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Ancient Flaws May Leave Mac OS X Vulnerable
mdeb writes "ZDNet Australia is running a story that claims Mac OS X 'contains unpatched security flaws of a type that were fixed on alternative operating systems more than a decade ago.' As an example, in August of last year, Apple patched the 'dsidentity' bug, which could easily have been exploited to grant a non-privileged user with admin rights the capability to create and remove 'root' user accounts."
Now we will just have to sit and wait for Steve Gibson's assessment that Apple intentionally left these exploits open as a backdoor to the system!
ZDNet Australia is running a story that claims OS X 'contains unpatched security flaws of a type that were fixed on alternative operating systems more than a decade ago.'
Only in the Southern Hemisphere. Up here, trolls rotate counterclockwise.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Good thing I use Windows ME.
It must have happened when they translated the binary off of the stone tablets, likely because they were limited to only bronze tools.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
That's the first time I've heard operating systems other than OSX described as "alternative".
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Considering the user must be priviliged is it safe to say that the user has already authenticated and in the system. I always use passwords like "asldkfje983r0u!56@#987$%^rnYA(*U()*U&0u" for standard users. If they can crack that they deserve to gain admin rights too. You should see my admin key: it is a 10^12 digit mersenne prime.
It protects you from everything up to the Triassic period. After that, you're on your own. These were ancient flaws, vulerable to ancient threats. Don't boot up in a museum of natural history or you're toast.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
That does it! I'm swiching back to Micorosoft Bob!
When I saw the headlines I thought someone had found Egyptian Hieroglyphs from aliens explaining how to break into OSX.
Guess my definition of Ancient isn't the same as the posters.
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And then it was like... beepbeepbeepbeep, and then, like, half my accounts were gone. And I was like, huh?
They were really good accounts too. And then I had to recreate them and I had to do it fast, and they weren't as good...
-=Lothsahn=-
Now that's not fair. It's entirely possible that Mr. Archibald is very passionate about source code auditing and that his business and this story are just outpourings of... BWAHAHAHA. Oh geez, I can't believe I typed that for so long.
Yeah, good point.
Hehe...
What if the entire Universe were a chrooted environment with everything symlinked from the host?
10) Ten million+ active boxes still "too small a number" to target.
9) Worlds virus writers all work at Valve; have no idea what the hell OS X is.
8) OS X originally scheduled to have virus this year; pushed back till Q2 next year to add Intel support and a Universal Binary.
7) Russian Mafia all actually use Macs, tell underlings to keep macs virus free so they don't have to run virus scanners.
6) Forget buffer overflows; real mechanism viruses use to spread is actually second mouse button.
5) No viruses released for sale on ITMS yet.
4) Actually viruses everywhere but Jobs Reality Distorition Field keeps Mac users thinking they are not there.
3) XCode secretly detects and transforms viruses into RSS readers instead at compile time; explains glut on Macs.
2) Virus writers accientally drug virus into one of several hundred "Untitled Folders" on Desktop, now have no idea where it is.
1) Mac owners just too damn pretty for God to let them get viruses.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley