to show how our K8 processors were beating Intel's NetBurst."

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/why-did-amd-quit-bapco-board-poor-bulldozer-performance-on-sysmark-2012-or-intel-bias/6230
The latest dust-up in the AMD-versus-Intel never-ending conflict concerns BAPCo, a consortium of tech companies that releases a set of benchmarks, including, most importantly, SYSmark. This week, AMD quit the BAPCo board, and speculation over why has run rampant ever since.

Officially, AMD claims that the latest version of SYSmark, the just-released SYSmark 2012, fails to keep up with current computing trends and ignores the increasing role the GPU plays in computing tasks. Since AMD is trying to differentiate itself from Intel by boosting the GPU in its new chip designs, SYSmark’s reliance on just the CPU, in AMD’s opinion, doesn’t reflect everyday computing performance.

That’s the official word. But conspiracy theorists think there’s more to the story than just that. Most sensationally, Bright Side of News has run a piece with startling claims from “unnamed sources,” most notably that AMD decided to pull out of BAPCo because its forthcoming Bulldozer chips delivered underwhelming performance on SYSmark 2012, and that the company has spent resources toward surreptitiously undermining BAPCo through negative PR campaigns. According to the piece, AMD’s paranoia about SYSmark is related to the benchmark’s role in securing government contracts and the chip company’s fear that it won’t win new contracts with poor SYSmark 2012 results.

Coincidence?

While the idea of using an Apple-like magnetic connector is cool, there are a lot of issues:

(1) Some of us do work where having strong magnets laying around on a desk is a bad idea. (2) The Apple MagSafe adapters have been highly unreliable, and Apple won't license to third-parties, so you're stuck buying another Apple adapter which will then fail. (3) There can be reports of metal fragments and other magnetic particles sticking to the plug and causing problems.

Citation needed.

#1 - compass calibrators

#2 - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/mobile-gadgeteer/apple-magsafe-failure-prevents-work-from-getting-done/276

#3 - http://www.corbisimages.com/stock-photo/rights-managed/BE052647/huge-magnet-picking-up-scrap-metal/?ext=1

Long ago being in 2010? It was supported for 3 years. Far longer than most Android phones since most never get an update let alone Android has only been on the market for 3 years.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/apple/apple-dropping-support-for-iphone-2g/6578

As for Apple and it's OS support, they typically continue to support 2 concurrent versions of the OS with a little overlap into a third for security patches. When it comes to MS and XP, they tried multiple times to kill the support early but were unable to due to poor adoption rates of Vista, especially in the corporate sector.

C++ is the most cross-platform language available. You can write native apps on Windows, iOS, Android, WebOS, RIM's OS, Nokia's flavor of the month, etc

MSFT is now looking to update their C++ offering by renaming it WinC++. See for yourself: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/what-is-winc-and-how-does-it-figure-in-microsofts-bid-to-make-tools-a-2-billion-business/9359

In the US they use your phone or in nav system.
http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdropping-tool/150467
With the new GPS rules and very friendly telcos, expect ever more data to be available to the FBI with less oversight.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/us/13fbi.html ie. expect to be of interest after 'five meetings of a group" and enjoy terms like "preliminary investigation", “proactively” ect.
Or just fix a device to your car as a nice and legal "tracking beacon" that lasts for months.
China did good with the use of the case via the resonant cavity idea and having lots of legal electronics that phone home by default.
No need to hope the suspects bring their own always on Apple/Google/MS toys.
Catching 100% was just silly. Learn from the US gun walking efforts http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20040189-503544.html - track that shipment.
Then use passive 'bad luck" at the end or COINTELPRO to weaken the group as they hunt for an informer.

C++ is undergoing a renaissance at Microsoft. Someone said that it makes sense as the platform team at MS doesn't like .NET and so doesn;t really give a fig what the dev team is trying to push. I guess the Mobile team is pushing Silverlight but no-one cares about them either. It sounds about right knowing Microsoft's huge staff and the infighting between teams.

I welcome a return to C++ on Microsoft platform, .NET is nice enough but it always felt a bit 'VB' to me, and besides, I have a huge amount of code to keep going (can't afford to rewrite it all). In any case, it does appear MS is moving away from its ".NET only, everywhere" approach to a more heterogenous development platform. I'm sure C# will be in there somewhere, even if WPF and Silverlight are relegated to the attic to keep VB and Foxpro company.

So yeah, everything just keeps going round and round.

They wouldn't be able to block tethering (which of course they can unblock for a fee) if you could install some random proxy.

Then there's apps. An app store isn't going to make money if you allow users to install cheaper alternatives. Locking down the OS is the cornerstone of that strategy, and there's not much point locking down the OS if users can install another.

"I guess you heard that Florian Mueller is at it again. He made strong claims of a smoking gun regarding alleged copyright infringement of Oracle files by Google. Well, in the cold light of day, some of the media who printed it without fact checking are now awakening to the news that the news wasn't as reliable or unchallengeable as they assumed". link

"The actual damages Oracle is demanding are unclear, since many portions of the latest five-page document are blacked out of view in the publicly available version filed Monday in federal court".

"After years of pretending to be a friend of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), IBM now shows its true colors. IBM breaks the number one taboo of the FOSS community and shamelessly uses its patents against a well-respected FOSS project, the Hercules mainframe emulator", Florian Mueller

"IBM has no intention of asserting its patent portfolio against the Linux kernel, unless of course we are forced to defend ourselves", IBM

Good thing that's not why Oracle bought Sun, then. (Hint: multi-billion dollar (quarterly) hardware business, the entire Java stack, Solaris, etc)

That "multi-billion dollar (quarterly) hardware business" doesn't exist, and hasn't for quite some time. Last year, for example (and remember - this is post-scquisition), they dropped 32% while everyone rose 17%,The actual numbers,

Oracle doesn't "own" Java - they own the trademark, one implementation, and the conformance test suites to certify other implementations as to be able to use the name Java instead of, say, IcedTea.

As for Solaris, growth is tied to those (declining) Sun hardware sales. One reason why Oracle has their own linux distro.

The Motorola CEO is completely correct. The fact that submitting an application to the fragmented Android Market requires no inspection or vetting by gatekeepers means that very poorly written software will get in. Programming on Android is hard as it is due to the extreme OS versioning and hardware fragmentation and the multiple states that an Android application must cycle through (often leaving dangerously dangling application threads). In addition, Google has made Android closed-source and soundly prohibits common folks from changing the Android 3 source code, which definitely goes against the very nature of FOSS. But I suppose Google thinks this is correct in order to fight against the extreme fragmentation of the Android platform running almost a dozen major OS versions on fragmented hardware. So basically the Android platform is an excessively fragmented, closed-source platform, with thousands of poorly-written applications in a wild open marketplace. But poorly-written applications may just be the least of one's problems (in addition to the fragmentation) because progressively more malware is seeping into the applications there. Fortunately, the malware writers also have to deal with the extreme fragmentation, so thankfully that is keeping them in check. And in the end, an integrated platform (such as iOS) wins because I don't drive my German sports sedan because it's fragmented and mediocre, and I don't think many Amercians do, either.

The Motorola CEO is completely correct. The fact that submitting an application to the fragmented Android Market requires no inspection or vetting by gatekeepers means that very poorly written software will get in. Programming on Android is hard as it is due to the extreme OS versioning and hardware fragmentation and the multiple states that an Android application must cycle through (often leaving dangerously dangling application threads). In addition, Google has made Android closed-source and soundly prohibits common folks from changing the Android 3 source code, which definitely goes against the very nature of FOSS. But I suppose Google thinks this is correct in order to fight against the extreme fragmentation of the Android platform running almost a dozen major OS versions on fragmented hardware. So basically the Android platform is an excessively fragmented, closed-source platform, with thousands of poorly-written applications in a wild open marketplace. But poorly-written applications may just be the least of one's problems (in addition to the fragmentation) because progressively more malware is seeping into the applications there. Fortunately, the malware writers also have to deal with the extreme fragmentation, so thankfully that is keeping them in check. And in the end, an integrated platform (such as iOS) wins because I don't drive my German sports sedan because it's fragmented and mediocre, and I don't think many Amercians do, either.

