McAfee Feigns Fear at Mac Security

conq writes "BusinessWeek reports that McAfee has just come out with a report which asks the question 'Is Mac OS X the Next Windows?'." They appear to be attempting to scare consumers into buying anti-virus software for OSX. Blogger Arik Hesseldahl breaks down their claims: "First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... When you take into account the ongoing growth in general PC ownership, even if Apple pushes its annual unit sales to 12 million or more by 2010, its share of the overall market will still account for about 4%, leaving Windows the far more tasty target."

Comments

I disagree

[drwtsn32]

Mac users by and large have become complacent when it comes to basic security principles. They are even more at risk of infecting their machine when viruses and other threats start to spread on the Mac platform.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as they turn off the administrator account and back up their personal files it doesn't matter. It is incredibly hard to write a Mac virus that does anything malicious, especially to the system. The easiest thing a virus could do (and it would not be easy at all) would be to mess up a user account and delete personal files Mac users are also not the cutsey dumbasses you see in Apple commercials. For the most part they educated and know their way around their computer. Most would know something wrong is happening if the administration security prompt pops up asking for their password. The ones that don't know wouldn't even know how to access and turn on their administration account.

And forget about the old market share argument explaining why Macs don't get malicious viruses. Don't you think there would be some prestige for any writer who could create the first malicious Mac virus? Especially with Apple and others touting it's security for years? How come it hasn't happened yet?

Re:I disagree

[Tibor the Hun]

who the fuck decides to mod the first post redundant?
the OP is not redundant, and most certainly is presenting a different pt of view from TFA.

not only that, but I agree with him. mac users are no more savvy than PC users. my brother in law, mother in law, another friend, and a couple of coworkers have all purchased macs recently. all of them are extremely happy with them, yet not a single one of them knows what a file extension, terminal, or root is. they just use their macs for office, web, digital pics, and music, without having to worry about adminning the machine.

so in which way are they now more savvy than before, while they were using PCs?

Re:I disagree

[aristotle-dude]

Please, stop with the FUD already. Most mac users keep up to date with news on mac security issues on mac news sites.

As a cross-platform user I'm tired of these popular memes on slashdot. Do you think all those affluent mac users work in creative areas? A number of us work in IT developing and/or supporting software on the windows platform but prefer macs at home.

Let me try to get this through your thick head. OS X has a completely different security model from windows. It is based on a BSD and System V. You will find both open source and closed source unix components on OS X.

There is always a risk of some virus appearing and wiping out your personal data or some catastrophic hardware failure and because of this, you should backup often. It would require a great deal of user interaction to compromise the entire machine as nobody runs as root unlike XP.

Re:I disagree

[squiggleslash]

As long as they turn off the administrator account and back up their personal files it doesn't matter.

Apple users are not encouraged to turn off the administrator account, indeed, as the system is configured by default, they're encouraged to use it as their main account. No warnings are given that this is bad practice, and no user manual that might document this is provided with the operating system.

Backing up your files periodically is good practice, but few people do it.

It is incredibly hard to write a Mac virus that does anything malicious, especially to the system.

When your Software Update icon last started bouncing in the dock, and you typed in your administrator password to install that critical update it said you needed, when was the last time you checked it really is Software Update, the official, real, Software Update, that was asking for that password?

Don't you think there would be some prestige for any writer who could create the first malicious Mac virus?

There is, but they're going to have difficulty because of the Macs LOW MARKET SHARE. Until a large percentage of machines your Mac would communicate with when transfering the virus are Macs too, a Mac virus isn't going to get off the ground.

Or do you think the low market share thing means there are less people who want to write one or target the platform? That's true too, but it doesn't change the simple logistical fact that a virus needs a large enough culture to grow in.

Re:I disagree

[vertinox]

Mac users by and large have become complacent when it comes to basic security principles. They are even more at risk of infecting their machine when viruses and other threats start to spread on the Mac platform.

I think the problem wasn't that Mac or Windows users were any more complacent than each other, but one system was more prone to viruses and malware.

One of these systems had the following problem:

1. Getting spyware by visiting webpage with default security options
2. Getting viruses just by opening or previewing an email
3. Getting a Virus just by being connected to the internet.

Both systems still can have:

1. Viruses from opening attachments from email
2. Viruses from opening files downloaded from the internet

The first set of issues was nothing that you would consider to be safe security practices. That is unreasonable to think the user could not do these things within reason (Yeah... Back when the Outlook express viruses were going around I turned off my preview pane and avoided unknown senders like the plague but this is a hard practice to keep 100% reliable (you know accidentally opening an email from someone you know or hitting enter key at the wrong time).

Yes, one of those operation systems developers did fix the problem with many various security patches, but the other one never had such widespread issues and was usually quick to address any security hole.

I use OS X primarily for my surfing and email, but I still keep my habits from the windows days.

Don't download files from questionable sources.
Don't open emails attachments from questionable sources.

If I don't do either of those, then I believe I should not have to have an anti-virus.

Plain. Meet simple.

Re:I disagree

[charleste]

I would disagree. One of my computers is a Mac with OSX (for my non-techie husband - and for me to play with). HE was the one who wanted virus protection - after hearing about Sasser and what not on the news and hearing from his friends who were worried. HE didn't know these particular worms weren't a Mac issue. So I got him one - and it works, and it's not McAfee. In fact, at the time, there wasn't a McAfee product that I could find for OSX for immediate download and purchase. Oh - can't find one now either - or since I am using a windoze laptop right now, are they filtering their site?

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

For the most part they educated and know their way around their computer.

me agree.

Re:I disagree

[DrXym]

That isn't true. If the kernel has any exploits that can be reached by a user-level application then it won't matter a damn if they're running the administrator account or not. There have been a number of reported claims that Apple are not keeping up with security patches on their kernel so this is not infeasible at all. Once the machine is compromised, it's game over.

And a virus doesn't even need ring-0 access to do significant damage. There are enough files on your Mac (starting with the whole of your home folder) that a user-level virus could trash to ruin your day. All it takes is an exploit in Safari, iChat or whatever and you could be wide open.

Even so, OS X does have the good sense as you say to use the administrator account. XP is a total disaster zone. I don't see this being any better in Vista. Microsoft have made a half-hearted attempt to improve security with each release and it never works. By this stage it would be impossible to fix. All they can hope is try and restrict user access and lay some trip wires. - every time an app expects more privileges, throw up a question to the user to ask if it can do it. This will be horribly annoying unless Microsoft ship a large default policy file to cover all the broken things that apps expect to be able to but can't in a more restrictive environment.

Re:I disagree

[lazyforker]

1. "UNIX" and "secure" are not synonyms.

2. When OS X is first installed or configured, the first user account is allowed to "Administer this computer". Not root but close enough. This is a serious hole that probably exists on most home user's configurations.

3. Who cares if the box is not compromised but the user's files are deleted/corrupted? Sure - I'd be so happy that *only* my 100GB of music files, 40GB of photos, 12 years of email/correspondence/papers/articles etc got whacked. Phew. Box is not compromised. Dodged a bullet.

OS X users need education in some simple security basics - like never use an administrator/su level account for day-to-day websurfing/work. They do not need to be deceived by either AV companies or UNIX fans.

And yes I am an ardent Mac OS X fan.

Re:I disagree

[Dylan Knight Rogers]

Anything to compel the users to purchase a product that bears virtually no usefulness for the time being.

Re:I disagree

[ThousandStars]

For the most part they educated and know their way

I gather you're not a Mac user.

Re:I disagree

[abandonment]

I'm with you - the only reason i see anyone seems to use mac's is because they DON'T have a clue about troubleshooting or anything else 'tech-related'

Re:I disagree

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>wouldn't even know how to access and turn on their administration account.

Eh? It's a checkbox during installation. Clicking it puts you in sudoers with an unlimited command set.

You're right if you mean turning on the root account (disabled on normal installations) but nothing much changes if you do.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you're a little confused. The root and administrator account are two very seperate things.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

When was the last time you got a virus that tried to trash your system by deleting files? Most of viruses i see now adays are trying to get your personal info, or open holes for other s to camein and take control of your system, OR put some adwers that slow down the computer. You don't need a root access to do that.

Re:I disagree

[kcarlin]

Apple users are not encouraged to turn off the administrator account, indeed, as the system is configured by default, they're encouraged to use it as their main account. No warnings are given that this is bad practice, and no user manual that might document this is provided with the operating system.

Find a topic you know something about before posting. As every OS X owner on /. undoubtedly knows, Apple users are not presented with any option to run as an administrator/root/superuser/God and have to be knowledgeable in the ways of BSD-flavored UNIX to make an administrator account accessible (which is what they would have to do to mimic a Microsoft standard level of vulnerability on an OS X box). The initial "owner" account, and other accounts designated later as users are added, can be designated as "Admin" accounts, allowing them to add and remove users, install applications that require Admin access to install, etcetera. The system allows designated Admin accounts to perform privileged functions typically after a re-authentication step in which the user enters their password to empower a specific system task to execute a privileged function.

Unlike Windows, where outside of rarified, highly managed IT environments a user runs and usually must run only privileged tasks to operate effectively. BTW, unlike Windows the OS X security model and many best practices are well documented on the Apple site in the developer areas (ADC includes a free membership level that provides access to some wonderful papers on the OS X tasking model, security issues, etc.), and there is an excellent and surprisingly short piece by the US National Security Agency on OS X security issues and recommended procedures http://www.nsa.gov/snac/downloads_macX.cfm?MenuID= scg10.3.1.1.

A user is slightly safer running in a non-Admin OS X account than otherwise, and in a professional environment that may be a reasonable precaution for some organizations. Were Steve Jobs to suddenly dictate that his consumer-level customers must operate with knowledge, precision, and accuracy of IT professionals, maintaining and using a completely separate account for performing any administrative functions, to achieve an acceptable level of safety on what is already the safest consumer platform in the world, he would be an idiot. (And he is not an idiot.)

As far as the well-being of OS X users, they are better served by a serious and knowledgeable explanation of these issues and their real levels of risk than the usual FUD.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry I got distracted by your mom while I was typing. Here's a 're and an are, add it to the sentence you quoted any way you'd like.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

This hurts me more than it hurts you.

For the most part, they're are educated and are know their way.

You really shouldn't have said "add it any way you like". :-D

All your base are belong to us.

Re:I disagree

[aristotle-dude]

1. All ports are closed by default meaning the only way to infect an OS X desktop/laptop is via user interaction.
2. Admin accounts are nothing like a root account. You are required to enter a pasword to place files into /Library let alone the /System folder. If the first account you created on the system was "not" and administrator, you would not be able to create new users. Are you really that thick or are you just trolling? You need to have at least one admin account on a machine and that account has to be created when you install the OS and there is no way around it.
3. Viruses wiping out your data should be the least of you concerns when it comes to backup up your data. You could lose your data due to a hardware failure, electrical short caused by a spilled beverage or electical surge. You should at least backup your irreplacable data and anything you purchased online. If some of that music cannot be replace because you found it legally for free online or purchased it only, back it up. The rest can be reripped from the CD's you own.

You say that you are an ardent fan but you claim that performing incremental backups are too much of a chore. Are you deliberately trying to make mac users look stupid and lazy?

Re:I disagree

[ad0gg]

And forget about the old market share argument explaining why Macs don't get malicious viruses. Don't you think there would be some prestige for any writer who could create the first malicious Mac virus?

How forgetful have we become. Anyone remember when apple had 15%+ marketshare? NVIR, WDEF, CDEF. My system diskette was always getting infected.

Re:I disagree

[qzulla]

Please, stop with the FUD already. Most mac users keep up to date with news on mac security issues on mac news sites.

They do? Since when? Proof, please.

qz

arg apple sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

apple users know more about technology? give me a break.

Re:arg apple sucks

[jellomizer]

Yes in general they do.

Because most people before they buy their first Mac they do some research to decide if they want or not. Because there is in inherant risk to buying a Mac (The Higher then average cost and the fact that Windows Apps will not run (excluding bootcamp/virtualiztion etc...) on the Mac. So before buying most people are causious and do a fair amount of research before they decide if they really want one.

Vs. the standard PC user will get what ever is cheapest or blindly get the best specs that they know what it means, usually leading to unbalanced archecture. "Wow I got a P4 3ghz system that must be way faster then your CoreDuo 2.16ghz system."

Re:arg apple sucks

[moro_666]

i'd say it depends.

most mac users and fans i know, actually love mac for the fact that you _don't_ have to know 101 tricks how to keep your machine working and you don't have to perform them either. they don't have a clue what's under the hood, they don't care, they just want it to work. with windows such an approach would be pretty fatal, with mac, it's possible.

but different slashdotters seem to know different mac people. there is no golden truth here.

i'd choose a mac any time over a windows box. but because it works, but because it's designed to work unlike a lot of regular x86 boxes that have problems right off at the start (disable this and that to make it even boot, arrr).

i'd still run linux on it if the mac hardware works with it

Re:arg apple sucks

[Dracen]

You know as well as I do, people buy mac because they think they are pretty, and have had a bad experience with a pc that they did not have the knowledge to fix.

Re:arg apple sucks

[kfg]

My first response to the blurb as well, I'm afraid. On the whole Apple markets to those people, rather successfully, who do not want to know about technology and desire that their computers "just work."

Graphic artists, writers, sound engineers, the so called "creative" people.

Perhaps it is true that Apple users, prodded by the marketing of the company, like to think they are on, and understand, the cutting edge of technology, but thinking you understand and understanding are two very different things.

I have some passing understanding of computer technology at a low level. I've built computers by hand wiring vacuum tubes (whose functioning I also understand) into bistable multivibrators (two tubes per bit). All of my PCs in regular use were assembled by me from parts, some of which were custom made by myself (data acqiusition stuff mostly).

But I'm currently building a PC based sound recording studio and I expect I'll get an Apple.

Why? Because I don't give a damn about understanding the technology involved, and, for the most part. . .don't. I have a specialized job for the machine to do. I want to just buy it, plug it in, turn it on and have it work.

In this limited case I have turned into the perfect Apple customer. I have money and don't know, don't care about the damned "technology." I just want to get my work done.

As a music geek, not a computer geek.

KFG

Re:arg apple sucks

[MysteriousPreacher]

If people buy mac [sic] because they encounter issues in Windows they don't know how to resolve then surely the Mac user-base should be amazingly higher than it is now.

Re:arg apple sucks

[Dracen]

Agreed, I can't argure with that. I guess that a lot either have had problems with mac's too, or they just don't want to make the switch. Hey I guess that is why stores like Best Buy and CompUSA make so much money fixing computers, and why companies hire IT support.

Re:arg apple sucks

[wordsnyc]

I would say that 90% of the PC users I know (mostly between 35-55) don't even know that Macs exist. Seriously. They may have heard the name, but have no idea that they run a different OS. These are people that buy Dells because they see the TV ads and use them to shop online, get sports scores, etc. They use web mail because Outlook Express is too complicated. Eventually they buy a new PC 'cause the old one is f'd up.

Re:arg apple sucks

[arminw]

.....The Higher then average cost and the fact that Windows Apps will not run (excluding bootcamp/virtualiztion etc...) on the Mac......

I wish that people would stop comparing Yugos with BMWs and then complain how expensive the BMWs are. If people want to buy cheap Windows machines and then get all the malwares for free, they get after all what they paid for. Pay only a LITTLE more and get a computer free of and resistant to malware and actually looks designed rather than a cookie cutter copycat variation of thousands like it.

My G5 runs WIN2K under VPC for special software just fine. It works at least as well, if not better than the PC hardware that was available when Win2K was first released. Normally, the VPC cannot and doesn't need to access the network, so I don't have to worry about anti-malware or security updates.

Re:arg apple sucks

[MysteriousPreacher]

Yeah, it's a big move really to switch from one OS to another. If someone was asking me if they should buy a Mac, I'd have to know what they use their PC for and how much software they have. For some people I'd suspect it's almost as daunting as moving to a new area or country.

Yep, the people selling support are definitely the winners like you said. Whatever it is, someone's going to get paid for supporting it.

FUD or Valid Argument?

[eldavojohn]

First off, read the original McAfee Report before you bash them as FUD spreading capitalists.

Why that wasn't included in the posted story, I'll never know. If you actually take a look at the PDF, it's got some good histograms and charts as well as a little more detail into the Leap virus.

Yes, it does follow from this that users should buy McAfee anti-virus for Macs. The simple fact of the matter is that this is a white paper that tilts in their favor. It has some valid points, though, and I don't think they need to tell people to be afraid. If Mac users start getting these viruses then they will truly need anti-virus software for their machines. They site the National Vulnerability Database and other sources in this document so it's not like they're making stuff up or are the only ones claiming there is an upcoming security risk.

I hate McAfee software. Like most anti-virus software, it uses too much memory and hogs the CPU if it's a real-time checker. I wouldn't opt for it if it was the last anti-virus company in existence. However after reading their white paper, it is convincing. I do think that if Apple doesn't take an initiative to protect their users from things like Leap then Mac users will need auxiliary anti-virus protection from a third party.

One man's FUD is another man's common sense. I don't care about the size or manufacturer of a device--if it runs programs in a turing-machine like manner, it can be infected.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[webdog314]

I'm sorry, but McAfee putting out a security report is like Exxon putting out an environmental assessment for Alaskan drilling. Slight conflict of interest there. It doesn't matter who they quote. They simply cannot be trusted because making a profit will always be their number one priority.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[MathFox]

I just copy and paste the Key Findings:

1. From 2003 to 2005, the annual rate of vulnerability discovery on Apple's Mac O S platform has increased by 228 percent (Figure 2), compared to Microsoft's produ cts which only saw a 73 percent increase.
2. As demonstrated by its March 2006 patch, which corrected 20 vulnerabilities, Apple's Mac OS platform is just as vulnera ble to targeted malware attacks as other operating systems (Page 6).
3. Security researchers and hackers will increasingly target the Mac OS and other Apple products, such as iTunes and iPods (Page 6).

If you don't read much further, Apple is doing bad... If you compare the absolute numbers of exploits Apple trails a factor 1000 by Microsoft. It will take some time until Apple reaches par with Windows (if ever), even if all malware programmers dropped their Windows work ans started concentrating on OSX instead.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[PFI_Optix]

Forgive me, but I find this funny because of how often Apple press releases get repeated here and I never see this sentiment expressed.

Apple is in business to make money. They *want* larger than 4% of the market share. They *want* Joe Consumer to buy a slightly-more-expensive Mac Mini instead of a $500 HP because that means more cash for them to roll in. In other words, Apple's mission is to dilute the technical abilities of their user base and turn it into a pool of Windows users.

