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Large Prize Offered For Writing Mac Virus
Mordant writes "Some experienced Mac developers are offering a $25K prize to the first person to successfully infect two 'naked' Internet-connected Macs running stock Apple software. The best part is that if any Symantec employee succeeds in infecting the Macs, the prize goes up to $50K (Symantec has been fanning the flames of totally bogus "Macs aren't more secure, it's just that Windows is a bigger target" technical-equivalence propaganda)!" Update: 03/26 20:24 GMT by Z : Well, that was quick. Jack Campbell has cancelled the contest, after he "...was contacted by a large number of Mac users, and Mac software professionals who shared their thinking with me about the contest."
clicking 'Yes' to install things they really shouldn't
Macs use verbs in dialog boxes, instead of 'Yes', 'No' and 'Cancel'. The button to install software on a Mac would be 'Install Software', not 'Yes', so clueless users have a better sense of what they are doing.
Discussed better here
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
Hartman: Private Joker, do you believe in the Virgin Mary?
Joker: Sir, no sir!
Hartman: Well Private Joker! I don't believe I heard you correctly.
Joker: Sir, the private said "No sir!", sir!
Hartman: Well, you little maggot, you make me want to vomit!
...
Hartman: Are you trying to OFFEND me?
Joker: Sir, negative sir! Sir, the private believes that any answer he gives will be wrong, and the senior drill instructor will beat him harder if he reverses himself, sir!
Hartman: Who's your squad leader, scumbag?
Joker: Sir, the private's leader is Private Snowball, sir.
Hartman: Private Snowball!
Snowball: Sir! Private Snowball reporting as ordered, sir!
Hartman: Private Snowball, you're fired! Private Joker is promoted to squad leader.
Snowball: Sir, aye aye sir!
Hartman: Disapear scumbag!
Snowball: Sir, aye aye sir!
Hartman: Private Pyle!
Pyle: Sir, Private Pyle reporting as ordered, sir!
Hartman: Private Pyle, from now on, Private Joker is your new squad leader, and you WILL bunk with him. He'll teach you everything, he'll teach you how to pee!
Pyle: Sir, yes sir!
Hartman: Private Joker is silly and he's he ignorant, but he's got guts, and guts is enough.
I get no end of amusement from people claiming that Mac users buy Macs because "they don't know anything about computers," or something to that effect. The fact of the matter is, this particular Mac user sees his computer for what it is: an appliance. It's not a platform, a political party, or a religion. It's a machine, not entirely unlike a toaster or Cuisinart.
When choosing a computer, I took into consideration:
1) What I need it to do.
2) How I plan to interact with it.
3) How much effort I need to put into maintaining it.
3a) How much effort I need to put into making sure my machine stays mine (i.e. not compromised by some bored malcontent.)
So, over the course of several decades, I test-drove a few different machines, running different OSs (disclosure: I ran DOS and Windows variants up to and including XP, various Linux distributions, and Mac OS X.) It became glaringly obvious that OS X was far and away the OS of choice for the amount of time and effort I intend to invest in using and maintaing my computer.
I'm not a BSD advocate or a network security guru because, quite frankly, the subjects absolutely bore me to tears. However, even I can appreciate the simple, quiet wisdom of turning most networking services OFF on a fresh install of an OS (as does OS X.) Just think how much more secure our computing environment would be if people only enabled the services they absolutely needed.