You made a lot of good points but some are off. Touch doesn't seem tacked on in the tablet UI, though I don't know well it will work with a mouse, the UI seems well made with touch first. Have to disagree with Metro not being good. It's a new chrome less paradigm leaving behind the window decorations found in http://img.zdnet.com/techDirectory/_PROGMAN.GIF

Also, why post anonymously? Get an account!

Android Inc. founded in 2003

Android, Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, United States in October, 2003 by Andy Rubin (co-founder of Danger),[23] Rich Miner (co-founder of Wildfire Communications, Inc.),[24] Nick Sears (once VP at T-Mobile),[25] and Chris White (headed design and interface development at WebTV) [26] to develop, in Rubin's words "...smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences."[27] Despite the obvious past accomplishments of the founders and early employees, Android Inc. operated secretively, admitting only that it was working on software for mobile phones.[27]

Wow, are you retarded? None of that refutes the fact that Android was a new operating system when it came out. Unlike your precious Windows Phone 7.

How about you post with your account or get one instead of hiding behind AC?

What, start an account so I can "officially" call you an ignorant idiot. Whatever.

This is a new low for revisionist history on Slashdot. It's just a lot of circle jerking and hating ignorant fanboys here and you and your GP post are prime examples of that.

Revisionist, your ass. How them grapes taste?

What the hell? Everything is a new OS when it comes out, just like babies. Android version 1 sucked and was being build for blackberry style keyboard devices. Then iPhone comes out and Google just copies it. Atleast WP7 has a new UI paradigm whereas Android and iPhone look like the next iteration of this --> http://img.zdnet.com/techDirectory/_PROGMAN.GIF

And when you mean OS, if you mean the kernel as it's known it tech circles, the kernel started in 1991 and Android dev started in 2003. WP7 has zero backwards compatibility.

See subject-line, & this quote from yourself:

"I would not call the malware situation on OS X anywhere near rampant. Rampantly reported, maybe." - by Stupendoussteve (891822) on Wednesday June 01, @10:49PM (#36315642)

OK Then - Refer to this list of malware related incidents, + security flaws on MacOS X then (over 50++ of them easily & I have more than this IF you would like them as well):

---

MacOS X - Techworld.com - Third worm hits Mac OS X:

http://www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?NewsID=5429

MacOS X - Slashdot Apple Story | Apple Quietly Goes After Mac Trojan With Update:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/10/06/19/1811203/Apple-Quietly-Goes-After-Mac-Trojan-With-Update

MacOS X - Slashdot | Worm Threat Forces Apple to Disable Software?:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/08/03/1451217.shtml

MacOS X - Slashdot | Two Trojans For Mac OS X:

http://it.slashdot.org/it/08/06/25/0032226.shtml

MacOS X - Slashdot | Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/18/1919224

MacOS X - First Rogue Cleaning Tool for Mac - F-Secure Weblog : News from the Lab:

http://www.f-secure.com/weblog/archives/00001362.html

MacOS X - Mac malware authors release a new, more dangerous version | ZDNet:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385

MacOS X - Mac OS X backdoor Trojan, now in beta? | Naked Security:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/02/26/mac-os-x-backdoor-trojan-now-in-beta/

MacOS X - Mac Malware Evolves - No Install Password Required - Slashdot:

http://it.slashdot.org/story/11/05/26/1355243/Mac-Malware-Evolves---No-Install-Password-Required

MacOS X - New 'MACDefender' Malware Threat for Mac OS X - Mac Rumors:

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/02/new-macdefender-malware-threat-for-mac-os-x/

MacOS X - New Backdoor Mac OS X Trojan Surfaces - Slashdot:

http://slashdot.org/submission/1485038/New-Backdoor-Mac-OS-X-Trojan-Surfaces

MacOS X - New Mac fake-defenders similar to Windows scareware â The Register:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/05/20/mac_scareware_win_rogue_similarities/

MacOS X - OS X Crimeware Kit Emerges MacDEFENDER- Slashdot:

http://apple.slashdot.org/story/11/05/02/2120203/OS-X-Crimeware-Kit-Emerges

MacOS X - OSX/Pinhead-B Trojan (OSX_HELLRTS.A, OSX/HellRTS.D) - Sophos security analysis:

http://www.sophos.com/security/analyses/viruses-and-spyware/osxpinheadb.html

MacOS X - Fake security software catches out Apple owners:

htt

You can become infected on Windows just by surfing the wrong website

I'll just leave this right here: Safari/MacBook First to Fall at pwn2own.

But to say it's about to have the same level of infections as Windows?

Lets look at this year's Pwn2Own. Oh look, Safari and OSX hacked with the ability to run arbitrary code off of a website (which could include fetching a shellscript and running it). What about previous years?

Really, where the heck do you mac users get this sense of assurance from? For years, people have been telling you that the platform is no protection from 3rd party security vulnerabilities (java, acrobat, flash); and for years we've been saying that no platform is bug free; and for years we've watched as Mac after Mac falls in Pwn2Own to exploits which "just work".

We've also been saying that "once Mac gets a big enough market share, malware vendors will set their sights on Apple". And guess what, its starting now. Why are you so sure that they wont start using those no-click exploits commercially? And the real question of the day, what security features are you so confident in from OSX that you think Windows 7 and Vista dont have?

If you don't want to be censored, if you object to being censored, you AUTOMATICALLY lose all rights to censor others, EVEN IF those others are advocating censorship.

So does that work both ways? Since this "PornHarms" group got someone else's page pulled from facebook, do they lose their right to object to being censored?

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Aww, a bunch of liberal ninnies telling other people how to live their lives got cut down, boo hoo. (I'm crying because they got their group back up.)

Not necessarily. It's happened before that a group maliciously reports a page to get Facebook to take it down. From the article:

But we weren't anti-porn, and conservatives on the page "Porn Harms" rallied their page members to report us to get the page taken down. It worked. On the "Porn Harms" page, they openly celebrated and discussed their successful bogus takedown of our page.

(Note: I have no idea if that link from the article is work safe, and I'm not about to try it and find out. But I figured I'd leave it in anyway.)

...Wait a minute. "Porn Harms." Why does that sound familiar?

I expect that in this case, their page was in fact maliciously removed - as a response to their getting an actual porn page pulled.

HOT OFF THE PRESSES, these malware makers "upgraded" this malware apparently:

---

Mac malware authors release a new, more dangerous version:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385

---

So, the MacOS X security guide Apple puts out that I told other repliers here to look into & apply in my initial reply to they here:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2184872&cid=36240972

?

That now holds even more true NOW, than it did before.

---

"Windows being Windows was a problem and not just Windows being a majority" - by insertwackynamehere (891357) on Wednesday May 25, @11:52AM (#36239684)

To an extent, perhaps, because things like DEP, ASR, & UAC were not in place... but, you COULD secure Windows NT-based OS before VISTA, & very well (to the point users told me they had systems keeping going for YEARS after applying what's below that I wrote up since 1997), as long as you applied & followed the guidelines I listed here:

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22HOW+TO+SECURE+Windows+2000%2FXP%22&go=&form=QBRE

Securing Windows better, 2000/XP/Server 2003/VISTA/Win7/Server 2008? It's doable - just like it is for MacOS X, & yes, even SeLinux bearing Linux distros.

(Worth doing & taking 1-2 hours of your time to do yourself, & do right - Because, after all: It's YOUR time & money folks!)

APK

P.S.=> Still, BOTTOM-LINE HERE:

Face it Mac Folks: Your time enjoying "security-by-obscurity" that MOST *NIX variants enjoy, is probably over, for MacOS X (and certainly for ANDROID, a Linux variant) - there'll be no more 'resting on your laurels' (not that they ever were, it was only lack of largescale usage that protected you)...

So, NOW?

NOW, we'll see how "secure & safe" vs. 'malware-in-general' MacOS X really is (it's not, & in fact, less so than Microsoft's Windows 7 is, not only because Win7 has ASRL built in & MacOS X does not in shipping models, but also because MS has had decades of experience fighting & patching vs. it, whereas the *NIX camp has not (even though the 1st worm was on *NIX (morris worm))... apk

HOT OFF THE PRESSES:

---

Mac malware authors release a new, more dangerous version:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/mac-malware-authors-release-a-new-more-dangerous-version/3385

---

So, the MacOS X security guide Apple puts out that I told you that you ought to look into & apply in my initial reply to you here:

http://apple.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2184872&cid=36240972

?

That now holds even more true NOW, than it did before.

APK

P.S.=> Face it Mac Folks: Your time enjoying "security-by-obscurity" that MOST *NIX variants enjoy, is probably over - no more 'resting on your laurels' (not that they ever were, it was only lack of largescale usage that protected you)...

So, NOW?

NOW, we'll see how "secure & safe" vs. 'malware-in-general' MacOS X really is (it's not, & in fact, less so than Microsoft's Windows 7 is because MS has had decades of experience fighting & patching vs. it, whereas the *NIX camp has not (even though the 1st worm was on *NIX (morris worm))... apk

If you'd bothered to google this or look at the mac defender story at all you would know they have been instructed Do Not Confirm or Deny and Do not attempt to remove or uninstall. So he doesn't have an 'axe to grind', you're basing that assumption on your own ignorance.

Uhhh when you have one of the Applecare reps saying things are getting worse here and you have Apple actively saying don't say the word or acknowledge malware infections? Then I don't think you have to worry about "its coming" as it is already here friend.

You're acting like this is the first case of MacOS malware. It's not. Another data point is hardly the flood we've been warned of.

It is, however, worth noting. It is worth watching. And it is worth seeing how this plays out. But I would be careful about extrapolating too much from it.

Just cause it hasn't bit you in the ass don't mean others aren't getting pwned. I personally haven't seen a bug on my windows machines since 99 but I wouldn't be foolish enough to say infections aren't rampant, I see them every day. Since there isn't something like MSRT on Mac frankly we have NO idea how badly the infections have already spread, and with Apple in full cover up mode we frankly may not know for months or maybe even a year or more.

Amazingly enough - we had some idea of the world of malware before Microsoft introduced MSRT. We don't need official word from Apple to get some insight as to what's going on in the world.

I also find it disingenuous to claim larger numbers due to an attempt to hide those numbers. What you're linking to is Apple not wanting to get engaged in the activity of malware removal. Whether that is appropriate or not on Apple's part could certainly be up to debate. But I find it hard to see this as deceptive on Apple's part. And while there is certainly going to be a surge in MacDefender cases, nothing so far indicates any real numbers much less perspective.

But just because Apple refuses to say the word doesn't mean it isn't spreading. On the contrary I would argue that the reason Apple refuses to say the word is it is spreading quickly and they are trying to do damage control. For all we know this may be the first mac "Code red" style nasty, we simply won't know until someone gathers the data.

Code Red was something entirely different. But at the face of it - could this be the beginning of increased targeting of the MacOS platform? Perhaps. But it is too early to tell.

Uhhh when you have one of the Applecare reps saying things are getting worse here and you have Apple actively saying don't say the word or acknowledge malware infections? Then I don't think you have to worry about "its coming" as it is already here friend.