Windows is insecure because people don't bother to learn how to make it secure. I know quite a few people who have had XP since its release and never picked up anything worse than a piece of spyware that was packaged with a program they downloaded...which could happen to a Mac just as easily.

If Apple gets what they want, they'll have a large, uneducated userbase just like Microsoft has. They'll have people creating security holes by clicking stuff they shouldn't. They'll have people accepting installations when they don't know what they're doing. They'll have enough users that the botnets will want to tap into the Mac market, and enough stupidity to let them do it.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Gary W. Longsine]

Hmm... I'm sympathetic to your position, but not your reasoning. Except for the occasional trust funder, just about everyone here is selling their services in exchange for cash. If you leave one job for another, higher paying job, are you profit motivated, and thus no longer to be trusted?

I suspect that rather than their motivation to make a profit, it is really the years of strangely incongruous (for a security company) and untrustworthy behavior like pioneering the pop-up browser advertisements and so forth that have caused you to trust not McAfee.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[hackstraw]

I'm sorry, but McAfee putting out a security report is like Exxon putting out an environmental assessment for Alaskan drilling. Slight conflict of interest there. It doesn't matter who they quote. They simply cannot be trusted because making a profit will always be their number one priority.

But you see, there are companies that make products, even have "monopolies" in their market, yet don't spread FUD or even advertise to my knowledge.

Take Bic for example. There revenue comes from: stationery (pens, pencils, highlighters, markers, crayons, and correction products): 50%, lighters (disposable, utility, and special-edition): 25%, and shavers (men's and women's): 19%.

Their lighters are arguably the best and pretty much the monopoly on disposable lighters. The price of them has not gone up in 20 years. They are excellent lighters.

No FUD, no marketing to speak of, whatever. There are many, many companies with products that simply do well on their own merits.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[nine-times]

Well, Macintoshes could be infected by a virus. There's no reason why Macintoshes are immune or anything. However.....

Symantec, McAfee, and the like have been urging Mac users to buy antivirus software for years. There's always this threat that someone might write some very bad viruses soon, and those viruses never materialized. So if you bought an anti-virus 4 years ago, and paid for all the updates, you've pretty much wasted your money.

Also, I think it's worth noting that for anyone who knows what they're doing, viruses tend to be a relatively small problem. I've been using computers for over 20 years, and do you know how often I've had a virus scanner on my personal computer find a virus? Once. And that was back in the day when I was trading 3.5" floppys with friends to get Doom. If you run windows with a decent firewall and don't run programs that unknown people e-mail to you, you'll generally be fine. And that's on Windows.

So, yes, I do think it's a little over-dramatic to claim that OSX users should rush out and buy a virus scanner, because you'll just be waiting for the virus scanner will have viruses to scan for, and even when they come, chances are you won't get them unless you're a retard.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[hunterx11]

I'm totally unsympathetic to your lack of reasoning. The GP was referring to trustworthiness with respect to reporting something which could influence people to pay the reporter. Saying that everyone works for cash is a smokescreen. He never said you shouldn't trust that their anti-virus software works, which is the strawman your reply addresses. Saying that you shouldn't trust people when they are better off telling you a particular thing regardless of its truth is just good sense.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the heightened press coverage about Mac security and Apple's really annoying tv ad campaign talking about how Macs don't get viruses, you'd think the time would be ripe for an OS X virus. It'd definitely get more attention than the Windows flavor of the week virus, and isn't that what virus writers are after in the first place? Sure it wouldn't end up on as many machines, but it'd certainly put that Jimmy Fallon look alike in his place.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[QuietLagoon]

McAfee has over-sensationalized the virus threat ever since there were viruses. Before there were viruses, McAfee was suspected of introducing their own.

With regard to computer viruses, McAfee has a substantial and growing credibility deficit.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Anonymous Coward]

"First off, read the original McAfee Report [nai.com] before you bash them as FUD spreading capitalists. "

But they *are* FUD spreading "capitalists"*..

Just because someone's pissing on your leg and telling you it's raining, doesn't mean it's not raining. ;-) A and B can both be correct ;-)

* If by "capitalist" you mean protection racket, yes.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[pubjames]

Apple's mission is to dilute the technical abilities of their user base and turn it into a pool of Windows users.

Are you sure this is Apple's mission? Personally, I use OSX because it is based on BSD. I know many other recent Mac converts that are the same as me - in other words, it is actually people who understand technology that are moving to the Mac. I'm sure Apple loves that, and I doubt it is their mission to "dilute the technical abilities of their user base".

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[shotfeel]

Symantec, McAfee, and the like have been urging Mac users to buy antivirus software for years.

Many years. Decades even.

One of these years they may be right. In the mean time, Mac users are more likely to suffer data and/or productivity loss due to AV software than due to a virus. They certainly lose the cost of the AV software they purchased.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[NutscrapeSucks]

In other words, Apple's mission is to dilute the technical abilities of their user base and turn it into a pool of Windows users.

Turn it into a pool of users that don't get confused by 2 button mice?

OK that's flamebait, but I think you have some very incorrect assumptions about the computer saavyness of Apple's traditional (non-Unix geek) userbase.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Gulthek]

Just because some companies don't spread FUD, doesn't mean that all companies don't spread FUD.

I am American. I like spicy food. !Logic => Americans like spicy food.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Haeleth]

If you compare the absolute numbers of exploits Apple trails a factor 1000 by Microsoft. It will take some time until Apple reaches par with Windows (if ever), even if all malware programmers dropped their Windows work ans started concentrating on OSX instead.

What does Windows have to do with this? Nobody questions the fact that Apple is more secure that Windows. However, being better than the worst does not automatically make you good. Cuba is freer than North Korea, but that doesn't mean I'd want to live there.

The simple fact of the matter is that it potentially only takes one virus to steal and/or wipe all your personal data. And if that happens, you really don't care how many other viruses there are out there for your platform. All you care about is the one that got you.

So there is an argument to be made that it is worth having anti-virus software if the potential for a virus is sufficiently high. In practice, given that many people run Windows for years and never see a single virus, trojan, or worm, it does seem fair to say that the threat to Mac users is minuscule. But the argument remains valid. You have to evaluate the threat for yourself; you can't take McAfee's word for it that you'd be better off with AV software, but nor can you believe any random fanboy who asserts that OS X is immune and shall never, NEVER be hacked.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[rizzo320]

Regardless of whether the argument is valid or not, these security software firms need to start improving their software for Mac users to take them seriously. If security is so important, then why is Virex 7.x such a horrible product. Norton AV for Mac is not much better. Apple was giving away McAfee Virex for free to .Mac users for several months until there were so many complaints with the product, that they stopped offering it. I have had to disable Norton AV on computers because it prevented with many graphic design and video applications from working properly. Plus, in an enterprise environment, its almost impossible to get your Mac anti-virus clients working with the Windows client's management tools. In most cases you have to have seperate management tools, despite the products coming from the same company.

Perhaps they will start making profits off of Macintosh computers when the quality of their software meets or exceeds the standards of their Windows counterpart. Everyone acknowledges that there are risks of receiving a virus on the Mac, including Apple, who includes ClamAV with Mac OS X 10.4 by default (though its command line only). Maybe people will take them seriously when getting a virus becomes more of a risk than installing their buggy anti-virus software.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[pimpimpim]

Yeah, but Bic refuses to tell us where all the pens and pencils that get lost end up! They might all be transported to a planet in another galaxy and resaled to us again, who knows?

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[jdelaney]

No marketing to speak of, hmmmm I guess some people are unaware of the secret world of supermarket checkout aisles. Hey, you know how when you go to the grocery store there are always the same certain items at the checkout aisle? Grocery store chains do not randomly select the same items from coast to coast...or do they. Talk about mass marketing.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[kponto]

From 2003 to 2005, the annual rate of vulnerability discovery on Apple's Mac O S platform has increased by 228 percent (Figure 2), compared to Microsoft's produ cts which only saw a 73 percent increase.

That's because it's harder to put more holes in swiss cheese that it is in chedder.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[hackstraw]

No marketing to speak of, hmmmm I guess some people are unaware of the secret world of supermarket checkout aisles. Hey, you know how when you go to the grocery store there are always the same certain items at the checkout aisle? Grocery store chains do not randomly select the same items from coast to coast...or do they. Talk about mass marketing.

That marketing does not bother me. In fact, I would rather the lighters be at the checkout line vs the back of the store, like where all of the drug stores keep their drugs.

In fact, its common for there to be lighters at about 1/2 the price right beside the Bics, but most people, including myself, get the Bic instead. I'm not brand loyal, I'm quality loyal.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Silverstrike]

I agree with the first response to your post, but just to play devil's advocate:

What FUD would someone spread to help lighter sales?

Oh, I know! The END is nigh and to survive you will NEED fire. Don't rub sticks like your ancestors, buy bic while your paper money still has value!

Sorry.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Gary W. Longsine]

He never said you shouldn't trust that their anti-virus software works, which is the straw man your reply addresses.

You missed. I neither said nor implied any such thing.

I agree that it's wise to be aware of people's incentives and motivations, including one's own -- it's not a smokescreen, rather it's a deeper understanding. Profit motivated people and organizations do all manner of good and trustworthy things. I'm only pointing out that profit motivation, by itself, is not sufficient as the basis for the argument in the parent post.

You do get a point for making me (and probably others) laugh with your opening sentence, however. Nicely done.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Anonymous Coward]

Go suck it you McAfee apologist whiny biatch. They just want to make money and you probably work for them, ho-bag!

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cricket lighters have a built in roaching rod. They are clearly superior.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[jedidiah]

That's like saying that you should go to the ER for your torn cuticle because it's a "wound" just like a six inch gouge out of your chest is. Being dramatically less worse than Microsoft is VERY meaningful. It's the difference between just having a few bugs and being a menace to the rest of the internet. You're just trying to gloss over just how BAD Microsoft is and what how big the gap between Apple and Microsoft really is.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[danceswithtrees]

Their lighters are arguably the best and pretty much the monopoly on disposable lighters. The price of them has not gone up in 20 years. They are excellent lighters.

Bic might have a dominant market share of disposable lighters but that does not make a monopoly. They keep their prices low because if they were to raise prices, other manufacturers would come in and start producing competing products. People who use lighters are not locked into a particular brand- there is little to no barrier to switching lighter brands. Bic can't use their dominant market share to force their users to do anything. This is the exact opposite of a monopoly. They don't spread FUD because they can't.

They don't advertise because there is no need. A competing manufacturer would have to advertise to steal market share from Bic, but Bic doesn't need to do anything to keep marketshare as long as they don't raise prices.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[ceoyoyo]

No FUD, no marketing to speak of, whatever. There are many, many companies with products that simply do well on their own merits.

And there are a few who do spread FUD, stupid marketing, etc. McAfee is one of those.

Come to think of it, I've never seen a Bic commercial of any kind. Thank you Bic!

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[ChronosWS]

So it's not the content of the message which is important to you, but the character of the messenger? The problem isn't the person sending the message. Its you, the reader, who doesn't even take the smallest of steps to either verify or discount the message based on the actual facts.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[denebian devil]

Just because some companies spread FUD, doesn't mean that all companies spread FUD.

And just because a company has an interest in the reports they publish doesn't mean the reports are biased. It means they might be biased, and you need to critically analyze what they say with attention to the fact that they have a potential bias. But anyone who writes anything has a bias, because if they weren't interested one way or the other about what they're writing about, they just wouldn't write about it at all.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[jacksonj04]

MS is bad, but I have never had a virus on any of my machines, be they Windows, Mac or Linux.

Most 'viruses' aren't. They're trojans, and there is nothing to prevent human stupidity except for the OS kicking up a fuss when an application tries to do something strange. OS X does this already, Linux does this already, and Windows will do this come Vista and XPSP3 (There was an article about it yesterday).

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[theurge14]

True enough for the lighter business, but the personal computer market has always thrived off of the stupidity of consumers. This has been evidenced time and time again by ads by AOL (want a better Internet?), Intel (all these things on the Internet run better through an Intel processor), PeoplePC, etc.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you sure this is Apple's mission? Personally, I use OSX because it is based on BSD

Wow, and I just use openBSD on my PC cause its based on BSD

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[geekoid]

Just bear in mind there is a difference not trusting it, and completly disregarding it. If someone who has a potential conflict of interest grings up facts, those facts should still be looked at.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[webdog314]

What makes you assume that I haven't taken steps to verify or discount the message? Every "fact" presented to you is going to have spin. The very same set of data can often be shown to verify or discount a given position simply by exclusion or interpretation.

So yes, the character of the messenger matters. Is it ALL important? Not really, unless you are looking for an unbiased interpretation of the data.

And there are no "actual facts" in McAfee's report. Only their own internal data, (which we have no way to verify), and references to someone else's data (which is completely open to interpretation). Is it just spin? Who knows, but I seriously doubt McAfee is going to go out of their way to let you know when you don't need their software. I might believe some of what they say, taking it with a grain of salt, or not. But it doesn't make me ignorant.

Mind you, this is the very same company that not two month ago had the following slashdot headline:

"McAfee Anti-Virus Causes Widespread File Damage"

Now that's some character.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[geekoid]

The poster appears to believe that Hard=Technically savy=Good.

I see this a lot, where something gets glossed over as not technically 'worthy' becasue it is easy.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[bean123456789]

I use OSX because it is based on BSD

Hate to break it to you but there are other BSDs out there that are "Free" and "Open", if you really wanted BSD you could have gotten it cheaper and easier, I think you went for shiny.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[smenor]

I don't think that shiny is such a bad thing or that free is such a good one.

OS X gives you consumer apps and polish plus you get BSD under the hood if you want it.

Sure, you can download *BSD (or any Linux distro) for free, install it on a commodity box and get some work done. You just have to deal with a lot of unnecessary hassle.

If you want Office / other consumer apps, you can tinker with klunky / inconsistent free software, you can dual boot into Windows or you can just buy a Mac.

Seems like such a good deal to me that I switched as soon as OS X came out.

Re:FUD or Valid Argument?

[node 3]

Two problems with your argument.

1. McAfee isn't a person. Most people aren't profit-oriented. Yes, most people have to work, but the pursuit of profit is not the primary focus of most people. On the other hand, most corporations seek nothing *but* profits.

2. While corporations have been known to do the right or promote honest facts, from time to time, this is not one of those times. Using fear is one of the most vulgar and appalling of manipulation techniques.

Any time a corporation tries to spread fear, and that corporation just happens to sell a product that directly addresses that fear, it's wise to become weary, because it's in that corporation's best interest to overstate the fear.

McAfee is just trying to build a market (which is a completely reasonable thing for a corporation to do), but in this specific case, they are trying to build a market which does not exist, and trying to force it into existence will have a net negative impact on the rest of us, as tends to be the case with FUD.

Reporter with an agenda?

[metasecure]

Something tells me the reporter has a hidden agendy against McAfee. McAfee isn't trying to "scare you enough to consider buying its anti-virus software for the Mac", they're trying to point out that anti-virus software, McAfee's or otherwise, for the Mac is an important and vital piece of protection against the malware of the Internet.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[Electric Eye]

Bullshit. McAfee and Symantec have been engaging in a mis-information campaign against Mac security for the past year trying to get people to buy their junky wares. Is the Mac 100% impenetrable? No, but given that OS X has now been around for 5 years or so and no script kiddie has been able to create ANYTHING remotely close to dangerous (yeah, there are a few small, barely threatening programs), then why all of a sudden are certain people with a VESTED interest in selling AV software trying to scare Mac users into spending money unnecessarily? Let's just stop saying "Oh, when OSX is more popular then it will be a popular target." That argument is CRAP. What bigger ego booster could you get if you created a successfully propogating worm or spyware app for Mac OS X, a supposedly supreme Fort Knox of operatin system?

I'm a long-time Mac admin and user. I don't have AV software on my home machine and as of now have no plans to either. I think Symantec, McAfee, Gartner and a few others are teh ones who have a hidden agenda.

All to pr0n you need: http://excaliburfilms.com/partner/mainaffiliate.cf m?ID=1765

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[porneL]

Saying that anti-virus is vital piece of protection on platform that hasn't yet seen any serious viruses IS spreading FUD.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[metasecure]

I'm sorry, but I believe in a proactive rather than reactive security policy. But you go ahead, keep running your machine without protection until AFTER you get a virus.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[DragonWriter]

Saying that anti-virus is vital piece of protection on platform that hasn't yet seen any serious viruses IS spreading FUD.

I'd disagree with that generality. If there is a good reason to think the platform is vulnerable but merely hasn't been exploited yet, that claim is not FUD, its sensible, proactive security.

Note that I am not making any statement about the specific claims about OS X, merely stating that the general statement you are making here is overstated.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[arminw]

.....Saying that anti-virus is vital piece of protection on platform that hasn't yet seen any serious viruses IS spreading FUD.....

Indeed true! In other news: Merck developed a new vaccine and suggests everyone to be vaccinated against the invariably fatal EBOLA virus.

Yes, the virus is fatal IF it infects a human. It is possible to infect a Mac, but it appears that it is not easy, otherwise someone would have done it already. It is POSSIBLE for someone to break into Fort Knox, but for practical purposes, so far, very improbable.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[colinrichardday]

A proactive security policy? What operating system(s) do you use?

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[metasecure]

Windows XP , we run host intrusion prevention as well as network intrusion prevention, firewall, gateway anti-virus, host anti-virus and gateway anti-spam.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[colinrichardday]

But if you were really proactive, wouldn't you use an operating system that didn't require all of that in the first place?

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be noted that McAfee's Virex for Macintosh under the latest OS version (Mac OS X 10.4.x, Tiger) is an incredibly bad piece of software. It causes more problems than anything (the only real reason to have it is to make endusers feel like their computers are protected but it fails at even that due to its faults). According to our orgnaization's central IT group, McAfee is fully aware of the problems and simply refuses to fix Virex (thus far). My understanding is that this is why Apple dropped giving out Virex as part of the .Mac service.

You see, Macs do not need virus protection (I have been doing front line tech support for 5+ years in a mized Mac/PC environment). But users do like the reassurance of a piece of software dedicated to protecting them from viruses, etc. (even if the OS does it already). So, McAfee, question: why can't you get a simple piece of software to work?

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[einhverfr]

Unless Cringley is right and OS X releases a Win32 layer for that platform. Then they will most certainly need virus protection.

