Friday Security Fun

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by pudge on Friday December 5, 2003 @08:54AM from the updating-as-soon-as-i-post-this-story-and-quit-my-browser dept.

rgraham writes "Apple has release a new security update for the Safari cookie bug. 'Security Update 2003-12-05 updates Safari to prevent unauthorized access to a user's cookies.' They also updated the article on how to 'Configure Directory Access to Protect Your Mac From a Malicious DHCP Server.'" We posted that the other day, but this time, pictures!

28 of 52 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Cookies by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-05 08:58 · Score: 5, Funny

Never hand out cookies when on a Safari!
That's it! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-05 09:03 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm switching to Fig Newtons.
1. Re:That's it! by daeley · 2003-12-05 09:47 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  I'm switching to Fig Newtons.
  
  Don't bother. The handwriting recognition sucks. ;)
  
  --
  I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Eerily reminiscent of my Windows days... by cbiagini · 2003-12-05 09:35 · Score: 5, Funny

Along with this update, Steve Jobs announced today that OS 10.3.2 will include a small globe icon that will appear next to your system clock, helpfully reminding you that you have an update to install. While Jobs did acknowledge the fact that this feature has been in another operating system for years, he did point out that Apple's implementation will harness the power of Quartz Extreme to render fully three-dimensional, alpha-blended "Security Gnomes" that run around and patch your system twice a week. I'll still never Switch back though ;)
1. Re:Eerily reminiscent of my Windows days... by transient · 2003-12-05 11:07 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  CPU-crunching
  BZZZT. Try again. Unless that Powerbook of yours is dreadfully old, the UI is rendered by your graphics card.
  
  --
  
  irb(main):001:0>
2. Re:Eerily reminiscent of my Windows days... by tim1724 · 2003-12-05 11:17 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  The compositing is done by the video card (remember, Quartz Extreme only accelerates compositing!), but much of the drawing is done by the CPU. The Dock's genie effect, in particular, is drawn by software.
  
  Even on my G5 the CPU does quite a bit of work to draw that effect. Not enough to slow anything down, but enough to be visible in the Activity Monitor.
  
  The scale effect ought to be done all in the video card, although I'm not sure how it was implemented. In any case, it doesn't use much CPU at all, so if CPU usage is a concern, tell the Dock to use the scale effect instead of the genie effect.
  
  --
  -- Tim Buchheim
3. Re:Eerily reminiscent of my Windows days... by Graff · 2003-12-05 14:18 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The compositing is done by the video card (remember, Quartz Extreme only accelerates compositing!), but much of the drawing is done by the CPU. The Dock's genie effect, in particular, is drawn by software.
  
  Both of the Dock minimization effects are handled by the GPU. The window is drawn as normal by the application that owns it and is passed off to Quartz Extreme, which then hands it off to the GPU with the appropriate rendering commands. With the scale effect that is a simple scale command, with the genie effect there is stretching and scaling. All of this is done through Open GL commands.
  
  --
  Sapere aude!
4. Re:Eerily reminiscent of my Windows days... by tim1724 · 2003-12-05 14:35 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  Upon further experimentation, it looks like you're right. The CPU slowdown I was seeing appears to be from the Dock resizing icons (to make room for the new minimized window) rather than from the genie effect ... I only see CPU usage jump when the Dock needs to scale icons to make everything fit. (Unfortunately, the Dock appears to scale and draw its icons itself, rather than keeping the 128x128 icon in a buffer and allowing the GPU to scale it.)
  
  --
  -- Tim Buchheim
Re:Or another fix by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-05 09:50 · Score: 3, Funny

Dude, you're logged into slashdot, which means you're allowing cookies.
Re:Or another fix by SillyWilly · 2003-12-05 09:59 · Score: 5, Informative

It has been suggested that even disabling Cookies won't help: http://www.securityfocus.com/archive/1/344992 As I understand it, this is because in Safari disabling cookies merely prevents creation of new cookies and not access to old ones. Therefore you should delete all cookies first.

--
Online & Feelin' Fine
Needs a reboot... by Fulkkari · 2003-12-05 10:05 · Score: 3, Interesting

The update needs you to reboot the computer. *sigh* Why is that? This is a web browser we're talking about. Shouldn't it be enough quitting Safari + all applications that uses it's content rendering engine? As far as I know, Safari isn't integrated to the OS in any way like IE to Windows, so it shouldn't be neccesary to reboot the *whole* OS. On the other hand they effectively stop applications to interfere while updating and cause problems that way. Maybe it's some precautionary measure, but I don't think this should be neccesary...

BTW software updater was already automaticly fetching the update in the background while I read this. It's really nice when you don't have to wait while downloading them. I don't understand what's the big fuss of letting the OS fetch updates in the background, as long as it doesn't install them. I'm not sure but I think software update does only download the important updates...

--
I demand the Cone of Silence!
1. Re:Needs a reboot... by Rosyna · 2003-12-05 10:13 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  A lot of apps use WebKit (Help, Sherlock, Safari, Mail) so it's easier to tell users to restart than to tell them to log out or to quit all those applications. A person that knows what they are doing will just force quit the installer.
2. Re:Needs a reboot... by justMichael · 2003-12-05 11:01 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  A person that knows what they are doing will just force quit the installer.
  