Just cause it hasn't bit you in the ass don't mean others aren't getting pwned. I personally haven't seen a bug on my windows machines since 99 but I wouldn't be foolish enough to say infections aren't rampant, I see them every day. Since there isn't something like MSRT on Mac frankly we have NO idea how badly the infections have already spread, and with Apple in full cover up mode we frankly may not know for months or maybe even a year or more. But just because Apple refuses to say the word doesn't mean it isn't spreading. On the contrary I would argue that the reason Apple refuses to say the word is it is spreading quickly and they are trying to do damage control. For all we know this may be the first mac "Code red" style nasty, we simply won't know until someone gathers the data.

Scott Guthrie left of his own accord

Scott didn't leave, he changed teams.

All you have to do is go into Safe Mode. http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

Then go into the Applications Folder > Choose MacDefender.app > Move to Trash. (in Safe Mode)

Reboot normally and reset Safari.

Bizarrely, AppleCare won't give you those simple instructions even if you ask. I see that as an excellent example of marketing trumping customer support.

So the consensus seems to be that Apple has convinced its users that they can't get viruses and don't need anti-virus, which is bad.

In fact, these users are apparently so convinced that they don't need anti-virus and can't get a virus, that the minute a web page tells them they do have a virus (which they believe they can't get), they download the fake anti-virus package (possibly paying for it first even though they believe they don't need it), double-click on the installer, click on "OK" to get past the "this may be malware" warning, click through the installer prompts and finally type in the administrator account user name and password to allow installation to proceed. You know, proceed to install that anti-virus package that Apple, being evil, convinced them they didn't need to install.

Seriously, is this some kind of new low? Asserting that people are convinced they don't need anti-virus and that's why they're installing anti-virus? :-)

Apple are indeed *so* desperate to deny that anti-virus is needed that they allow Intego AntiVirus to be sold through the Mac App Store of all places. That app's description even has headlines warning about this particular trojan, so it's up to date.

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/virusbarrier-plus/id430337549

Two obvious suggestions:

• (1) Snow Leopard includes a crude trojan detector ever since that pirate iWork installer trojan. Its recogniser patterns should have been updated by now via Software Update. If Apple are going to include such a feature, they should keep it up to date. IMHO this is the area where they should be receiving the most criticism and pressure, not all this useless hot air about internal memos to support staff.
  
  http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/apple-adds-malware-blocker-in-snow-leopard/4104
• (2) It would be useful if administrators could lock down non-adminstrator accounts so that only Mac App Store applications could be installed (in practice you'd probably widen this to insist that only *certificate signed* applications could be installed). That might even be a sensible default, provided of course that there was an option to override it. Similar to the Android store security model AIUI.

I hope to everything that's holy and unholy that this will remain as a flag or a config setting, not some forced idiocy like hiding the "http://". The whole of Chrome is too well done to have them ruin it with a nonsensical move like this...

IIRC, http was hidden because Google has been experimenting with SPDY and a lot of their sites actually aren't using HTTP under Chrome anymore.

Since most people have no idea what SPDY is, probably want the features it offers, and will have trouble sending everyone SPDY://google.com links... it makes sense to hide it and automatically replace it with HTTP in copy-paste.

What drive-by download is getting installed on Macs through Flash ads? "Mac Protector" is just an app you have to willingly download and install that sits there displaying pop-ups asking for your credit card until you remove the app.

There have been plenty of arbitrary code execution vulnerabilities in OSX, combine next-gen version of this first malware kit with exploiting that, and you will have your fun. There is nothing magic about security in OSX vs. Windows 7, nobody who knows anything about security believes that.

Ed Bott reports an explosion in Apple malware. And what is the evidence, an anonymous AppleCare rep and msgs on a discussion forum. Ed Bott says the problem is getting worse and the problem is exactly? Someone writes a malicious app and uploads it to some anonymous server where some unsuspecting Mac user has to willfully download and install this malware. How this gets translated into an explosion in Apple malware defies logic, but FUD on ...