BTW, I had an idea for a virus that could prove wickedly difficult to defend against. The virus works by embedding itself in source code on the platform on which it is running. When run it spins up a thread and occasionally searches the system for source code files to infect (or maybe slowly does this in order to avoid detection). It could even be made cross-language, and would certainly be cross platform. could infect closed source and open source projects with equal ease and become extremely widespread.

Re:Reporter with an agenda?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anti-virus software isn't proactive, but reactive, i.e. it only tends to work after a piece of malware has been identified and added to its signiature database, which means it's already infected a whole bunch of systems, and possibly wreaked havoc with them. Any money spent on Mac anti-virus software today is thus completely wasted, because people will have just as much chance of being protected by buying such software _after_ a real threat has materialised and been identified, assuming of course that Apple don't release a patch to fix whatever flaw is being exploited within the same time-frame, or the Mac user community doesn't find a simple workaround for it.

IMO Apple could significantly enhance user security by the simple exedient of having the OS X installer insist on creating not only an Administrator, but also a user-level account (as some Linux distros have been doing for years), and advising people to work in that user-level account all the time, reverting to the Administrator only for those few tasks that actually require it. They could also help a lot by making the compulsory registration process for some of their pro software (e.g. Logic) work in accounts that don't have administrative access instead of giving stupid errors about not being able to create certain files.

Mac a tasty target?

[op12]

If the users are "more affluent," wouldn't they be bigger targets? You'd get a bigger payoff with fewer attacks if you're stealing personal information, credit card info, etc.

Of course in the case of zombie machines and spam, you'd go with the easier target.

Re:Mac a tasty target?

[aristotle-dude]

How many stupid rich people out there that own macs do you know? Most affluent mac users are rich because they worked and had the smarts to get where they are today. Most stupid rich people own a Dell or IBM.

Now look at the average user of a zombie pc. They are usually a soccer mom or a boy/girl obsessed teen that downloads warez and music from P2P networks.

There are some P2P activity on the mac but it is nowhere near the percentage of the user base as with windows users. Mac users tend to be careful about where they get their software and generally look a the reviews on versiontracker or macupdate "before" downloading anything.

Re:Mac a tasty target?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you are saying your own activities are those of the average mac user. Where do you get your information from?

Tend to know more?

[Anonymous Coward]

"because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer"

I think that's debatable, since the popular saying goes "People that don't know how to use a computer buy an Apple"...

Re:Tend to know more?

[Oldsmobile]

I wonder if there is actual research to back up this claim?

I for one would recommend OSX for people who are not so computer savvy and who don't have alot of experience with any operating system.

Windows on the other hand is more suitable for people who have used Windows for years and don't want to relearn things.

Re:Tend to know more?

[portwojc]

They know more about the technology they are buying because they only, for the most part, buy Mac products.

Re:Tend to know more?

[benbean]

No, why on earth would you recommend a Unix-based OS with an out-of-the-box C/C++ development environment, several free scripting languages and the OSS world's finest general purpose tools to the technically unsavvy.

Windows with its superb Notepad and awe inspiring Calculator is definitely the way to go.

Re:Tend to know more?

[benbean]

s/unsavvy/savvy. Damn. My point was going to be so much better before I screwed it up.

Re:Tend to know more?

[Oldsmobile]

Mommy, I'm confused O.o

Re:Tend to know more?

[jellomizer]

I think that's debatable, since the popular saying goes "People that don't know how to use a computer buy an Apple"...

Yes that is what they popular saying is. But it is made up from PC Buyers who are afraid if Apple gets to much market share then they will need to buy New Apples and all their software, and become what Americans fear the most... "A Bad Consumer!". It is the same with Mac Zealots busing on PC users and Smiling smugly whenever a virus hits PCs. When I was a kid I was a hug proponent to PC and I would Bust on Macs whenever I had the chance. But I had a lot of invested interests in PCs I spend a lot of my own money to buy myself my 8086, which I worked hard for. And for the life of me I didn't want Macs to become the domanate system. So I smugly patted myself on the back knowing that I know how to use a Command Line Dos interface while those Mac users need to use extra system resources to do all those graphic stuff. Well at time moved on and I started to use Linux because I hated windows because of all those resources that is used for graphics. But after a while I started to find myself more and more just using X-Windows in Linux. I got comfortable with GUI and my Hatrid of Macs droped

Re:Tend to know more?

[idsofmarch]

Making a statement popular does not make it apt or wise.

I'm not so sure...

[SScorpio]

I'm not so sure after seeing the new Apple commercials saying how PCs have all of these Viruses; however, Macs are not susceptible to them. This could get more people to purchase Macs and while it might not be as large a target, if the majority of the community isn't being cautious it could be seen as an easy target. You will see outbreaks of Mac viruses. It's only a matter of time. As for Mac purchasers being more computer savy. I don't really consider the majority of the artsy, yuppies that are the majority of the Mac audiance to be over savy.

Re:I'm not so sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no! How much longer do I have before the virus apocalypse hits my Mac? Another 5 years? 10 years? I shall be worried sick the whole time.

Just to be safe, I locked all the modern art in the storage locker by my parking space at my trendy condo (next to the BMW). I'm sure all Mac users will do the same. By the way, we're all gay yuppies who work for advertising agencies, JUST as you suspected, SScorpio. We desperately want to use Windows and Linux PCs but aren't "savy" enough.

Re:I'm not so sure...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, you gave away that you really use an Intel platform because you had the know-how to sucessfully post a comment on slashdot. Oh wait, Apple finally gave up on Motorola and is moving to Intel, and now has a BSD-based OS! Seems like their identity crisis is in full swing!

Of course, that won't stop the yuppies who are like, "I can run photoshop! Isn't it pretty!??!"

Must be different Apple users

[nagora]

self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer

I don't know a single person who I would call knowledgeable about IT who has a Mac. All the Mac users I know (roughtly a dozen) know, and care, nothing about IT. That's pretty well why they wanted a Mac in the first place.

TWW

Re:Must be different Apple users

[XXIstCenturyBoy]

Yeah i'm not sure where that comes from. From my (limited) poll of friend with Mac, they tend to be artists or the artistic type, not technological inclined people.

If course they say "average PC buyer". I guess if you add the sum of all PC buyer tech knowledge and make an average... But thats like saying that 90% of all Mac user who drive have a Volkswagen. It seems true (it really does) but its not.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[benbean]

Can open. Worms everywhere.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because you don't know me . I program for a living (a very nice living, BTW) and my clients include many US Fortune 100 companies. All done from a Mac using a variety of technologies.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

One Mac user I encountered insisted a piece of hardware was not functioning correctly because a BNC-BNC cable was "wrong way round".

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

You, a slashdot poster, consider yourself an average Mac owner?

Give me a break.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[IflyRC]

A lot of this comes from way back in the 80's when Mac was the only personal computer to offer high end software for digital photo manipulation and print publishing. Also, Mac was very big in MIDI interfaces for musicians to record digital music.

I have one friend who does a lot of graphic design work who owns a Mac. She loves it and will never change. Still though, she doesn't know anything beyond using the software to do what she needs. I have another friend who also owns a Mac. She is pretty clueless about computers in general and she doesn't even know why she owns a Mac instead of a PC. So, I'm going to have to agree that the majority of Mac owners just don't think in terms of computer security, networking, etc.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't program for a living.

You most certainly don't do custom code for fortune 100 companies, and I am also sure you don't own a Mac.

In fact, I would bet that you are probably a 20 year old, overweight college student struggling to pass calc, and wondering what math has to do with computers and why you need to take calc and physics to get your CS degree.

When you graduate you will not find work, you will most likely run back to you mother (and father if he hasn't left her yet) and live at home before getting a low paying job doing basic IT shit like telephone tech support for a gay porn website.

Best of luck to you, you are the average slashdot user.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know a single person who I would call knowledgeable about IT who has a Mac

I do security software for Windows as a senior enginner. My wife does internal tech support. I am friends with other senior engineers and senior product managers at a security company (you know the name, not the creators of this white paper). There's an average of two Macs per person in this group.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

absolutely, no-one i know who owns a mac (15-20 people) know anything about IT in the slightest!

Re:Must be different Apple users

[zolaris]

I'll preface this with the statement "I'm not bashing you at all, I am acutally curious". I have programmed in college on OSX and Solaris. All of our projects HAD to compile on Solaris (course requirement). I wrote this C router in Darwin and then tried to take the code and compile it on the Solaris box and some of Darwin's warnings became Solaris's errors. I am not a good programmer. I tend to know "just enough to be dangerous" but have you ever run into that doing all your programming on a Mac rather than on a different Unix box? Or are all of your clients using OSX so something like that doesn't become an issue?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[oudzeeman]

I have a M.S. in computer science. I've worked on avanced research funded by the US Army, NIH, and NSF. I participated in research that was used to justify the worlds largest Apple cluster, deployed at another subcontractor's facility.

I consider myself primarily a Mac user, even though I typically use Linux, OS X, and Windows every day. I do the vast majority of my work on my Apple laptop, and it is the platform I feel most comfortable with. The interesting thing is I've only been a Mac user since the summer of 2004. At my last job we purchased a large XServe G5 cluster (256 nodes), which at the time was probably the 3rd largest Apple cluster in a university. I used a Linux workstation at this point, and I was having doubts about running OS X on a cluster. I flew out to the WWDC while the ink was still drying on the PO. I was impressed with the developers tools I saw at WWDC, and with the whole OS experience. I ordered a iMac G5 for my desk the very day they were available for sale. We had to work at porting some applications to OS X, and there were a few issues with being one of the earliest large HPC clusters (especially one that ran large MPI applications over Ethernet - lots of early Mac clusters ran embarassingly parallel stuff, or infinniband line VT). I took a new job where I spend a good chunk of time writing scietific sofware for Linux based clusters - I insisted my employeer provide me with a Mac (we have about 1,200 employees and run about 40% Mac desktops, but no one in my group had a Mac).

Re:Must be different Apple users

[oudzeeman]

Oh yeah, in our IT department a TON of the people have powerbooks/macbook pros

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

You must live in a different world than what I live in.

In my world, many many IT people use Macs. I'd say the percentage is well over 30%.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[oudzeeman]

I write lots of code on my OS X machine that is eventually deployed on a Linux cluster. If you write good code you won't have a problem. I have worked on some code that has had a OS specific module for each OS it has been ported to (90%+ of the code is shared, but there is a set of OS specific routines that interface tightly with the kernel. for example, these are a mix of Mach/BSD system calls for OS X)

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

I work at a large computer company (unix - we're known to hate Microsoft, if that gives you any idea :). Among the engineers, all of whom are quite capable of managing unix servers, Macs are very prevalent. Probably about 40% of those with laptops use Macs. Of the remaining, very few run Windows. Most of the rest run some version of linux or, mmm, a unix OS that runs on x86 hardware. I suspect that you just don't know many IT professionals that don't work in Windows environments.

Steve

Re:Must be different Apple users

[hal2814]

I went to see Edsger Dijkstra speak at our University back in 2000. He was telling us how he finally broke down and bought his first PC for email after his family had been pestering him about staying in touch with them. He bought a Mac. I know that's anecdotal evidence but you could lump Dijkstra in with a bunch of cavemen and their average technical knowledge would surpass the average x86/Windows user's technical knowledge. So as much as I may hate it, the author's point is valid though it's probably a bunch of not too tech saavy folks with some serious outliers thrown in to tip the scales.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

That comment tends to show that you dont know many people "knowledgeable about IT". Your sample size is way too small.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[cypherz]

You know the last time you brought this up, you got spanked pretty badly. Why don't you stop pointing this out? Most folks experience is different than yours! Or are you willing to be labeled the Troll that you are? Hmmm?

Hope this helps

cypherz

Re:Must be different Apple users

[auctoris]

I'm writing from a publishing company that has been running on Mac *exclusively* since 1987 (in business since '69). We have *never* owned a PC or Windows. Our IT dept is exclusively Mac. We do everything from desktop publishing to Web development and serving, database development and serving, Unix system administration, etc. No PCs, no Windows--ever. All Mac, all the time. And I am definitely not going to overgeneralize, but many IT people I have met know Microsoft and that's about it. Many Mac IT people I have met know Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc. The general trend I have noticed is that IT people who use Macs have a broader scope of technical knowledge overall than the Windows only IT departments.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

100% of the development at our company is done on G5 towers.

A certain percentage of operations takes place on G5 rackmount servers, and our primary NAS is a 4TB Apple XRAID.

All IT staff are issued powerbooks for remote administration.

I love my Slackware desktop, but my mac laptop is alright, too. It does what it's supposed to.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[ickyellf]

If there are two types of Mac users: techies and "the rest of us," I'm not sure where I stand. I consider myslef computer-savvy. Although I originally switched to the Mac for my video work, I fell in love with the Unix under the hood. I spend more time in the Terminal than in the Finder. I keep everything updated and don't download anything suspicious. When I used Windows, i found that anti-viruses just waste cycles.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Stamen]

I was network engineer for many years, then I became programmer, which I've been doing for many more years. At work I use a PC, but at home it's all Macs. And now that my Macbook Pro runs Windows so d@mn well, my next work computer will probably be a mac also.

Why? Simple: Mac = *nix (which I love on servers) + great windows manager

That's my reason, period. For things which I don't want to fuss with (music, digital photos, updates, etc) OS X is simple and I don't have to worry about it. For things that I do want to fuss with I have BSD, XWindows, and everything else you find on your linux distro. Best of both worlds, although at a higher price and being locked into one hardware company.

Over the years I tried and tried to replace Windows with a good Linux desktop distro. There was always something that was lacking. Then I found OS X.

I think you will find more and more technical people moving over to OS X, at least *nix ones. Now I have to admit that also enjoy design work, so I really appreciate beautiful things, wether that being perfectly simple elegant code or the PowerBook, so perhaps you should ignore everything I said above.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[nagora]

You know the last time you brought this up, you got spanked pretty badly.

Shouted at by zealots is not getting spanked. However, I was not suggesting that there was anything wrong with buying a Mac for that reason; the users I know that see not having to be IT-gurus as a selling point.

Most folks experience is different than yours!

I doubt it. I think the dozen or so Mac users I know are more typical than these supposed IT-experts the poster mentioned. And I think Apple think they are too. How often do Apple market at the technologically savvy? "You don't have to be an expert" has been the underlying message of their advertising for 22 years now.

TWW

Re:Must be different Apple users

[chundo]

My experience is no different. I also don't know any Mac users who know or care about IT, and we have quite a few of them in my company. Perhaps it is your experience that is different than the norm?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[cypherz]

IMO, the profile of the average Mac user has changed significantly since OSX was introduced. There are now a great many Linux/UNIX users who've bought Macs since. (And I'm not saying they've "switched" I'm just saying they bought Mac's "in addition to"). Face it: Macs have become very geeky to own. _Most_ of the serious programmers I know have _at_least_ one Mac machine now. Some, like me, have several Mac's in addition to their Linux/UNIX/Windows boxen. Why stop at just one platform. Many of us (programmers) maximize our marketability by writing for all of them.

"I think the dozen or so Mac users I know are more typical than these supposed IT-experts the poster mentioned. And I think Apple think they are too."

Sure. Thats why Apple includes all the development tools with every OSX DVD.

Macs are now one of the geekiest computers you can own. Linux rocks. *BSD is the shit. And Mac's are at the top of the geeky heap.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi There!

I was a Windows NT / IIS Security Administrator, professionally. Yes, that's like saying "Nuclear Submarine Environmental Protection & Safety Officer." I slogged through adminstering and securing an NT domain, upgrading it to an Active Directory, securing that. Anti-Virus deployment & updating & emergency response. 15000 leaf nodes & 300+ servers, Fortune 500 retailer. Got to legally read the Win2K source code, and was part of a corporate alpha-test for WindowsXP.

I now use a Mac, exclusively - it is technologically superior to /any/ OS Microsoft has yet offered, and far more secure - I've never seen the OS X source code and I do not /need/ to because the underlying Darwin source code is

A: Open to the good guys, not closed;
B: Checked widely for bugs by many people, not by a few people who are mostly ignored;
C: Implements security /first/ instead of as a tack-on.

The crooks /have/ the Windows 2k & XP source code & object code & are well aware of where the vulnerabilities are. A tiny fraction of the 'good guys' have the same.

Same scenario, two different platforms - a browser driveby install.

Windows: Exploit reasonably-expected buffer overflow vulnerability that allows a process running with root permissions to install another process running with root permissions to access anything on a partition that has no user-level permissions enabled - by default. Don't worry about being stopped - anything & everything has permission to run unless it is specifically denied by AV software. Only one step in this process has been added since the days of INT13h-hooking viruses: "Exploit buffer overflow vulnerability...". The vast majority of these don't check, they just /do/ - shotgun virii/hijacking. Exploiting the underlying OS is irrelevant; Once the browser (which is widely pushed to everyone & has exploits spanning major revisions) is exploited, you're in. Same for Office. Same for IIS.

Mac OS X:
A: Figure out which Browser is being used. Hope that browser has an un-reviewed and un-patched exploit.
B: Figure out which OS is being used. Hope that OS revision has an un-reviewed and un-patched exploit.
C: Check to see if any known combination of exploits is possible with that Browser & OS version.
C.5: Oh, yeah - that's just the overlying OS/GUI - Hope the kernel has an unreviewed and unpatched exploit too, or avoid that.
D: Have a specially-crafted binary to exploit that.
E: Hope that the user isn't prompted to allow you to run, because only things the user specifies are allowed to have higher permissions & run.
F: You're in! Infect three machines.
G: Repeat.

The entire point of viruses is that they should be small, widely-spread and /automatic/ - not requiring a huge database of possible exploits, not choking because the next machine to infect has one less or one more revision, and not picking its' nose as a proof-of-concept.

If Microsoft had done things right the first time, second time (windows95), third time (win98), Fourth time (win2k), fifth time(winXP), sixth time (IIS), Seventh time (Outlook) or the Nth time (Office) - by addressing a security model & self-replication vectors & exploits - I'd never have picked up a Mac in the first place.

Windows is a lush virus ecosystem.
The Mac is a virus desert.

Windows is Chernobyl.
The Mac is five layers of proven hurdles.

Someone wrote a non-robust, easily broken proof of concept that can be patched & which relies on people explicitly giving it permission to screw them - a hurdle for every machine to be infected.

--- begin sarcasm ---
Yes, please! Everyone needs to cripple their Mac with a third party Anti-Virus program!
--- end sarcasm ---

Re:Must be different Apple users

[steveness]

This is an interesting issue. I personally am fairly tech-savvy (I work in a tech field, have built computers from parts, write the occasional application, etc), and I use a Mac.

I have a friend who also uses a Mac. He describes himself as a non-techie (he's a pastor), and once told me this: "I don't really use my computer that much. I mean, I just do some basic video editing, work with my photos, write stuff, surf the web. I'm not a power user."

So what does tech-savvy really mean? He doesn't understand the ins and outs of how the operating systems works, but he knows how to use the tools at his disposal. He uses his computer more than I use mine, and gets more out of it. I would call him tech savvy, but he thinks he's not.

On the basis of using the computer to its capability, I know more Mac users who really use their computers. I know lots of Windows users who can barely manage to check their email. Maybe the Mac is easier for a non-techie to use, and therefore Mac users seem more savvy.

Your Anecdotal Evidence May Vary (YAEMV)

Re:Must be different Apple users

[nagora]

And Mac's are at the top of the geeky heap.

Maybe it's a US/Europe thing. I just don't get that feeling here; quite the reverse, in fact. Oh well.

TWW

Re:Must be different Apple users

[cypherz]

Most of my friend and acquaintances are geeks. All I'm saying is this: since OSX arrived on the scene, Mac's have become _very_ geeky machines to own. Especially now that they are becoming Intel based, LOTS of programmers are buying them. Parallel's Workstation is a large part of the reason. Now they can "have it all". If you could afford it, why wouldn't you?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[pimpimpim]

I agree, I think someone can be called tech-savy if they manage to find the right technological tool for their technogical job. For someone who edits videos, he probably found the machine to edit videos with the least effort, which is exactly what technology should be for. Just let me be a bit insulting here, but in some respect, linux is not a very good technological solution in as far you have to do a lot human effort to reach your goal with it (e.g. I have several years of computing experience (with any OS), but configuring my sound card on a debian install requires finding a correct module, recompiling the kernel and I don't know what, I just gave up on this, it doesn't help me to ease things.)

The cool thing of MacOSX is now that if this guy would like to do automated batches of video-editing, he could probably start learning scripts to do this in an efficient way and have all the UNIX-like scripting possibilies at hand.

Configurability is very good, but it shouldn't be in the way for getting simple things done. It's also why I like opera more than mozilla. Opera is the solution for dummies: you do one install and it works, if needed, you can edit the configure file to change your settings. Mozilla, after the default install, misses a lot of functions. It has a world of extensions available, but you'll have to find and test them yourselves. What is the more tech-savy browser solution?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

variety of technologies? wow. so vague. care to provide details?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[nagora]

He uses his computer more than I use mine, and gets more out of it. I would call him tech savvy, but he thinks he's not.

I can drive my car; I use it a lot. I can't strip the engine or even change the breaks. I am not car-savvy. Your pastor is not tech-savvy. At least, that's how I would look at it.

Can he replace the DVDRW drive if it packs in? Or rescue data from his hard drive if something bad happens during a thunderstorm? Although, if he's a pastor, perhaps he should take that last one as a hint...

TWW

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Fahrenheit 450]

I doubt it. I think the dozen or so Mac users I know are more typical than these supposed IT-experts the poster mentioned.

Have you been to many conferences or universities lately?
Hell, last year at Crypto, nearly half the laptops in the audience were Apples (as was the machine that they used to record and stream the rump session talks). And I know that a good portion (about 60% last time I noticed) of this group use Apples as their standard machines.

Methinks you need to get out more.

How often do Apple market at the technologically savvy?

All the time?. Well, not on TV, but they have touted its unixesque abilities in a number of print ads.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[fribhey]

I don't know a single person who I would call knowledgeable about IT who has a Mac. All the Mac users I know (roughtly a dozen) know, and care, nothing about IT. That's pretty well why they wanted a Mac in the first place. yeah and how many average PC buyers know anything about IT? NONE! i haven't met one average PC buyer who even knows what an IP address is. i'm a mac person and i have set up networks for everyone i know.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Fahrenheit 450]

So, I'm going to have to agree that the majority of Mac^H^H^H computer owners just don't think in terms of computer security, networking, etc.

Fixed that for you. Hell, I'd wager that even the majority of Linux users just don't think in terms of computer security.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[lederhosen]

People that speak latin is in general better in french, german etc than the normal english speaking american, and on top of this often has better knowledge about languages in general. I can not---however---conclude from this that latin is a better language. It is also a fact that I have _never_ in my life, heard a bad joke in latin.

But if people would start speaking more latin, I guess the bad jokes would come as well. It is not the language in itself that protects from bad jokes, it is the fact that it is easier to give a bad joke in english, a language that most people understand.

ps. I don't speak latin, french or german; and have never been to an english speeking country.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[CanSpice]

And from my limited poll of friends with Macs, the vast majority of them are programmers and not artists.

Anecdotal evidence is worthless at best when trying to back up your argument.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Shag]

Many Mac IT people I have met know Mac, Linux, Windows, Solaris, etc.

...FreeBSD, BSDI BSD/OS, SGI IRIX, Dynix/PTX, Data General AOS/VS II, VAX/VMS, IBM VM/CMS...

1. It's just an operating system.
2. It's just a CLI.
3. It's just a GUI.

Need I say more?

(Of course, the Mac has a rather nice OS, CLI and GUI. ;)

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Em Adespoton]

I have one friend .... I have another friend .... So, I'm going to have to agree that the majority of Mac owners just don't think in terms of computer security, networking, etc.

Funny; I'm a network admin, and I've been using Macs for 19 years. I've got around 40 friends and aquaintences who are also Mac users, who serve websites, write software, are hardware engineers etc. Does this mean that I'm going to have to disagree and say that the majority of Mac owners think in terms of computer security? No. When it comes to their home computers, most of them don't think beyond the original hardware purchase and system hardening stages; after that, they let the software updates autoinstall, and don't think about it at all (besides laughing at the runme.jpg.com attachments they get in their email). The trick is, so far they haven't had to think beyond that. It makes using a computer a much more enjoyable experience.

Your anecdotal evidence is lacking, but I think your general conclusion is correct... to a point. You see, mac users tend to get educated about email security pretty quickly, since they get the same number of Windows-based viruses emailed to them as Windows users do -- the difference is that the attachments won't run, and the email programs don't tend to hide what the mails actually contain. From this, most Mac users learn fairly quickly to identify virulent emails, without actually becoming infected by them.

The gist of what I'm saying is this: why spend all the extra time/money/effort combatting non-existant security threats, when you could spend that time being productive? So long as you make backups, does it really matter that there is a 0.0001% chance that you might be infected with some software that can trash your data? Your computer is more likely to be fried in a lightning storm.

I can hear you thinking: yeah... but what about spyware and botnets? Well, botnets require the cooperation of your router, among other things. If someone actually discovers a botnet app making the rounds for OS X, I'm sure Steps Will Be Taken fairly quickly to block this activity -- at multiple levels, from the hardware, through the software, right up to user education. The Mac community's like that.

Spyware, on the other hand, is a bit of an issue... except that OS X's security model makes spyware fairly difficult to transparently integrate. Add to this that there is so much free software available to do the "simple" tasks on a Mac, and well known and reasonably priced software to do the more complex things (as well as a limited number of above board well established sites where people get their shareware), and the result is an extremely small injection vector for spyware software. Why download something that is reported to install spyware, when you can get the equivalent thing a) for free, or b) for $19? These are Mac users we're talking about -- I'd say most are either creative enough to get the free software, or rich enough to pay a shareware fee.

What I'd personally like to see is some sort of a statistically significant study that compares phishing results between Mac and Windows users... I'd also like to see a comparison of *AMP servers compromised across MacOS, Linux and Windows. THIS is an area where the same exploits tend to work on all platforms, meaning that the users are the only differing link.

I'd also like to see Apple integrate ClamAV into the startup process of OS X, or even into spotlight indexing. All you'd really need to do is create a "virus" plugin for spotlight, and all *known* infected files would automatically be flagged as such at the fs metadata level, and have their permissions disabled.

And just for reference, the last time I accidentally infected a Mac, it was via floppy -- contained both WDEF A and nVir B. Disinfectant caught both immediately, and removed them. You see, when there is an actual need for a piece of software on the Mac, the community tends to come up with either a low cost solution (if everyone needs it) or a very powerful high cost solution (if a small segment needs it -- and they'll pay for it).
[/ramble]

Re:Must be different Apple users

[gnasher719]

'' I wrote this C router in Darwin and then tried to take the code and compile it on the Solaris box and some of Darwin's warnings became Solaris's errors. ''

If you used XCode, just turn on the option "Treat warnings as errors".

Re:Must be different Apple users

[bean123456789]

No PCs, no Windows--ever. All Mac, all the time.

PC = Personal Computer A Mac is a PC.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[auctoris]

I know. I was simply using the vernacular of many IT people in which they refer to any machine running an OS other than Mac OS a PC and any computer running Mac OS a Mac. But thank you for clarifying as I'm sure many Slashdot readers were confused. :-)

Re:Must be different Apple users

[auctoris]

I can not---however---conclude from this that latin is a better language.

I do not believe anyone was attempting to make a case for a Mac being better. I believe people were simply pointing out that the assertion no knowledgeable IT people use Macs is incorrect.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[fandog]

Dude, you're talking about a company who has one advertising campaign that said, "Buy me, I'm Orange"

Does that sound like an advertisement for intellectual IT people?

Re:Must be different Apple users

[fandog]

have *never* owned a PC or Windows. Our IT dept is exclusively Mac. We do everything from desktop publishing to Web development and serving, database development and serving, Unix system administration, etc. No PCs, no Windows--ever. All Mac, all the time.

Wow, you guys have wasted a lot of money on overpriced systems. Seriously, you could have done all of that on systems that cost one fifth to one tenth the cost.

Glad I'm not a stockholder...

Re:Must be different Apple users

[auctoris]

Wow, we could have spent 10 times more money in the long run due to lost productivity and hardware repair by buying systems at one fifth the cost. No thanks. Number of hours we've had in down time due to hardware malfunctions, viruses, etc.--0. Not bad for 20 years. I'm sure we are a rarity and have been very lucky but we have never had one of our Macs die or require any major repairs.

Re:Must be different Apple users

[Anonymous Coward]

"Wow, we could have spent 10 times more money in the long run due to lost productivity and hardware repair by buying systems at one fifth the cost."

That's the worst case and one that some businesses have experienced by going with first gen Apple products instead of being sensible and waiting for revisions.

self-selected?

[gEvil (beta)]

"...are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer..."

While this is true in some segments of the market (*nix geeks migrating to OS X), it is by no means true of other segments. There are many designers/graphics pros who choose to use Macs. However, this in no way implies that they actually understand technology. Some do. Many don't. The choice to use Macs is typically because either they have always used Macs or that is what they were trained on.

Re:self-selected?

[some guy on slashdot]

Adobe has more than a little credit coming its way for the popularity of the Macintosh. All of their stuff supposedly runs better on a Mac, although I've seen little difference in (say) Photoshop performance between Mac OSX and Windows XP. Still, Adobe products and Apple computers go hand in hand.

It can get quite annoying when you're in a mixed-OS lab and the techs insist that you always use a Mac for anything graphical, even if you've been using Photoshop for Windows for half a decade and you're on deadline.

What we really need is Photoshop, Premiere, and After Effects for Linux. They'd run faster, crash less often and they'd really attract a less nerdy crowd to the platform.

Re:self-selected?

[Anonymous Coward]

They'd run faster, crash less often

hahahahahahahahhahahahahhahhahah......sorry, I just fell off of my chair.

Re:self-selected?

[gobbo]

The choice to use Macs is typically because either they have always used Macs or that is what they were trained on.

Um. The choice to use Macs in the 2-D graphics industry STILL has much to do with colour management, automated workflow (think applescript), ROI, and compatibility, not just maintaining an ongoing investment in training, software, and hardware. And in 2-D motion graphics and video, it's similar, though you also have some drool-worthy Mac-only software in that niche. I guess you don't talk business with pixel pushers much, eh?

Antivirus companies are scared...

[pubjames]

The antivirus companies are scared. Why? When Vista comes out, potentially their market is going to quickly dry up. So they are trying to convince Mac users that they need their software.

Personally, I don't trust any of the antivirus companies one inch. It's big business, and it is in their interests that there are security threats and viruses around. Talk about conflict of interest...

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, do we live in the same universe?

"When Vista comes out, potentially their market is going to quickly dry up."

Considering that Vista had to be patched for an XP security hole, I don't think that antivirus companies will suddenly lose out on the windows market.

But yeah, I suppose that Vista could miraculously be virus proof. :P

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[pubjames]

I didn't say Vista would be virus proof. But it does have a lot of security features built in.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[suwain_2]

It's big business, and it is in their interests that there are security threats and viruses around.

Do you also distrust pharmaceuticals? (Actually, that one might be justified.) Or hospitals? It's in their interest to have people always getting hurt. Policemen? It's in their interest to have lots of crime. Firefighters? It's in their interest to have fires everywhere.

I don't necessarily love the anti-virus companies myself, I'm just not sure I understand your logic.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[Bombula]

When Vista comes out, potentially their market is going to quickly dry up.

Did I miss a meeting? Since when is Vista going to be immune from viruses? I know MS has all sorts of anti-virus measures planned, from making Vista itself more secure to introducing its own anti-virus/anti-spyware app(s). But I seem to recall hearing the same thing about XP, and 2000 before that, and NT, and 98, and, and, and...

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[Anonymous Coward]

Grow up..
"Policemen? It's in their interest to have lots of crime." No, it's not, and besides police isn't some stock market sensitive business.. at least not in my part of the world.. Rather its a publicly funded agency with pretty well defined objects, none of those spelled "profit". Same goes for fire fighters. Looks like you're going back to the drawing board.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[pubjames]

I don't necessarily love the anti-virus companies myself, I'm just not sure I understand your logic.

I'm not sure I follow yours. Do you really believe it is relevent to compare firemen, hospitals and policemen to antivirus companies?

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[Ilgaz]

Are we getting old or nobody really remembers the scandalous "anti virus" built into MS DOS 6.22 which was treated as a virus itself by "real" anti-viruses?

It didn't make anyone go out of business, it even created a better business.

I am not speaking about the crap MCafee sells as antivirus. I am talking about "real antiviruses" of today which even runs a virtual processor in them to score heuristics, in cases like F Secure, neural networks based scanning.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[pubjames]

I understand Vista is to have antivirus protection built in. If that is the case, then of course that is seriously going to affect the virus companies business. Of course I may be wrong.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[suwain_2]

Just in the sense that their jobs all depend on something bad persisting, be it computer viruses, human viruses, crime, or fire.

Maybe I'm just crazy. You wouldn't be the first to think that ;)

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[herve_masson]

So far, antivirus business is a windows centric / closed source business. They rely on something that makes creating an antivirus for windows a rather expensive and complex task: amongst many other complex things, you need to build a filter driver that intercept filesystem accesses to files. The problem is not about rocket science (ok, that's not trivial either), but lies in the largely undocumented and secret field. No doc, no sample, nothing to work with except some overpriced toolkits. Strategic area here?

So far, only closed-source commercial products achieve that. This is the only piece that lacks to clamwin,for example, to compete efficiently with others. If someone manage to go that far, there will be much less space for those fat and horribly bloated and intrusive commercial AV products. As someone who once tried to do that, I doubt it gonna happen soon. There are too many little secrets around this technology and unless you pay the big buck and sign a handful of NDAs, you can hardly be one of those guys.

Granted, AV products does much more that filesystem filtering, but I'm probably not alone to only need that feature from them. I would actually love to get rid of the rest most of the time !

If someone can prove wrong on that, I'll be extremely happy !

I don't think those guys are going to be in such a favorable position on other platform though. I never tried that yet on OSX, but filesystem interceptions/monitoring is something that can be done rather simply on most *nix OSes. If we ever see days when OSX *need* an AV shield, I think we will have open sourced solutions for that very shortly.

Re:Antivirus companies are scared...

[colinrichardday]

I guess your part of the world doesn't have civil forfeiture.

Macs should still protect themselves

[TrippTDF]

Im' an avid fan of Macs, and I don't run anti-vi on my Powerbook, but I DO run it on the Macs in my office for a reason that people don't often think of: Macs can be a virus CARRIER, even if they can't be infected!

A few years ago I had a situation (in an all mac offce) where we burned a CD and sent it to a client (the client was Windows based). The client complained that some of the files were infected. As a Mac-only office, I didn't care about running virus protection, so the files went unchecked.

In my current office, a mixed enviroment, I make sure that both OS's are covered. even if the chance of the macs getting infected is next to nill, I want my PCs to be safe.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[suwain_2]

I don't run anti-vi on my Powerbook

Please tell me that someone else here read "anti-vi" and thought of the text editor? And that "anti-vi" meant emacs?

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[fossa]

Seconded.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[ibullard]

Hear! Hear!

I downloaded ClamAV for MacOS X to see what it was about just to find out that I had a windows virus in some of my archived files. If I had used that file on my Windows machine before scanning I would have had to spend several hours cleaning up the mess.

Always use some form of AV, even if it's just for other's people's sake.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs can't be responsible for detecting windows viruses since there is no way they can have heuristics, code analysis, virtual machine type features (Kaspersky, F Secure)

There are devices which are dedicated to secure networks like Aladdin's eSafe etc.

All mac antivirus can do is signature based antivirus checking.

In your situation, my post is pointless but there are people buying Mac antivirus just to check windows viruses on their network. That is pointless and waste of money.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[MysteriousPreacher]

Thirded. I'm not a big fan of vi but I still have it on my PowerBook and I'm proud to run it oocasionally. Death to the anti-vi'ers.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[just_another_sean]

Yep I was ready to don my fire retardent suit, break out the big guns and issue a hearty "and so it begins again!". But I cought myself and remembered we're here todoy to flame mac users (or is it fear mongering corporations?), not rehash the editor wars.

Bummer.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[Ilgaz]

Real businesses in real World does not send viruses to their customers or they get a very bad "first sight" image.

It is kind of funny that Mac people are forced to run antivirus because of windows but it is not funny as "stupid".

It is tragicomic in fact.

(watching 1000 port 135 hits/hour on my firewall running on OS X, 1000 bandwidth wastes)

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[menace3society]

"Anti-vi" is sed(1). It's non-screen oriented, non-interactive, non-modal, takes commands as program arguments and data as input (instead of the other way 'round), and can't edit files in place.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[Ilgaz]

No problem, the thing is very touchy even for "Linux only" companies. They still waste their time/resources to at least Clam project (hopefully they donate) just because of windows.