  Or run the update from the CLI.
3. Re:Needs a reboot... by tim1724 · 2003-12-05 11:13 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Safari 1.1 (and 1.1.1) uses some new features of Panther which aren't in Jaguar. Hence it is not compatible with Jaguar, and wouldn't work.
  
  --
  -- Tim Buchheim
4. Re:Needs a reboot... by Hes+Nikke · 2003-12-05 12:23 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The update needs you to reboot the computer. *sigh* Why is that? This is a web browser we're talking about.
  
  oddly, this update isn't an update to Safari, instead, it's an update to the CoreFoundation framework!
  
  as the name implies, CoreFoundation is the core of all your aqua apps, or at the very least, all your cocoa apps. one of the things this framework can do is let any app that uses the framework to get data from a URL, so it would make sense that the cookie handling would be there too. yeah, in this case i'd say a reboot is absolutely called for.
  
  --
  Don't call me back. Give me a call back. Bye. So yeah. But bye our, well, but alright we are on a shirt this chill.
5. Re:Needs a reboot... by bat,+blind+as+a · 2003-12-05 14:14 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  $ sudo softwareupdate -i -a
  Password:
  Software Update Tool
  Copyright 2002-2003 Apple Computer, Inc.
  
  Security Update 2003-12-05: 0...10...20...30...40...50...60...70...80...90...1 00
  Optimizing system performance. This may take a while...
  Done.
  
  You have installed one or more updates that requires that you restart your
  computer. Please restart immediately.
6. Re:Needs a reboot... by Graff · 2003-12-05 14:23 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  BTW software updater was already automaticly fetching the update in the background while I read this. It's really nice when you don't have to wait while downloading them. I don't understand what's the big fuss of letting the OS fetch updates in the background, as long as it doesn't install them. I'm not sure but I think software update does only download the important updates...
  
  Yep, only critical updates are automatically downloaded and even that is optional. In fact the whole process is optional. You can tell the operating system to never check for updates on its own and you can choose to ignore updates.
  
  Software Update is pretty flexible and non-obtrusive. The only thing that I wish is that it had an option to allow me to register and de-register other programs for it to check. That way if the author of a program allowed it I could have Software Update automatically check for updates from him in addition to those from Apple.
  
  --
  Sapere aude!
7. Re:Needs a reboot... by Graff · 2003-12-05 14:25 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  killerbean:~ root# softwareupdate -d SecurityUpd2003-12-05-1.0
  
  Man, do yourself a favor and don't use the root account if you can at all help it. Use sudo instead, it's much safer.
  
  --
  Sapere aude!
8. Re:Needs a reboot... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-05 18:40 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  The only thing that I wish is that it had an option to allow me to register and de-register other programs for it to check. That way if the author of a program allowed it I could have Software Update automatically check for updates from him in addition to those from Apple.
  According to ThinkSecret, Apple will provide this capability in a future version of Software Update. It will be limited to select developers, but surely the API will be reenigned in no time.
9. Re:Needs a reboot... by Aqua+OS+X · 2003-12-06 16:29 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  To the user Safari doesn't appear to be integrated into the OS (like MSIE); however, its does access a lot global system resources that other applications frequently use.
  
  Webkit is a fairly major one. Mail, Help, OmniWeb, etc all access this.
  
  --
  "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Re:Or another fix by prockcore · 2003-12-05 11:31 · Score: 4, Insightful

Just don't allow cookies. (Yes, it seems too simple)

If by "fix" you mean "break a lot of functionality on sites" then yes, that certainly is an option.
Some links by blb · 2003-12-05 12:51 · Score: 5, Informative

The knowledgebase article for 10.2.8 and for 10.3.1.
Re:Or another fix by Graff · 2003-12-05 14:07 · Score: 4, Informative

Just don't allow cookies.
If by "fix" you mean "break a lot of functionality on sites" then yes, that certainly is an option.

That's why I love OmniWeb. It allows you to accept cookies, but throw them out when you quit the browser. Sure I lose such nifty "features" as not having to log into some websites but I also cut ads and whatnot of the ability to track me across sites for long periods.

Honestly, there need to be much better built-in controls on all browsers for limiting a server's access to data on your computer.

--
Sapere aude!
Re:Or another fix by valkraider · 2003-12-05 16:33 · Score: 4, Informative

You can do this with Safari as well.
Re:Or another fix by mgahs · 2003-12-05 19:44 · Score: 2, Funny

So you should...toss your cookies? Oh, stop. It was funny. (in my head, at least.)
'Only from sites you navigate to' by rixstep · 2003-12-05 19:55 · Score: 5, Interesting

'For example, not from advertisers on those sites'

So reads the third cookie option in Safari, but it's not true. You'll find '.doubleclick.net' in there all the time, and I doubt any of you are wandering over to DoubleClick to check out the action.

And any domain for a cookie beginning with a '.' means 'any URL in that domain' - and that is NOT just 'from sites you navigate to'.
Replace Cookies.plist with a folder by Anonymous Coward · 2003-12-05 20:32 · Score: 5, Interesting

...and the cookies only last for the current session.
Site by Site by chigaze · 2003-12-06 00:59 · Score: 3, Informative

OmniWeb allows this in a site by site basis rather than across the board. So I can tell it to treat Slashdot cookies normally but trash Amazon ones after every session.

It's the one thing that could drag me back to OW but I also like my Safari tabs.