"Yesterday I spent several hours going through discussions.apple.com and collecting requests for help from Mac users who have been affected by this issue" link

Like, don't go to unverifed sites, download and install unverified apps ...

The thing to keep in mind is that this malware going around is a trojan. The user has to enter a username and password to install the malware. It can't propagate itself nor install itself automatically from a web site. People are just blindly typing their password to anything asking. Interestingly, it claims to be an antivirus suite and uses SEO to show up on searches for Mac antiviruses per Arstechnica (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/05/fake-mac-defender-antivirus-app-scams-users-for-money-cc-numbers.ars), so ironically, the people getting infected are people who think they need virus protection on a Mac. Expect to hear people continuing to proclaim this as the beginning of Mac viruses, however.

Since you snipe at other uninformed people at the end there, let me turn that around on you as woefully outdated - almost the only people still talking about viruses these days are people like you, in the context 'they don't exist for Mac". It is years since they were the big threat for Windows too. Almost all of the threat these days are malware like the described, also for Windows. Several reasons for this development, one is that newer Windows versions are pretty hardened security wise making that vector harder, and second is that it is very effective.

btw. if you are worried about automatic installation from a web site, read this list of documented remote exploit vulnerabilities in OSX: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/why-malware-for-macs-is-on-its-way/3243

OF course there is a Pamela Jones, see here. http://www.zdnet.com/news/letter-to-the-editor-no-ibm-groklaw-connection/134733?tag=content;search-results-rivers And here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pamela_Jones (Would wikipedia ever lie?)

Some people thinks different: 48% (not a neutral opinion either)

From my point of view, if you have a really good av, all updates in windows and **all** the software, and you are carefull, maybe you will have only a 0,4% chance of being infected. But thats not everybody case.

You can say they don't 'need' to steal the research, but the evidence of Chinese born espionage in the US is blatant. And if you follow corporate and government level espionage in the news you would know that you would bet China if betting your life on who did it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/spy/spies/

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/11/19/national/main5708534.shtml

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/3319656

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/chinese-spies-use-cyber-hacking-and-sexual-blackmail/1104

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2008-02-12/news/shuttlespy12_1_space-technology-military-technology-republic-of-china

http://www.haohaoreport.com/ChinaNews/Chinese-spy-gets-more-than-15-years-in-prison

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/fbi-arrests-chinese-spies-over-theft-of-military-data-781090.html .............

Seriously, just open your eyes or start paying attention. NASA has been infiltrated by Chinese spies on several occasions. This policy is rational and safe and is a better/safer choice than any potential 'crippling of research' as you put it.

But go ahead pretending this isn't real... go ahead.. I only copied the first few things I looked up, but the truth is about every 3-4 months I read about another Chinese spy in the US. Yet it takes years before I read about ANY OTHER NATION spying (or getting caught at least).

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/microsoft-buys-skype-for-85-billion-creates-new-business-division/9406?tag=nl.e539

As I wrote further below, the co-owner of VUPEN has won this year's pwn2own contest by smashing another webkit based browser to pieces : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/safarimacbook-first-to-fall-at-pwn2own-2011/8358

I don't see why he would be lying here when he already proved publicly he had the capability to exploit much the same flaw elsewhere.

A quick search turns out VUNET co-founder BEKRAR Chaouki was the winner of pwn2own 2011 : http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/safarimacbook-first-to-fall-at-pwn2own-2011/8358

Not to say it proves he did it again with chrome, but at least; the guy's got some credits for being able to pull this one.

in this interview

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/twenty-years-of-linux-according-to-linus-torvalds/8663

with yours truly.

Steven

they can't use Google to search for it, conflict of interest. Anyone want to e-mail them the http://www.bing.com/ link?

Don't think that will help either.