As I said, really funny but in evil way. ;)

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[Haeleth]

sed can't edit files in place? You could have fooled me. What does the -i switch do, then?

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[podperson]

Excellent point. The only viruses my Mac anti-virus software has detected in the last five years were MS Office viruses.

Also note: Mac OS 9 had quite a few viruses and also a pretty lousy market share. Apparently, architecture and not popularity do count.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[oPless]

I certainly did! :o)

I almost went to freshmeat to check if there was an anti-vi package on there, just before reading this post!

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[prockcore]

Macs can be a virus CARRIER, even if they can't be infected!

True.. but they can also be infected, especially in a corporate environment.

Entourage and Word on OSX are susceptable to macro viruses! There's a pretty bad one going around right now. Our IT dept just finished re-osing one of the editor's powerbooks because his entourage was spamming the hell out of everyone... due to a macro virus.

It's funny that it's caused by MS software, but that doesn't change the fact that Macs can and *do* get viruses today.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[yuvi]

How true. I heard that some time ago, a Mac user inadvertently created a new strain of some word virus by opening an old infected file in Word 2004 and resaving it as a newer file, giving the virus a new signature that av products weren't looking for.

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[NereusRen]

Hell, I didn't figure out any other meaning until I read your post, and went back up to the GP to think about it some more. I assumed emacs was some weird pun with Mac.

Is there, like, a support group we can go to or something?

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[nexu56]

anti-vi = vi vi vi - the editor of the beast

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[mmmiiikkkeee]

if my karma was not so bad i would mod u up!!! :)

Re:Macs should still protect themselves

[MichaelSmith]

...check if there was an anti-vi package on there...

here it is.

Wow! And I thought I didn't get along with others

[The_Real_MrRabbit]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs..."

Code Words Dictionary

Self-Selected = Chosen Ones
Average PC Buyer = Stupid Ones
Bit More Affluent = Upper Class

I would take defenders of the Mac platform (not that anyone should really have to defend any platform honestly) more seriously and actually read their articles thoroughly and in-depth if they didn't toss verbiage like the above around.

I want arguments that are straight to the point, avoid emotional slapstick comments - and more importantly let the pure unadulterated data carry the case.

=8-)

market niche is not safety

[Gary W. Longsine]

The Witty Worm demonstrated that a market niche as small as perhaps 12,000 systems can be vulnerable to a worm based attack. The Macintosh is not inherently safe due to niche status. Anybody making this claim is seriously not keeping up with the field of information security.

Worms that have targeted other niche platforms including web servers and database servers of various kinds have also demonstrated that platforms with a few hundred thousand deployed systems (much smaller than the deployed base of Macintosh systems) are vulnerable to worm attacks.

Mac is an appealing target...

[Crazy Man on Fire]

Seems to me that virus writers would want to target Macs because of all the talk about how Macs are less succeptable to viruses. It would be more prestigious to create a virus that spreads like wildfire through the "impenetrable" Mac community than to create one for the "wide open" Windows community.

Just my $0.02...

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Jace of Fuse!]

Seems to me that virus writers would want to target Macs because of all the talk about how Macs are less succeptable to viruses. It would be more prestigious to create a virus that spreads like wildfire through the "impenetrable" Mac community than to create one for the "wide open" Windows community.

Don't worry, McAfee and Norton are working on it as we speak. As soon as they can put together something more fearful than the cute little proofs of concept that have been floating around expect them to announce a full "epidemic".

It's not legal? It's not ethical? It's not honest? It doesn't matter. Their business model REQUIRES them act in this way. Though not officially, of course.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[suwain_2]

To play devil's advocate, a lot of malware these days seems to want to infect as many hosts as possible, without caring about 'rarity' of hosts. Things like botnets and info-harvesters just want maximum victims.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Except the notivation has changed recently from bragging rights to money. Mac users are fewer, but they're richer and less likely to have anti-malware software. Once Mac users hit the radar screen of malware developers, I predict that they'll attack with EULAware ("Click OK to this 5000-line agreement you can only read 3 lines at time to install our Cool Web Search product!").

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me about it! I'm half tempted to buy a Mac, write a virus and have a good laugh at those smug 'impenetrable' Macs.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hah! As if you would be the first.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why haven't there been any whistle-blowers coming forward yet to expose this gritty underbelly of the security industry? Sounds like conspiracy theory bunk that just doesn't stand-up to any level of scrutiny.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Jodka]

It's not legal? It's not ethical? It's not honest? It doesn't matter. Their business model REQUIRES them act in this way.

Yes, in the same way that my desire for pizza REQUIRES that I kill you and take your pizza.

In additions to the anti-virus business, here are other professions which REQUIRE unethical and illegal behaviour:
- Medical doctors are REQUIRED to spread cancer, AIDS and hepatities.
- Firefighters are REQUIRED to be arsonists.
- Auto mechanics are REQUIRED to cause broken fuel pumps, flat tires, dead car batteries and leaking radiators.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X is a prime virus target because it is nearly virus free, and yet it still remains nearly virus free.

This seems like a good argument supporting the idea that OS X is techically superior to XP. I don't buy the rarity arguments, that OS X doesn't have viruses because there aren't enough targets. I'm sure that plays a role, but I don't believe that it accounts for the extremely high ratio of XP viruses/worms to OS X viruses/worms. I think they would have appeared by now.

I think what we are observing in the recent crop of "the end is near" articles about OS X is a stealth marketing campaign. MS, and other vested interests threatened by OS X are directing their public relations experts to "encourage" stories that support their PR strategies. These "news" stories are designed to create doubt in windows users who are contemplating switching to OS X. I also have little doubt that Microsoft can and has paid people to post on well read message boards such as /.

Companies such as microsoft are capable of doing these things, so why would we doubt that they would do these things if it serves their interests.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[fastgood]

McAfee and Norton are working on it as we speak. As soon as they can put together something more fearful

McAfee sales and marketing are always hard at work compared to their development team.
Except for NAI's website, I had damn near forgotten what dire popup warnings look like.

The mandatory ads (that you must accept to update some of their subscription products)
are nauseating since you see the same ones every time. Paying customers deserve better.

You don't save money with subscriptions ... product gets disabled if you don't sign in ...
while they force you to view bogus interruptions like "your system may be infected!"

And McAfee would like to make consumers think that cookies are worse than the kind
Hansel and Gretel got from the mean old witch who poisoned them.

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[lasindi]

Don't worry, McAfee and Norton are working on it as we speak. As soon as they can put together something more fearful than the cute little proofs of concept that have been floating around expect them to announce a full "epidemic".

Okay, come on. You have no evidence to show this. Their business model doesn't "require" them to do anything like this; there are plenty of problems in the Windows world to keep them busy. Yes, there is a conflict of interest when they tell Mac users "You are in danger." Duh. There is a conflict of interest when Apple tells you "The next version of OS X will change your life." Anyone can see that. But you're suggesting that just because they have a conflict of interest and they are a corporation, they are doing illegal/unethical things.

This is precisely the same reasoning the RIAA uses when it says that DRM is necessary. It says that users have a conflict of interest when they have the technology to easily infringe copyright with no one looking. Yes, users do have that conflict of interest and yes, a lot of users actually do illegal/unethical things with their music when no one is looking. But (at least here on Slashdot) we argue that it's wrong, with no supporting evidence, to make the assumption that, just because there is this conflict of interest, users are doing something wrong. Why do you make equally baseless accusations here, just because this a company, not an individual?

Re:Mac is an appealing target...

[pilkul]

Now look, I hate Norton as much as the next guy, but this is baseless slander. I've never seen any evidence that a major antivirus companies wrote any viruses. Their business model may be rather parasitic but that doesn't mean they are gangster-like scumbags who would stoop to that level. The programmers at Norton and McAfee are just honest programmers like you and me (though possibly less competent :) --- they deserve a little credit.

B.S.

[GmAz]

That is absolute BS. I used to work at CompUSA and we have an Apple store in there. The majority of Mac users that came in there knew next to nothing about technology. Most of them were running pre-G3 era computers on OS 7.5. When the Mac Mini came out, they jumped on it because it was small and cute. They had no idea what was inside and were pissed when they had to buy a new keyboard because they either had no idea the difference between an old Mac keyboard plug and USB. As for software, a lot asked if they could still buy and downgrade to OS9 because OSX was so different and weird.

The few people that did know about Macs had a specialized purpose. They were either into digital photography, or digital video. They bought the PowerMac G5 because it was the best. They only bought Mac LCD screens because they had no idea any screen would work with a Mac. They still thought there was no inter-compatibility with Mac and PC hardware and heavens forbid if you tell them you can use a two button mouse on a Mac.

The majority of Mac Users are morons. No, I am NOT saying all Mac users are morons, but trust me, they only buy Macs because they are scared and ignorant of what is out there. They like thier little Apple logo and thats all they know. They hear virus and freak out and think that if you have a PC with Windows on it, its an immediate virus. I have only had one virus in my life and its because my wife opened a freaking attachment on an e-mail. Lets just say that never happened again.

Re:B.S.

[GmAz]

Weird, my quote didn't get in the post and the italics didn't close though I put a "/I" after it. on well, here's my quote again...

First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs

Re:B.S.

[benbean]

And CompUSA customers are representative of the entire Macintosh community are they?

Re:B.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Lets just say that never happened again."

Seems like a pretty minor reason to get a divorce/commit murder...

Re:B.S.

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who work at CompUSA, can't figure out italics, etc, shouldn't be making fun of other people. Glass houses, bricks, do the math.

Huh?

[realmolo]

"... are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer..."

You've got to be kidding. Mac users are even MORE clueless than the average PC buyer, in my experience. They buy Macs specifically to *avoid* having to know anything about technology.

Re:Huh?

[Ash-Fox]

That has been my expirence with many Mac users too. However I do know a few technically oriented people who use Macs, but it doesn't seem to be their main platform.

Re:Huh?

[rizzo420]

i know people who know technology and own macs. in fact everyone i know with a mac is a geek. however, that won't stop the affluent people described in the article from buying them because "they look cool". and then there's the whole "macs don't get viruses attitude". i think they're a great target and i will not be surprised that they have a lot of virus and probably even spyware problems within the next 5 years.

no computer is foolproof.

Re:Huh?

[barzok]

My next computer will be a Mac. I'm perfectly capable of understanding all the PC components (I used to build & spec out PCs regularly), I just don't have time to anymore, nor do I want to spend a week ordering parts from all over the web and waiting for everything to show up, dealing with RMAs on bad parts, assembly time, component conflicts, etc.

Plus, I want to be able to run OS X.

Pick up a Mac and it's all taken care of; the hardware WILL work with the software, it's all done in one package, and the hardware is nicely designed. I certainly could build a PC, or buy from one of the big vendors, but (to be blunt), I just don't want to bother with it.

Re:Huh?

[Fri13]

All people i know who use MacOSX computers dont know anything about computers. Hardly they know what is folder and what is program what they run. And almoust everyone who use PC and who i know, knows much more about computer, but still they have more problems because of windows. Same thing with Gnome is with few users that they dont know what kind computer they are running. If someone says he/she knows a lot from computers, they must be a Windows users, they need to know what kind hardware and software they run and how to fix things and protect own computer.

Re:Huh?

[nine-times]

They buy Macs specifically to *avoid* having to know anything about technology.

That used to be true, but these days, people who know nothing about computers like to use "normal computers", by which they mean MS Windows. In my experience (which is fairly extensive), current Macintosh users break into a couple of groups:

1. Hold-overs: They've been using Macintoshes since Apple was big the first time. They're fans. They know off-hand which model of Macintosh was new in 1992, and can tell you the code-name of that model. These people know lots about Macintoshes, but little about computers in general.
2. Hipsters: Apple is cool now, and people who want the cool computer to match their iPod and the rest of their home-decor buy iMacs.
3. Pros: People who work in graphic design, audio, or movies were trained on Macintoshes, and that's what they're used to, so they tend to want to stick with it. It's like a tradition-- that's what graphic designers used at first, so when they trained people, they trained them on Macintoshes, and so those trainees used Macintoshes and trained their trainees on Macintoshes, and so on. Also, being "artistic", they want their computers to be pretty.
4. Geeks: The geek mac users have been in an up-swing. These are people who are anti-Microsoft, pro-Unix, but prefer the experience of using Aqua to Gnome|KDE|Xfce, or just want more support for natively running major applications such as MS Office or Photoshop.
5. By-standers: People who have been influenced in some way by one of the above groups. After a couple years of having their trusted friend/relative saying, "You should use a Macintosh," they gave in.

There may be a couple others, but those are the major groups I can think of. And none of them are using Macintoshes to avoid knowing about computers. In fact, most of them believe that they're using Macintoshes because they know better than 90% of the people out there.

Re:Huh?

[NutscrapeSucks]

I think your list is pretty much right on, but let's take "Hold-overs" and "Pros" (and there's a lot of cross-over in this group). This is pretty much the traditional Apple userbase.

These people come from Classic MacOS background, where if they knew the secret command to "rebuild the desktop", they were an expert. OS 9 and before was very simple and not much trouble-shooting knowledge was required. You could quite easily open up the System Folder and know exactly why each file was in there.

However, MacOS X is massively more complex. A handful of system directories is now hundreds. Anything that exploits/attacks the Unix side of the OS is going to be beyond these people's ability to fix.

Let's just take the firewall for example. It's got some pretty buttons in a control panel. However undereneath is the whole Unix configuration environment. If something were to mess it up beyond the point of GUI, probably 99% of Mac users would be lost.

Re:Huh?

[Zorandler]

Alright, come on...a little reality check here. We have oodles of comments stemming from anecdotal beliefs that
Mac users are generally less tech-saavy that other computer users. I know plenty of hard core coders,
hackers and computer wizards who choose to use Macs over other platforms. Not only do you get a "pretty" GUI,
but you have the flexibility of a UNIX OS which many computer geeks feel at home with.

There are plenty of idiots running Macs and plenty of idiots running windows.
I think the general trolling about Mac users being generally less technical is pretty much total BS...
there are users of all types on all OSs...for many different reasons.

Re:Huh?

[nine-times]

I don't take issue with the idea tha Mac users aren't all brilliant about computers. My statement about "hold-overs" knowing lots about Macintoshes but little about computers-- the "lots about Macintoshes" are all pretty trivial. They know about about what key-combos do what and what all the code-names were for which products, but not anything about what a "firewall" is.

In general, I don't think Mac users, as a group, are particularly "computer savvy". Maybe moreso than the average user, but if so, only by a little (which isn't hard to do since the average is retarded). Also, if they're more literate than averyage, it's only because Windows is sort of the "default" OS. It's what people get when they don't know enough to have a preference.

But no, on average, Mac users don't know much about computers, just as, on average, Windows users don't know much about computers. However, these days, very few Mac users use Macintoshes because they "don't want to know about computers".

Re:Huh?

[crerwin]

Hipsters: Apple is cool now, and people who want the cool computer to match their iPod and the rest of their home-decor buy iMacs.

These are the ones that annoy me. They sit in Starbucks using their MacBook Pro to post in their blog on MySpace about how they drove to [some snobby clothes store I don't know the name of] in their Jetta or Scion xb (god those things are ugly) to buy a new black turtle neck to match their black rimmed glasses, carefully-combed-to-look-uncombed hair, and soul patch.

I have no problem with any of these individual things (other than that damn Scion), but for some reason this combination is either entertaining or annoying as hell, depending on how my day is going.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Please tell me English is not your first language.

If it's not, I woudn't be surprised if all the people you know, "dont know anything about computers," or anything else for that matter.

Re:Huh?

[gr8dude]

"... are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer..."

You've got to be kidding. Mac users are even MORE clueless than the average PC buyer, in my experience. They buy Macs specifically to *avoid* having to know anything about technology.

If your assumption is correct, then it is very likely that if there will be an increase in the Mac-virus activity, there won't be much resistance, so Mac viruses' growth curve will be very steep in the initial phase. Personally, I don't think things will be that way, but I'm really curious about that one.

Wtf?

[gravyface]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer..."

Are self-selected?
"Self. Your technical savviness has not gone unnoticed. You've been selected. Congratulations."

Straplines aren't what they used to be...

[Claws Of Doom]

News for Nerds?
"Tech company tries to stir up some business using FUD"
Hardly.

Stuff that matters?
"Macs? Pfft."
*Comment removed due to danger of fanboi activity*

You deserve a medal

[Anonymous Coward]

So get one here! http://tinyurl.com/e8sj5

Re:You deserve a medal

[Anonymous Coward]

First Post!!!

Arik Hesseldahl surprising ideas...

[ynohoo]

Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer

In my experience Mac users know bugger all about technology, and care more about furnitures than they do about computing.

There may be exceptions in their established graphic artists user base, but even they are more likely to be "gadget collectors" rather than tech-heads.

Re:Arik Hesseldahl surprising ideas...

[shotfeel]

In my experience Mac users know bugger all about technology, and care more about furnitures than they do about computing.

In my experience, that's just as true for Windows users. Even more so for the population in general.

IMO the only "self-selection" done by Mac users is that they made a decision to go against the flow and buy a Mac. Ask someone who buys a Mac why they bought it instead of a Windows PC, and they'll give you a reason -usually centering around ease of use and security. Ask someone why they bought a Windows PC instead of a Mac, they often have no answer other than "that's what everyone else has".

Why Doesn't Linux Get More Attention??

[Anonymous Coward]

If you look at the numbers, Linux has arguably carved out a bigger piece of the "market share" than Apple has. In fact, it would seem that, even by conservative estimates, Linux has at least twice the market share that Linux has. So, why is it the Apple garners more attention? Or, why is it that Apple/Mac is perceived to be of greater importance/respect/installed base/mind share than Linux?

Why is Apple regarded as number two to Windows instead of Linux when the numbers show otherwise? I'm not asking about viruses per se, I'm asking about how the industry as a whole treats Apple as if it had a larger market share than Linux.

Couldn't be bothered to read the rest...

[IANAAC]

... are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer

My experience with Mac users is that they do indeed know more about Macs and OS X, but not much else. Ask them about Windows or Linux (or BSD, for that matter) and they won't get very far.

That's just been my experience.

Re:Couldn't be bothered to read the rest...

[zaren]

Funny, my experience is just the opposite. Most of the Windows users that I know couldn't find their way around a system that's not theirs if their life depended on it. And I don't mean an OSX or Linux system, I mean another machine running the SAME OS they use, just configured differently.