Turn a blackberry on and what does it do, boot up on its own and connect to the network... Same as an iphone or android does.
What this means is that the details necessary to access the network and the keys to any encryption being used on the device are stored... ON THE DEVICE.

At-rest encryption really is a joke, on all devices. The only difference between the three platforms is that android and ios are far better understood, which is a combination of them being based on existing well understood platforms, and having good developer tools/documentation.

Read the comments by the pwn2own contestant who compromised a blackberry device... http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/pwn2own-2011-blackberry-falls-to-webkit-browser-attack/8401
he basically says that the blackberry is *less* secure than android or ios, and the only reason it appears otherwise is because there is far less publicly available information about how the devices work.

Wow... just wow... Who will comprise their community development teams if not the power users? I had a hard time swallowing the fact that a distro founder would actually say they'd like to push parts of their user base away so I looked it up. Holy crap:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/shuttleworth-on-ubuntu-1104-linux-unity/8780

"""
Is Unity too simple for power users? Yes, it is. But, as Shuttleworth tells us that’s by design. If you don’t like simple, consumer-oriented desktops, you’ll want to look at another Linux distribution because that’s exactly where Ubuntu is now and will continue to go.
"""

The point is, there are as yet no "drive by" or otherwise spontaneous infections you can get on a Mac. Any bad things that could happen rely on some form of social engineering or deception.

The results of the pwn2own 2011 may surprise you.

Some not very nice person disguises their malware in a piece of pirated software and upload it to torrent sites or whatnot. Some people download it and get infected because they don't realize the danger of such an occurrence

Changing the icon so people will (and did) click to run it. No torrent site or offer of pirate software required. Sample Mac Virus

The Mac OS X security model is in many ways stronger than the Windows security model, but it's certainly not infallible.

If it's so superior why does Mac require a single "hack" to bypass vs chaining three "hacks" to compromise Windows security (pwn2own 2011)? Exhibit A

I'd like to think that by being asked to enter a password a user is more likely to consider what they're authorizing but in most cases, the user is the weakest link.

I completely agree.

5) Can pick up sound and conversation

Except for your first one, which happens even with a dumbphone as cell towers will log your location, all of the other things are optional features that you don't have to use if you don't want to.

http://www.zdnet.com/news/fbi-taps-cell-phone-mic-as-eavesdropping-tool/150467
How do I not use that feature?

The upgrade frenzy caused by Apple is really, really concerning. Just the labor practice alone[1][2] is appalling enough, not to mention the the amount of energy[3] it takes to produce a new device every 6 months. Can't people live with the same gadget for at least a couple/few years without going ape every time something new comes out?

[1] - http://thenextweb.com/apple/2010/02/27/apple-child-labor-china-history-sketchy-manufacturing/
[2] - http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/apple-may-be-poisoning-chinese-workers-and-doesnt-seem-to-care-should-we/9908
[3] - http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/1119.html

silently flag their account, allowing them to post and continue viewing the forums as normal, but everything they do is completely invisible.

That's the Graklaw Pan Jones Module...

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/open-source/groklaw-accused-of-censorship/7826

OS X only does this for hardware architecture changes, after a long transition period while the previous architecture is emulated. For example: OS X 10.5 (introduced October 2007) ended support for the Classic runtime. The Classic runtime supported the API used in MacOS 9, 8, and earlier, and of course emulated the 68K architecture - that's around a 20 year coverage. The latest versions of OS X still include the Rosetta emulator for PowerPC applications to run, which is almost a 10 year coverage. (Ironically this is useful to run Microsoft's own products...)

(Prior to OS X, Apple deployed a high performance emulator for 68K to allow many applications of that architecture to run transparently on the PowerPC RISC line. This emulator was also present in Classic.)

So: No, Microsoft's incompetence doesn't lead to correct conclusions about how Apple manages backward compatibility. Maybe you should try a Mac: Sounds like you're in for a pleasant surprise.