Meanwhile, most of the Mac users I know are administrators of non-Mac sites, or do support for non-Macs. I know a Mac guy that's a Solaris admin, and another that manages several school buildings full of XP laptops and desktops. I'm the family's computer support (as I'm sure most of you are as well), and I'm forever troubleshooting my sister's Windows machine from the comfort of my OSX environment. I really need to get around to having her install VNC so I can work directly on her machine, rather than trusting her to understand my instructions, since my Windows machine looks different than hers.

Re:Couldn't be bothered to read the rest...

[ZombieRoboNinja]

Ask ANY segment of the general populace about Linux or BSD (except maybe programmers and network guys), and they won't get very far.

For that matter, ask any segment of the general populace about OSX or Windows, and they'll probably tell you a few things they learned by rote - where the Word icon is, how to save a document, etc.

One difference I guess you can point to is that Mac users all must care about computers to SOME degree, otherwise they'd be buying cheaper Dell boxes. But I certainly wouldn't attribute to Mac users any special competence in the field of network security. If anything, we Mac guys are LESS knowledgeable, because many of us have never had that enriching experience of reinstalling our entire system because we caught some inexpungible virus.

Anyway, Apple is concerned enough about security and the "completeness" of their systems that I'm sure they will at least TRY to build in antivirus measures good enough to keep Mac users from having to pay for McAfee.

In London...

[dave420]

Most Mac users are not tech-savvy... many claim to be, but believe me they are not. :) There are, though, some real tech-savvy mac users, but they're in the minority.

Re:In London...

[el_womble]

Funny, thats similar to the Windows user demographic... and in fact most population of this fine island (especially the ones that work in IT).

Re:In London...

[DragonWriter]

Most Mac users are not tech-savvy... many claim to be, but believe me they are not. :) There are, though, some real tech-savvy mac users, but they're in the minority.

Tech-savvy users of any consumer OS are, always have been, and always will be the minority. Wheter Mac users are more tech-savvy than PC users is a matter of degree, not a matter of the trend being reversed.

I suspect that it is the case that Mac users are at least a little more tech-savvy, overall, than PC users, if only because Pcs are so dominant that they are pretty much the default choice of the average buyer, and for the most part there is generally a glimmer of comparative featre awareness that goes into finding a reason to reject that default; especially given that most people can find a usable Wintel box with similar sticker specs for less money than a Mac, and it takes some tech savvy to know why those numbers might not tell the whole story.

Re:In London...

[nogginthenog]

In the whole of London? I'm not sure I believe you. I mean, did you ask _all_ three of them?

Mac Losers

[Woy]

Apple technologies may have merit, but this is just ridiculous:

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... "

His points being:

1) I paid more, so more expensive must mean better, right?
2) I am smarter than you, and i say it in a non-specific way so that you don't instantly laugh at me, showing i'm smarter than you
3) I paid more, so more expensive must mean better, right? RIGHT?

I LOL at you, sir, from the depths of my xorg.conf file.

Wrong premise, to begin with.

[MMC Monster]

Just because you pay more for your computer doesn't mean that you are more computer-savy.

Mac users tend to be mac users because they want things to "just work". If anything, they may be less tech-savvy, since they don't need to delve into the inner working of the OS as much. And, therefore, they should be *more* prone to get viruses/trojans. Except, of course, Mac OSX is built with security in mind, as opposed to Windows 95/98/98SE/ME/NT/2K/XP/etc.

Re:Wrong premise, to begin with.

[mmmiiikkkeee]

u forgot win 3.1 and windows for the pda devices and probly more

Virus probably less of a burden than MacAffee

[addie macgruer]

They have produced some good-looking graphs; however, the number of viruses observed (about 2 per year for the last decade) means that the substantial upturn could be little more than statistical noise.

I think it speaks for itself that, according to that PDF, the macintoshes with 1/50th of the market share have 1/1315th of the number of identified viruses, somewhat disproportionate to their decreased market share.

Have got MacAffee antivirus installed as corporate policy on my business peesee, and it humbles what is otherwise a fairly able laptop. Perhaps Apple's move to a more powerful architecture means that they can now shoulder the MacAffee burden too?

Re:Virus probably less of a burden than MacAffee

[Firehed]

Maybe it'll be to be able to run a Quicktime movie on How To Not Compute Like A N00b, since they've clearly ignored everything else that says to not open unfamiliar attachments. 99% of viruses are propogated by the users. I run no AV, no anti-malware and no software firewall (behind a router, but I've spent many a day sitting in its DMZ), and my system isn't infested. It probably has a few odd cookies that'd show up in Spybot, but that hardly bothers me, and it's not problematic (and, could I be bothered to care, it's a five-second fix to change the cookie-accepting behavior).

I have enough uncommon sense to avoid getting junk on my computer, and everyone should know by now that prevention (read: educating users or banning idiots) would fix the vast majority of the problems. Yes, the OS/software is part of the problem in all cases, but you'll also notice that the systems with the most anti-crap software tend to be the most infected (and as a result run exponentially worse, as there's crap and crap prevention running and taking most of the resources). Sure, Windows (and I'd assume OSX, I haven't used it enough to know) should have the Linux-esque "run as user, ask for root password if you need to do something that requires root access" behavior. Of course, when you type in the admin password to install that keylogger, you've rather defeated the point, which brings the issue back to the users. Computers don't screw up, we do. As it is, I don't want to have to confirm seven times to open a pdf after typing in two passwords plus some biometric ID, but at least I would't need to hear complaints about how slow someone's new comp is after installing their AV/AS/AA/etc software.

Re:Virus probably less of a burden than MacAffee

[Theaetetus]

Have got MacAffee antivirus installed as corporate policy on my business peesee, and it humbles what is otherwise a fairly able laptop. Perhaps Apple's move to a more powerful architecture means that they can now shoulder the MacAffee burden too?

I recently removed their antivirus from my PC, because it was acting viral. It was slowing my machine down (2.4 GHz P4, gig of ram) to the point of being unusable for WoW - somehow, it decided that instance runs were the best time to do On-Access scans of my entire hard drive.
So, I disabled that feature. Turned it off completely, said I'd do 'em manually. Worked fine for about two weeks, suddenly machine was dragging again - it turned its On-Access scanning back on. Something adversely affecting the performance of my computer, doing behavior that I explicitly prevented... Sounds like a virus to me.

this is old and tiring

[DigDuality]

The guy is flat out wrong. Most Mac users are no more tech savy than your average Windows user. The walk into the Apple store and see shiny computers/pretty OS X is a damned secure OS. Especially with it's default root account disabled, among other things. I don't know what sickens me more though. The FUD from McAfee and Symantec as they salivate to capture another market, or the snottiness of a bunch of geek-wanna-be's in black turtle necks sipping red wine and eating cheese acting like they are invincible.

Re:this is old and tiring

[Anonymous Coward]

This pretty much sums it up for me, too. Unix-based Macs are nice, it is the user community that is so off-putting.

Re:this is old and tiring

[superburger]

maybe ponces and posers do buy macs. Maybe apple do market their products to wannabes (God forbid a company makes a few ££ out of selling, er, stuff) but if you attend any chemistry conference, I estimate 1/3 of all laptops used are iBooks / PowerBooks. This is accross the range of academia, from PhD students to Nobel Prize Winners and 1/3 seem to have chosen Macs. Buy most definitions, chemists are pretty good nerds. So why the Mac? I suggest it's because it offers to speed and secuirty of *NIX / Open Source coupled with a wide range of proffesional software apps (ChemDraw, SciFinder) in a (pretty) box which is a piece of cake to use. If you're a busy scientist, you want the power, but you don't always want to spend all day reading man pages. Maybe these people are all deluded idiots with heads up thier own arses, but to keep banging the same old tired drum about Macs only being the preserve of posers and artists just doesn't ring true any more. Inverse snobbery from linux dorks is a terrible thing.....

MacBook release imminent?

[kuwan]

If you go to the iPod page on Apple's website there appears to be an error. This is the text:

Home > Hardware > MacBook

Perhaps this is a slip-up signaling the near release of the MacBook (sans Pro) to replace the iBook line. You can catch a screenshot here (until my server melts down).

Re:MacBook release imminent?

[kuwan]

The iPod page is back to normal now. I wasn't the only one who saw it though. Everything Apple caught it first. You can still catch the screenshot from my site as well.

Anti-Ego before Anti-Virus

[Anonymous Coward]

[i]"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... [/i]

Indeed, it would appear your large head and considerable ego are much larger obstacle to overcome even before you address any issues regarding your choice of computers and viruses.

tend to know more about technology . . . HA!

[Dracen]

"tend to know more about technology" than what, maybe a cave person. I personally work in a company with about half mac half pc users. I am friends with many of both but on average 99% of my mac users don't know the difference between a hard drive and the case. On the other hand my pc users aren't much better but I will say that 99% of the people that do know something about computers, use pc's and hate mac, myself included. Is it just me or does anybody else remember that just a few years ago macs big marketing scheme was that all you had to do was plug it in and you didn't need to know anything about computers (not true by the way)? I am sure that mac's have their use, I haven't found it yet, I know I will upset a few people with this, but anything graphically that can be done on a average mac ($2000 give or take) I can do on a higher end pc ($2000 give or take) and chances are it will look exactly the same, not to mention I will be free to use whatever software I want because it will be reverse compatible. As for viruses, I admit because the OS is based on Unix it is harder to get a virus but as someone else said they can still carry them and infect other computers even if they are not affected themselves.

Re:tend to know more about technology . . . HA!

[Anonymous Coward]

So show me the Windows equivalent of iLife. It has to come free with the OS and have the (almost) seamless integration that iLife has. You can keep your 2000$ PC when a 599$ Mac Mini comes with bundeled software (free as in beer) whose equivalent on Windows will cost you hundreds of dollars on top of the price of your PC..

Re:tend to know more about technology . . . HA!

[idsofmarch]

Oh yes, the always useful PNOMA* approach to data, which you've correlated with anecdotal evidence or the SIMU* appraoch. Fine work. Good show.

The reality is, most users are clueless no matter what the OS, computers are complex little beasts that require a lot of esoteric knowledge to use and most users don't have the time or the inclination to really learn about the difference between a disk and memory. Your self-selected group or PIHOW* doesn't mean anything about what the general user even wants from their computer. One thing I've noticed is PC users who like PCs have never used a Mac, Mac users have almost always used a PC and gone back to the Mac. This is interesting, but doesn't really tell us much except I pay way too much attention to what kind of computers people use.

*PNOMA - Pulled Numbers from My Ass

*SIMU - Shit I Made Up

*PIHOW - People I Hang Out With.

Re:tend to know more about technology . . . HA!

[Dracen]

Simply what I have noticed from the people that I know, I do not claim to be an expert on global averages nor will I go and survey everybody at work before posting, I am just using averages. I can only speak for what I observe. And as for your observation on mac users switching back to mac and pc users never using a mac, maybe a little PIHOW* of your own.

Re:tend to know more about technology . . . HA!

[idsofmarch]

That was my point, PIHOW is, as I said, interesting but ultimately invalid as a means to discover what even the averages are. I know lots of Windows users who couldn't find their way out of a wet paper bag, and I know Mac users who couldn't even if given a map; most computer users don't get their machines and don't really care. I'd argue they should since they use the f-ing things all day, but they don't. Thus, any attempt to say one platform's users are somehow less adept than the other is merely fodder for arguments. One of the interesting things is that many Mac users probably also use Windows because of the shear prevalence of Windows and have made a choice regarding the Mac. This indicates a certain preference and could indicate a certain knowledge base, but I wouldn't try to use this as a Macs are better argument, it's just a tendency that we could use polling to find out.

Just don't make up numbers like 99% and follow it up with anecdotal evidence to insist that PC users are inherently smarter because it's just made up and everyone knows it.

Piss and moan...

[Savage-Rabbit]

...The majority of Mac Users are morons. No, I am NOT saying all Mac users are morons, but trust me, they only buy Macs because they are scared and ignorant of what is out there. They like thier little Apple logo and thats all they know...

You could say more or less the same things about most PC/Windows users, they are IT morons. They like their little Windows logo and that is all they know. Basically, whether you are talking about Macs or Windows users, the majority of them are bound to be relatively computer illiterate. You may get a slightly higher percentage of Nerds using OS.X by choicle than Windows since most of the other Nerds that didn't flee Windows for Macintoshland will have defected to Linuxland but even so the Nerd/Geek crowd is not exactly the majority of Mac users.

I'm self-selected

[ThatsNotFunny]

In fact I select myself a few times a week. Unfortunately, I'm now going blind and there is hair growing on my palms...

Re:I'm self-selected

[shotfeel]

Is that what they call "natural selection"?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[maxxdogg]

Seriously, why are mac users so arrogant? They pay double for hardware that is the same as or less powerful than a pc counterpart. They claim to be technically savvy because they know how to use Photoshop. In fact, macs are FOR non technical people...that's the appeal of macs. How many mac users actually built there own mac. Probably not many as it's almost impossible. Also, macs are increasingly moving to the PC market. Mac users....get off your high horse.

Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[Anonymous Coward]

Building your own computer makes you technically competent in the same way that paint-by-numbers makes you an artist.

Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[Fluk3]

Based on your post, I'd have to say that you are the dick... and an ignorant one to boot.

Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[Verminator]

How many mac users actually built there own mac. Probably not many as it's almost impossible. Also, macs are increasingly moving to the PC market. Mac users....get off your high horse.

Ah, yes. The brilliant insight. The biting social commentary. The boldly aggressive disregard for grammar and punctuation.

As my friend Dr. Don Dull, B.F.D. says, "When you want the straight scoop, go to a 12-year old."

Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[colinrichardday]

How many Mac users built their own Mac?

Can one even buy Mac parts separately at a price that would justify this?

Re:Why Are Mac Uses Such Dicks?

[zbrimhall]

Building your own computer makes you technically competent in the same way that paint-by-numbers makes you an artist.

Agreed in part, but consider that one can not know what parts to buy unless one has at least a passing familiarity with the different roles of CPUs, graphics and sound processors, storage interface controllers, peripheral component interface types, etc. Not to mention that, even if you know what parts generally go into what slots, you still have to match the CPU to the board's bus speed, be aware of how fast the PCI/AGP bus is, be aware of what sort of IDE controller you have, know how the RAM should be spec'd, know how to select a PSU that will meet the needs of the components you have...

In other words, the ability to build a computer does not an electrical engineer make, but it does require more understanding of computer systems than painting by numbers requires of color theory.

Wate wut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac users know more about technology than the average PC user? What complete and utter bullshit; I wish there was a more civil way of putting it, but considering the statement it's appropriate. Just to keep things simple:

Macs: one manufacturer, users don't have to concern themselves with what's inside becuase there's practically no choice (other than what's new and what's old, and how much memory/hard drive space they want).

PCs: multiple manufacturers, multiple competing chipsets, the average user don't concern themselves with what's inside as well, but we also have the option to rise above the 'average' user and built/upgrade our computers as we damn well please.

People who buy Macs and pre-assembled PCs both do it because it's convenient and they don't want to bother learning about the tech, but it's the PC users who can learn about the tech if they want to - Mac users just don't have that option.

God, the ignorance of this story sickened me.

Self-selection, where the product buys you.

[digitaldc]

If only every manufacturer had the power of self-selection, there would be no need for advertising since the product was indeed 'self-selected' or wait....come to think of it, is everything we buy 'self-selected'?

Or, could it be that we are just mindless Mac buyers controlled by the powers of the Great Black Turtleneck?

Question about Boot Camp and viruses

[jbeaupre]

Is the OSX code protected while running in WinXP mode? While this is an even smaller group than just Mac users alone, they might be more vulnerable. If they believe that since they are running a Mac, it is imune regardless of OS and thus not have WinXP secured.

Just curious if anyone has any insight in this direction.

Re:Question about Boot Camp and viruses

[jbeaupre]

In my original question, I was wondering if running XP would make OSX more vulnerable. But I had a another thought: Regardless of whether it does, the machine may be more vulnerable in XP mode than the average PC if Mac users assume they are invulnerable regardless of OS.

Re:Question about Boot Camp and viruses

[Anonymous Coward]

If the malware can write to HFS+ Mac OS X partition - Yes.

Use Parallels Workstation instead, it's a sandbox for Windows (other OS's) inside Mac OS X, run several OS's at once. The only bitch, 3D graphics is slower than BootCamp.

Re:Question about Boot Camp and viruses

[Anonymous Coward]

Short answer: Yes.

MacOSX is on an HFS or EXT partition. WindowsXP does not natively read these. The core parts of the OS - kernel, etcetera - require root to screw up. Root is disabled in MacOSX by default.

If BootCamp includes HFS or EXT drivers for WindowsXP to be able to access those partitions, guess what they won't be able to do? That's correct - write to any critical directory or file. The best that might happen is dropping a hidden .conf file or innocouously-named executable in a user's home directory. There's still three hurdles to jump over from there to infection in MacOSX itself, involving the user giving explicit permission to run the 'virus'.

Re:Question about Boot Camp and viruses

[shotfeel]

The author of TFA wasn't very clear, so maybe I can unmuddy it a little.

As you may know, Boot Camp allows dual booting. So you're either running OS X or XP. They are on separate partitions on the drive, with OS X (typically) being on an HFS+ formatted partition. That means that when Windows is running, unless you install separate software to enable it, no program in Windows can even "see" the HFS+ partition with the Mac stuff on it. For all practical purposes, that part of the hard drive doesn't exist when XP is running.

So, as the article points out, this hypothetical virus would need to infect Windows, install software to allow it to read the HFS+ partition, then be able to properly target the OS X part of the drive. A lot of work to target the small fraction of Mac users using Boot Camp.

I know this is an oversimplification, but...

[dildo]

... ins't this like asking "Is FreeBSD the next Windows?"

AFAIK, the two ways to get inside an OS X machine are to dupe the user into entering an administrator password or to take advantage of a very novel hole. Doing either is more complex and difficult than what Windows viruses tend to do.

Since most services are turned off by default in OS X, the people who are ignorant about IT are less likely to turn them on. (Why would they turn on what they don't need or don't understand?) This makes the virus maker's lot even more difficult.

I'm no expert, but this looks like FUD to me.

Re:I know this is an oversimplification, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

There's absolutely no need for malware to need an administrative password. True, this will prevent too many bad things from happening to your OS, but that doesn't mean nothing bad can happen to you or things that you care about.

Your account can still access your files, it can access the internet and while I don't know enough about Mac programming I'll venture a guess that it can also intercept your keystrokes, sites you visit and report back.

It may have a significantly smaller attack surface, but it by no means invulnerable and Windows spyware has made it painfully clear that conning most users into running anything is not that hard. Getting a Mac user who thinks he's safe just because he's using a Mac to run something potentially malicious probably isn't any more difficult.

Re:Wow! And I thought I didn't get along with othe

[Gary W. Longsine]

I think it's probably true that quite a few of the geek priestly class are attracted to Mac OS X, as they are to Linux and other UNIX. However, the Macintosh platform is notorious for a certain segment of its user base being relatively unsophisticated. Only yesterday someone told me that they thought this reflected well on the platform, because, "people who otherwise wouldn't be able to use a computer can use a Macintosh"!

What we need here...

[Churla]

Will be the first BIG Virus/Trojan/Worm for OS X to hit and hit hard.

I agree most Mac people I know don't even think about security. If they do they just wrap themselves in the "Apple is immune to viruses" blanket and suck their collective artsy fartsy thumbs.

Someone will write it. Some nasty malicious code and they won't even have to be as sneaky as the windows guys in getting an end user to run/install it because they won't think anything could adverse affect their "immune" mac.

It will happen.. when it does.. you all owe me a dollar... or a cookie.. or at least a haiku about pudding cups.

Re:What we need here...

[zaren]

...the first BIG Virus/Trojan/Worm for OS X to hit and hit hard.

Personally, I'd love to see it, strictly from a geek perspective. Actually getting a virus to work in OSX that's not a social engineering hack (having the end user physically enter their admin password) would be very interesting.

I haven't had a virus on any of my Macs since the early 90s. I haven't bothered with anti-virus software since the mid-90s. I kinda hope that a virus *does* hit, so the guy that wrote Disinfectant feels the need to come out of retirement :)

Re:What we need here...

[arminw]

.....I agree most Mac people I know don't even think about security....

That's because they don't HAVE to. So far, all threats have been theoretical and I suspect that will be true for a long time. Mac users don't run with full root privileges such as most Windows users must and do. A non-admin Mac user is able to run all software without inputting a password. However, when a new program is to installed in the normal applications folder, a password is asked for. Our users don't have the admin password and therefore cannot install anything in the system. They CAN however install things in their own user space and no password prompt will appear, unless the program they are running wants to have some write access to a part of the system. If the program, is a nasty, the damage will be confined to the user's space. Many Mac programs are drag and drop install and can be dragged into any folder in the user's account. If the program is useless or malware, it can be gotten rid of by simply dragging it into the trash.

Very few Windows program will install without an administrator password, unless the user is already running as an admin. The existence of the registry is a big reason why malware can imbed itself so deeply in the system and that special uninstall software is needed. Mac software doesn't scatter components of itself all over the HD and can be gotten rid of by simply dragging the offender into the trash. Compare that with editing the arcane registry. Until MS and all Windows programmers write their software NOT to require administrator access, Windows will never be very secure.

Re:What we need here...

[podperson]

phishing works cross-platform and is easier to do. Why trick someone into running your malicious code by entering their password when you can simply trick them into visiting bankamreica.us and enter their social security number and password?

warning: grammar and spelling ogre

[Bombula]

As for Mac purchasers being more computer savy. I don't really consider the majority of the artsy, yuppies that are the majority of the Mac audiance to be over savy.

You're probably right and I personally share your opinion, but you'd lend more weight to our position by using complete sentences and non-random punction, and by spelling 'savvy' correctly...

Re:warning: grammar and spelling ogre

[Anonymous Coward]

You're probably right and I personally share your opinion, but you'd lend more weight to our position by spelling 'punctuation' correctly...

Re:warning: grammar and spelling ogre

[Bombula]

No denying it, I made a big ol' ass outta myself there!

Apple users are smarter?

[PhreakinPenguin]

I work for an IT outsourcing company and we handle a TON of medical offices as well as their home stuff. Almost ALL of the docs have Mac's and have no idea how to use them. Sure they know how to do their basic email, web surfing, music stuff but beyond that they have no clue. They use PC's at their offices and have no issues. It has nothing to do with being smarter in doctors cases. It's all about being an elitist for them. They look at Mac's and say if I get one of those i'll be cool. The exact same way they purchase a car.

Re:Apple users are smarter?

[shotfeel]

It has nothing to do with being smarter in doctors cases. It's all about being an elitist for them. They look at Mac's and say if I get one of those i'll be cool.

I work with a lot of doctors too. I can assure you, the ones I know don't use it because they are "elitist". They use it because it works. And works easily. And works reliably. They use it because they just want to get the job done, and the Mac does it.

Essentially...

[voice_of_all_reason]

Nice Mac you got there. Would be a shame if anything were to... you know... "happen" to it. Just sayin'...

You would have to be...

[Mad Ogre]

You would have to be a complete moron to buy McAfee, and even more so for OSX. McAfee is the work package out there. It does nothing but cause problems.

Re:You would have to be...

[Anonymous Coward]

Try proofing your messages for spelling mistakes before you senselessly bash a product, It'll give you a bit more credibility.

apple is dead! long live apple!

[benbritten]

Ok, so i see a pattern here. over the last twenty years all i ever heard about the mac was about how dead apple was, and how they were going to vanish and the company was going to go under.

Now all i hear about is that 'any day now' All the macs on the planet are going to be suddenly and utterly destroyed by the impending virus rush.

Look, I don't encourage people to run any system without security. My macs are all behind a nice firewall. However, I think that, given the record of some clever young programmers to break industry strength security in short order, i wonder when all of these virus writers are going to come over and focus on the mac? i mean, the mac market hasn't really changed much in the last year or two. (in terms of numbers) and the hardware change doesnt seem to have made it any easier to infect the systems.

Mac users and the mac community in general have been snobbishly touting the no viruses thing for quite awhile now. There are tons of clever hackers out there who can break all sorts of security, yet all we have so far are a few lame-ass trojans that you have to type your password in to install. (which, really are not viruses so much) So apparently the big carrot of 'first mac virus that actually was a virus' is really not that big of a carrot.

While i am a software engineer on macs, my expertise does not lie in the virus-area, so i can't really say if it is really much harder to write for the mac, or if it is just unappealing in a business sense (for the virus writers).

my opinion: if i measured my income with each thousand machines i added to my botnet with a virus i wrote, then i think i would stick to the 95% of the market that is fairly homogenous in terms of security. (ie all windows) and leave the outlying OSes (mac, linux) because even if both mac and linux double or triple their respective marketshares in the next five years, windows will still be the easy choice for virus makers.

definition of "more knowledgeable"

[slashdotwriter]

Before everyone gets too excited, perhaps this claim can be read to refer to 'non-technical knowledge'. Being in the minority, even average - i.e. 'non-technical' - Mac users at least tend to know about alternatives. That is to say, they tend to know something about the 'other' operating platform, for either they are switchers or they use Windows at work or they were strongly advised not to buy a Mac by Windows users who claim that there are no programs for the Mac, that Macs are slow, that they suck etc. Moreover, I would venture to guess that Mac users tend to know what a web browser is, i.e. that there are alternative browsers such as Safari, Firefox, Explorer, Camino etc. In my experience, many Windows users at the same 'non-technical' level of expertise don't even know what a browser is even though they use it every day. This is because IE is so tightly integrated into Windows (desktop icon, can't be uninstalled) that many users simply equate the internet with IE, just as AOL users used to equate the internet with what was offered by their service provider. Mac users, I would say, generally don't have this non-reflective sense of 'givenness'.

McAfee trying to sell anti-virus for Mac?

[metamatic]

The idea that McAfee is trying to drum up sales for its Mac anti-virus product seems unlikely to me.

If they wanted to sell the product, they'd actually, you know, let people buy single licenses for their Macs.

Re:McAfee trying to sell anti-virus for Mac?

[hawaiian717]

How about making bug fixes easier to get while they're at it? Ever since OS X 10.4.4, the eUpdate client will claim that the update failed, even though it actually succeeded. They have an update for it, but you have to go through tech support to get it.

http://knowledge.mcafee.com/article/86/KB46270_f.S AL_Public.html

Expltive Deleted (Bovine Excrement)

[ConallB]

Blogger Arik Hesseldahl needs to consider Mac users now use Intel hardware I hardly see how they are not "PC" buyers themselves and therefore just as stupid as the rest of the computer using world...

And considering the latest stories in the press it hardly seems that the affluent (read gulliable) are getting a better deal than anyone else! http://theinquirer.net/?article=31375

Even Woz isin't confident in apple's hardware these days!

Oh, and lastly, !WorthHacking != Secure

Pfft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cheaper better, and you get what you pay for. Elitist PeeCee users and MS fanboys who think their platform of choice is superior simply because there are more of them or because they paid less, deserve the negative side effects that come from those assumptions. Mainly in the form of virii and other forms of malware.

You can talk smack about Mac all day long - "you aren't secure you logic-deficient end user", "it's only a matter of time", "yer in the same boat as us, so grab yer ankles", etc. - but truth is, many of us who have been on the Mac for almost 2 decades have NEVER seen a virus much less succumb to ANY malware. And no, a Microsoft macro does not count (which was the only malware most Mac users have ever had to deal with. Ever. A long time ago. And HAHAH, from dealing with MS software.).

The Mac virus software market is prolly hurting so bad, I wouldn't be surprised if they were inventing a reason to utilize their products. *wink wink nudge nudge*

Gotta love the benefits of a single vendor solution. Remember all those IRIX viruses? All those Solaris ones too? Oh wait, nvm.

Re:Pfft.

[thinkzinc]

Elitist PeeCee users and MS fanboys who think their platform of choice is superior simply because there are more of them or because they paid less, deserve the negative side effects that come from those assumptions. Mainly in the form of virii and other forms of malware.
I haven't seen one PC user on this board defending Microsoft. Most use linux. And not one person thinks their choice is superior because they paid less. I use Windows at work because I have to, and Linux at home. My choice has nothing to do with money and I certainly don't feel superior to anyone. When the first big viruses hit Mac OS this silly argument will be null.

Mac users are idiots too

[Anonymous Coward]

Plenty of idiots use macs who've only used macs. Only a mac user would think that other mac users are somehow more savvy than somebody who buys a PC. Just ridiculous. Mac users are just as big idiots as some PC users. There is no difference. Get over yourself.

thousands of colors

[3.14159265]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer,..."

I remember people making fun of Macs and Mac users, because while pc users got used to count them, 65536, 16777216, in the Mac world you had "thousands of colors" and "millions of colors". Pretty savvy, I'll say :)

It's just not worth it yet

[Fluk3]

There is no way I'm going to shell out money for anti virus software for my macs when there is currently no real risk to me.

I won't waste my CPU cycles, time and money on a virtually non-existant problem for the sake of protecting stupid Windows users. If they get infected that's their fault - if they choose to use a plagued OS, then they should be responsible for the potential reprocussions.

For the time being, all I have to do is run in a non root account, behind a firewall and only download files from trusted sources and don't enter my password when I double click a jpeg. That and keep an eye out on the mac community web forums and news sites for any new (real) threats - the recent (broken) bonjour/ichat proof-of-concept trojan is of no real concern.

If the tiime comes when REAL virii start to infect OSX, non admin/root accounts without any user interaction (social engineering) then I'll consider anti virus software.

But I'm not wasting my time protecting windows users from their os.

Unix has security built-in

[AppleTwoGuru]

I do not run any anti-virus software on my Macs, Linux, or Solaris boxes. The security that is part of the OS is THAT good. (MS-Windows does not have this built-in security. Anti-Virus is security for Windows systems.) The bad thing about any technology is, if one does not know how to properly configure it, one will not realize the full potential of the software. Anti-virus is a band-aid fix. I did not use Linspire Linux when it was Lindows because they ran the desktop in root mode all the time. I will use Linspire now because they configure it with privileged accounts. Mac is configured right from Apple to run an account as an Administrator with out too much fuss to change the account type. So yeah, then Apple users would need Anti Virus software because they run the computer in admin mode. But why? Configure the Mac to use privileged accounts and forget about Anti-virus! Then it is as good as Unix. With Linux, all distrubutors configure Linux to use privileged accounts. So again, why bother with Anti-virus.

Creating an OS without adequate security built into the kernel and file system is like selling a car or a house without door locks that can be added later as an option. This is what Microsoft does. Mac sells the door locks with the house, but expects the user to install them.

Re:Unix has security built-in

[AppleTwoGuru]

And with Unix, Linux, and BSD, the door locks come preinstalled, ready to protect.

Wait, so they have wine, cheese... and more women?

[WillyMF1]

I joined the wrong side....

Putting On My Tinfoil Hat...

[Pensacola Tiger]

Does this announcement from MacAfee mean that they have coders busy making an OS X virus to 'prove' that Mac users 'need' to buy their crappy product to protect themselves?

I've only one word for them: clamXav. Well, actually two more...

Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

I'm sorry, I'm sure I'll get 'modded down' like it appears the others have, but that is the single worst statement I have ever heard. We sell enterprise level hardware at my work and recently started supporting Mac's. I've yet to have a user call in who even knew how to set an IP address. Terminal, what's that? At least the windows users know what I'm asking for when I tell them to open up a command prompt...

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[presearch]

How many refrigerator owners are required to have any working knowledge of refrigerant gasses?

"Boy, the other day I was delivering a Kenmore side-by-side and they didn't know anything about HFC-134a!!
There's no way they're gonna keep their food cold! Whatta n00b! Lame Kenmore users!"

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

Or, let's try something reasonable. "The other day I was out delivering a Kenmore side-by-side and they didn't know they had to plug the thing in to keep their food cold. They couldn't figure out why everything kept spoiling!"

I'm sorry, but knowing how to set an IP is one of the most basic actions one can take on a PC. And these are enterprise customers, not even joe-blow users. There's an expected level of knowledge and the Mac users repeatedly show they have none. If you're an "admin" and you don't know how to set an IP on the machine, there's something seriously wrong with the entire culture you're a part of.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

But ... that can't be true ... computers should 'just work', you know, like Macs ... that IP nonesense is just some low-level junk that primitives use ... Mac will support that legacy stuff 'the right way'. See, I'm more technically sophisticated than you ... I knows that computers should 'just work'.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[Blakey Rat]

To be fair, Windows users (assuming they are historical users) have always had a CLI, and were forced to use it for many, many years. From 1984-2001 or so, Macintosh never had a CLI... so to expect users to know about it, and know how to use it is unfair. If they were trained on Macs as little as 5 years ago, they were trained on a computer where the CLI literally didn't exist.

To be honest, you'd be a better tech is you learned to do everything via the GUI because, frankly, most Mac users either don't know the CLI exists, or have no desire to use it. Mac users converting from Unix or DOS/Windows will follow, but the majority won't.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

So it's my fault that they don't know how to use their own OS? Learning the GUI of OSX is not a requirement of my support position and never will be. That's apple's job. I shouldn't have to walk someone through setting their IP, it's outside the scope of our support. If you can't set your own IP you've got bigger problems, and you aren't "more advanced" than a PC user, end of discussion.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[lelitsch]

Ok, you are probably trolling, but anyway...

You are selling enterprise hardware to companies that don't use DHCP? Also, if you sell "enterprise level" hardware, shouldn't there be some sysadmin on the other end setting it up and supporting it? If you have to explain IP setup to _users_ you or your customers have bigger problems than Mac users who can't find the command prompt.

By the way, you might try to tell your Mac, Linux and Unix users to open a terminal instead of a command prompt.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[Apotsy]

Does your "enterprise" not know about DHCP?

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

when you're trying to configure a fibre channel switch, it kind of helps to have a default IP for the management port. If they can't figure out how to set their IP, do you think they'd have a clue how to find a rogue device with a random DHCP address?

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

*sigh* yet again, you can't set a management port on a device to dhcp. How the hell do you think end users would ever figure out what the IP is set to? And yes, these are "sys admins" who can't figure out how to set their IP. Welcome to the world of mac. It's not that it doesn't occur with some windows users as well, it's just farrrrrrrrr less frequent. And no, I'm not *trolling*.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you weren't such an arrogant dumb fuck and actually learned about OSX, then you'd know that you can easily set the IP using the GUI. No command line is necessary.

Re:Know more about using a computer?

[saleenS281]

Or, perhaps if arrogant dumb fucks didn't try to assume the roll of "administrator" on their brand new G5, and actually took the time to either: A. learn the OS. or B. hire someone who knows what the fuck their doing to set it up for them, I wouldn't have to waste MY time teaching them basic skills they should know before wasting MY time on the phone. My company doesn't pay me to be apple support, I'm not going to waste valuable time on someone who doesn't have the basic skills required to administrate a system. There's no shortage of clued users with valid questions to take their place. If you don't know how to set up your IP, you shouldn't be touching a fibre channel device, end of story. I know how much that butt-hurts the mac zealots out there who think everyone else should do it for them, but welcome to the real world.

A disturbance in the force...

[s31523]

with respect to:
'Is Mac OS X the Next Windows?'.

I think every Mac user out there just dropped a load after having their precious Mac OS compared to Windows as "equals", even if only for a rudimentary example.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

no product for intel macs

[bung-foo]

Um, the current version of virex is unsupported on intel macs and basically doesn't work at all if you install it anyway (or even can install it).

I realize that intel macs are the smallest subset of the al;ready smalll mac market but still. You'd think they would atleast have a product that they could sell to those windows switchers they seem to be targeting.

Apple users in two categories

[castoridae]

I think Apple users tend to fall into two tiers. Sure, there is a large population of people who use Macs so they don't have to know about IT (and really, is that such a bad idea? If they're going to be ignorant anyway, sure is a lot safer than a Windows PC - even if it's not bulletproof).

And there is a growing faction of the technical elite that use Macs, myself being one. They are very nice machines.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[vertinox]

There is, but they're going to have difficulty because of the Macs LOW MARKET SHARE. Until a large percentage of machines your Mac would communicate with when transfering the virus are Macs too, a Mac virus isn't going to get off the ground.

OS 9 had a ton of viruses and they had even a smaller market share than OS X.

For some reason I don't think market share is related to this.

o.O

[AviLazar]

Huh?

are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average

BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA. Ok, this guy has statistics backing this up? While it is not for all, with the exception of ONE person I have met, all Mac users I have met know very little about computers. I am not saying there aren't extremely knowledgable Mac users out there - that would be dumb of me to say - but Mac has always been touting the "we are easier to use then the other guy".

As for his other comment, about Mac users being more affluent. Well again, I hope he has statistics to back this up. Just because a Mac is typically more expensive does not make the user-base richer. Face it, I can buy one of those "cheapo" boxes for about 10 grand - yea Alienware sells them - so does Dell.

Re:o.O

[Warlock7]

FYI, Dell now owns Alienware. Where's your knowledge?

As for affluence, it's been reported that Mac users are more affluent than PC users. The same study reported that most Mac users are more highly educated than PC users too, which goes hand in hand with the higher level of affluence. You must bear in mind that the study is from 2002. So, his statements were backed up. Sorry you didn't know about it.

Re:o.O

[Warlock7]

Here's the story about Dell and Alienware, since you seem to have missed that they're now the same company.

Re:o.O

[AviLazar]

I do (and did) know that Dell bought out Alienware...though from my understanding they are treating it as a hands-off kind of thing. Where they own (investors) the company but they want Alienware to remain (at least for now) autonomous...otherwise people will just see Alienware as Dell with a different name/look. What will happen in the future, only time will tell. But we can hope Alienware remains the same (or gets better).

Re:o.O

[Warlock7]

True, you can hope. I just have the feeling that Dell will make Alienware just another "Wal-Mart" computer mail-order company in time.

Sorry to jump on you like that.

Re:o.O

[AviLazar]

FYI, Dell now owns Alienware. Where's your knowledge?

In my head, and it included your tidbit. Just cause they own it does not mean they will do anything to the company. Alienware might just be doing things as they always have

As for affluence, it's been reported that Mac users are more affluent than PC users

That helps, though four years old. Thats a long time

The same study reported that most Mac users are more highly educated than PC users too

But what are the stats today? Also, did they use those who buy Dell,HP, Gateway, etc or did they include those who build their own computers?

I do have slight issue with someone using a report that is four years old in an industry that calls the latest and greatest computers obsolete after three months. -Avi

P.S. I don't think you can be "more highly educated"...you can be "more educated" or "highly educated"

Re:Wow! And I thought I didn't get along with othe

[almostmanda]

"Self-selected" does not imply "chosen ones". It's a common statistical term.

Amen! Macs are computers for girls

[Anonymous Coward]

'Nuff said

TWR

Vroom Vroom!

[mdboyd]

Mac Fanboys, Start your engines!

It just sounds to me like people are trying to make excuses for some of the security problems with OS X. "The users are smarter" "Less people use it"

NO! That doesn't make it alright for OS X to be insecure.

The bruisedEgo trojan

[twocents]

Well, there were fewer viruses for the Mac until this article was posted on Slashdot. After the article, every virus writer in the world that was offended by those filthy rich, OS X techno-elitists decided to hunker down and create the ultimate bruisedEgo trojan, demonstrating once and for all who is better, although no one and no thing is actually better than anything else, of course.

So how would this ultimate virus wreak havok amongst the Starbucks sipping, secure shell using, Photoshop editing, iTunes listening crowd?

If you have time, instead of RTFA, read this

[Ilgaz]

I have read this today and was about to post to Mac usenet groups, decided to post /. instead.

It is a very interesting article about the real problems of anti virus companies (yes, no mac viruses mentioned) by Mr. Kaspersky himself. It also includes the problems antiviruses have including their products.

http://www.kaspersky.com/eugenearticle

As a guy gave up running win32 for 3 years, I still check their site/blog as well as F-Secure one.

As a side note (hopefully not needed)
KASPERSKY DOES NOT PRODUCE MAC PRODUCTS. No FUD there.

Rule, meet exception.

[everphilski]

see subject.

Biased sample

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. If you want a custom configuration for your Mac, you have to order it online. That keeps a huge portion of the more educated Mac consumer base from shopping at CompUSA.

Besides, anybody who knows anything about computers doesn't often ask the know-nothing good-for-nothing clerks at CompUSA for help. I'm not insulting you here. You're on Slashdot, you're probably not in that group.

I can't *count* the number of times I've asked for a fairly simple item, like a USB gamepad, only to have fully five CompUSA clerks start conferring to figure out what that item is. "Does he mean a VGA cable? No, he doesn't mean a VGA cable. Is that for the PS2?" Ten minutes later, I'm told they don't have such a thing. Thanks.

The blank stares are truly depressing. I just go and pick up the item I need myself, pay for it, and leave. At most I'll ask if they have something in stock when I don't see it on the shelves. Anybody genuinely asking you for advice at CompUSA is going to be an idiot. There are enough PC guys who just go there to chat about electronics because they don't have lives to create the impression of a more educated PC populace, but they're not really after advice.

Hey, eMachine, shut your pie hole.

[chowhound]

How this crap got modded Insightful I'll never know.

I'm not so sure after seeing the new Apple commercials saying how PCs have all of these Viruses; however, Macs are not susceptible to them. This could get more people to purchase Macs and while it might not be as large a target, if the majority of the community isn't being cautious it could be seen as an easy target. You will see outbreaks of Mac viruses. It's only a matter of time.

I think we've already discussed to death that Mac virus security is not due to obscurity but rather due to sensible security practices built in. We've been hearing "it's only a matter of time before a virus brings the whole Mac community to their knees" drivel for years. Still waiting on that service pack?

As for Mac purchasers being more computer savy. I don't really consider the majority of the artsy, yuppies that are the majority of the Mac audiance to be over savy.

I'd have to say that with a Unix command prompt and OS X/WinBlows/Linux dual- and tri-boot capability you're gonna see a lot more fascinating possibilities for tinkering that appeal to true geeks. Perhaps not so much to the poltroons whose idea of originality in computing is to casemod a neon light and window onto their beige hunk-o-junk, or who use their (e)machines simply as pricy game consoles. If that makes me a artsy yuppie for wanting to delve into my computer's innards, then I'll switch my 2600 shirt for a cardigan and my ratty sneakers for penny loafers.

OK, have at me. I can take it!

Re:Hey, eMachine, shut your pie hole.

[Anonymous Coward]

Top downloaded product for OS X on versiontracker/macupdate is Limewire OS X and it needs Admin password to install.

I am not telling it is spyware or evil (could say, nevermind) but there goes your amazing security to people wanting to download "stuff".

DivX 6 for mac license includes terms as "browser toolbar" "reporting usage statistics" and still downloaded/installed as admin.

Posting as AC because of so called "community".

  Machine Name: Power Mac G5 Quad
    Machine Model: PowerMac11,2
    CPU Type: PowerPC G5 (1.1)

Re:Hey, eMachine, shut your pie hole.

[PitaBred]

Now if they'd only stop with their stupid pseudo-case insensitivity and be like a real OS and just be case sensitive.

Niche status...

[Tavor]

Niche status is essentially Security through Obscurity. It may be a more obscure platform with different means and ways, but it still can be taken down like any other of man's creations. The goal is likely the same as anything targeting windows: Denial of Service, Information theft, etc. Just because it *only* has 12,000 systems like parent mentioned doesn't mean it can't be an attractive target.

Consider this: If something as important as the Fed used an obscure platform, don't you think people would be dying to get into it? While I think the whitepaper and TFA are no more than 'FUDvertising' there is a serious threat to leaving yourself with minimal security... no matter what you use.

Heck, lets chuck the PC metaphors all together. Condoms are only one layer of security (like security through obscurity) and if you have nothing to fall back on when that fails... you are screwed.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Security through obscurity...

[piotrr]

...isn't. Neither is security through minority. But back to the actual claims:

First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, I really don't see how that follows. They are self-selected because they paid more for their computer, yes, and so they had a lot of money before they bought it. How does that in any way imply that they also "know more about technology"? In my experience, Mac buyers know plenty about design and pretty things, but on average, not so much about technology. This is all speculation from miniscule experience, of course... which I will continue to believe that all opinions are, until I see an actual study on these claims.

More affluent, yes, but it still does not follow that they also know more about technology. Even in the age of computers, people can still make money without actually knowing a lot about technology. Heck, some people don't even have to work to earn it.

Still... my criticism doesn't mean the original speculation is false. Just that it's a non-sequiteur.

Re:Security through obscurity...

[warrigal]

Well, of course obscurity/secrecy doesn't work! That's why my password is "password". Making it secret or obscure just doesn't work. That's what everybody tells me.

Mac users do know more about computers...

[Anonymous Coward]

...but only their own kind. Most of the Mac users I know are quite good at using OSX, and know full well how to use the security features present, such as the firewall, or FileVault. But they cant tell me what a partition is, or what Hz stands for. In other words, they know what they need to know to secure themselves. IMHO, Mac users generally tend to me halfway between "expert" and "luser", while Windows users occupy one of those extremes. However, you only need to be halfway (lets call that point knowlegable) to understand viruses and put up the strongest anti-virus mechanism your computer could possibly have: user common sense.

OSX is, in general, a safer operating system; anti-virus or no anti-virus. A unified update system definetley helps. Features like the firewall are far more simple, and its drop dead easy to disable potentially dangerous services. The Unix basis is also more secure, its harder for virii to screw with settings and the really lethal stuff.

The days when you could write a virus that spread from system to system via direct connections are essentially over. The worst either exploit flaws in popular internet-based applications (like instant messengers) or simple user stupidity. Mac users are small enough in numbers to prevent the first, and smart enough to prevent the second.

Computer experts that use OSX are actually very common. I used to be a Windows/Linux user (quite an experienced one), but then I bought a PowerBook 8 months ago and fell in love with OSX, and Apple hardware. From experience, most people who dislike OSX haven't really tried it (using them for a couple months at school for audio work doesn't count, fanbois).

Knowledge not an issue

[boyfaceddog]

Most Mac users in my experience are either A) Students who have no choice because their schools either profide or demand the macs, B) Corporate design-types who have never used anything else and have the "from my cold, dead hands" mentality, or C) independant "artists" who do some sort of creative/design/blog thing and have a Mac because of it supposed sophistication.

If OS X or any other *nix-a-like every reaches market saturation where John Q l33t notices it, there will be viruses. Sleep well America, you are safe in the arms of Apple.

Re:Knowledge not an issue

[Verminator]

I have no idea what to say to this.

Largely because I have no idea what you said.

That's how the user base is changing

[gregeth]

I think that is definitely true as OS X has really come into maturity. I'm currently a CS major and work for my schools IT department. I have started seeing more and more students coming in with Powerbooks (or recently MBPros) to use for programming, etc.

I was one of them when I bought a powerbook last year. There is something to say about having a company offering a supported Unix based OS (well, even if it was kind of screwed up, cough *netinfo* cough).

The other end of the spectrum is the fine arts department who I would never trust with a computer running windows since it would be riddled with spyware, trojans, viruses, and any other malware you can think of. Those are the Mac users that don't get security.

Re:That's how the user base is changing

[nagora]

I have started seeing more and more students coming in with Powerbooks

What do they do about the keyboards? Is it possible to buy replacement keyboards for the Powerbooks?

TWW

Your kidding right?

[sgent]

Safari, ichat, etc run in the user space -- thus no amount of exploitable code will effect the system (although as mentioned they *might* be able to delete the user's home directory). A privlidge escalation bug is the only thing that could effect the system as a whole -- and the amount of code subject to that potential is relatively small since the Mach kernel is the smallest of any commonly used OS.

Re:Your kidding right?

[DrXym]

Not true. Exploits that allow user-space programs to gain root privileges (and thus do whatever the hell they like) are extremely common.

Mac users are a different group of buyers.

[rashanon]

Blogger Arik Hesseldahl breaks down their claims: "First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers" - Thats not an option. Macs cost more. that doesnt protect you from a virus. "are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer" - I am a reseller of Macs. The client base is the same. The majority of people who buy any computer are clueless about any of the real differences between a Mac and a PC. "and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs" - Nice try. Mac users dont gush money. Even if they spend more to buy the unit in the first place, Mac users and PC users usually buy the machine and never think about the other components that may be needed for all of thier needs. Mac users squeek cheap just as fast as PC buyers do when it comes to geting the printer they may want, but instead of buying the printer that fills their needs, take the giveaway printer that is offered. They spend plenty of the computer, but when they need the proper software to run on it, its suddenly " Oh, i know how to get that". Mac users and PC users are equally cheap. If Macs users were discriminating about their computers, they wouldnt buy it at Costco, right next to the blow out PC. The Antivirus arguement should stand on its own. Will Macs be more of a target in the future.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[NutscrapeSucks]

Your post is almost entirely wrong:

1) OS 9 had hardly any viruses, just like OS X
2) OS 9 had a higher marketshare than OS X

If you see a list of classic MacOS virues (nVir and so on), you have to understand the the vast majority of those date from the 1980s and didn't run under System 7+.

"leaving Windows the far more tasty target"

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the hypocrisy. Whenever some /.'er claims that Windows viruses are so rampant because of market share, they get flamed for daring to suggest such a thing, and are told that it is all down to Windows' poor security model. Yet it's perfectly ok to use this as arguement against Mac viruses.

McAfee software is so bad....

[Anonymous Coward]

McAfee software is so bad, my guess is that if a magic virus existed for the Mac, you'd be better off with the virus than the McAfee software.

Until something as good as AVG is moved to the Mac, then McAfee is not an answer.

Interesting Statistics

[lancejjj]

A visit to the McAfee threat center is very informative.

Here's what I found:

13: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "OS X"

4730: McAfee Threat Center search results matching "Windows XP"

Now that being said, I strongly agree with the premise that 13 is too high. Let's hope that Apple and other software vendors step up to the plate to prevent this number from growing any further. Let's hope that McAfee is honest and avoids inflating their Threat Center reports.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[tbone1]

For some reason I don't think market share is related to this.

I think it plays some role. Afterall, who in their right mind would write an OS/2 Warp virus today? Of course, you might argue that many hackers/crackers are not in their right mind, and I wouldn't claim you're wrong.

OTOH, there are other factors to consider. One is 'degree of difficulty'. This is part of the explanation for the number of IIS viruses being greater than the number of Apache viruses, even though Apache has a significantly larger market share. Another is people trying to make a reputation for themselves, in which case OS X in a more attractive target to the black hats, because if you can create the first OS X virus, you get the fame/respect that a lot of those folks look for. And I'm talking a legit, actual, in-the-wild virus that is not some proof of concept "if we assume a spherical cow" kind of thing.

Woops

[rizzo320]

Sorry for the excessive bold. Hit Submit instead of Preview.

clamXav!!

[21chrisp]

clamXav beats the snot out of McAfee IMO. Uses fewer resources, better response time, the software itself is less buggy. Even if I was worried about getting a virus on a Mac I wouldn't use McAfee! Strangely, most Mac users tend to go with the McAfee/Norton crowd (at least those few that have any AV at all). Most linux users that converted or co-use OSX tend to use clam. It uses few enough resources and is easy enough to set up that it's just a few minutes to get going and then you can pretty much forget about it. If an outbreak happens (unlikely) just check that it's up to date.

At least keep yourself protected though, regardless of what you use. There is one point that is correct, and this is the "it only takes once" argument. One well designed OSX virus could take Macs by storm and if you have no AV, you're a sitting duck. It's highly unlikely (especially that it could somehow unknowingly gain admin access), but it is ALWAYS possible.

Most Mac users don't want to drain resources by using McAfee or Norton.. so they just use nothing. That's why I push for clam. Actually, I don't see why Apple doesn't ship OSX with a clam system already installed...

Amount of user interaction

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

All you need is to get someone to type an administrator password and you can replace or modify vital system files: Software Update does it all the time. Even easier than that, if there's another bug lurking that bypasses sudo authentication or allows privilege escalation.

(Follow that second link and get a chuckle. The vulnerability is in an antivirus program).

Cheapo commodity Windows PCs?

[Control-Z]

Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs.

    That's a dumb statement. What does the price of a PC have to do with anything? A $400 e-Machine runs the same Intel or AMD chip and same Windows XP that a $2000 Sony Vaio does.

Re:Cheapo commodity Windows PCs?

[aristotle-dude]

So you are saying that a computer is composed of the CPU and nothing else? Are you saying that the 400 dollar machine will have the "same" PC as the 2000 Sony Vaio? You do realize that different CPU models/speeds have different prices don't you?

The Cheap machine will likely only have a CD-ROM versus a Dual Layer DVD-+R/RW. The Vaio will also have more memory, a larger HD and a gfx card with dedicated memory versus integrated gfx on the cheap PC.

Will the cheap machine have any software bundled will it? Probably not.

Re:Cheapo commodity Windows PCs?

[Control-Z]

Well obviously it depends on how many bells & whistles you want. Personally I want none of the bundled software. DVD is useful for a home machine but not so much for a work machine.

No suprise

[Anonymous Coward]

McAfee's been doing this kind of shit since time began- You might say McAfee himself helped things along with a book I read from him in the early 90's that taught us how to make DOS TSR "viruses" (so that we could ostensibly recognize and defeat them when we saw them). The guy's not stupid.

IIS is MORE secure than Apache

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"This is part of the explanation for the number of IIS viruses being greater than the number of Apache viruses, even though Apache has a significantly larger market share."

IIS6 has a significantly better security record than does Apache2.
Apache2's vulnerabilities 2003-2006
IIS6's vulnerabilities 2003-2006

crumbs...

[robnator]

the guards are warning of a need for more guards, again? Who watches the watchers?

Don't forget the homosexuals

[Anonymous Coward]

Macs are also for faggots.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[krakelohm]

Yes there were a few viruses for 7-8-9 (under 100 I think), but you should keep the 'ton' reserved for Windows.

Hasn't McAffee.....

[perigee369]

... Done enough damage? -> http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/13/132 2215 Like many others have said, sounds like FUD to me.

Interesting Anecdotal Survey

[CheeseburgerBlue]

I find it interesting that whenever someone characterizes Mac users in a certain way ("they're idiots, they're creative, they're $CHARACTERISTIC"), everyone quickly comes up with counter evidence drawn anecdotally from the Mac users they know.

My insight, for whatever it's worth, is this: if something like 2% are computer users use Mac, HOW COME ALL OF YOU KNOW SO MANY MAC USERS?

My theory? The market-share numbers given for Mac usership are bullshit. I don't think they count all of the purchased generic PCs that sit, collecting dust, in somebody's basement, or the machine in the corner of the office that gets used once a year to scan something. If there were some way to measure the market-share of actual ACTIVE COMPUTER USERS, you'd see a much larger percentage (maybe up to %10).

I am not a statistician, but I do not it's pretty damn near impossible to go into a room with a mixed crowd and find only 2% Mac users. Try it sometime. (I have.)

Macs may be a minority, but the idea that they comprise a tiny, tiny minority is a myth, IMO.

Mac vs Windows Security

[Anonymous Coward]

The way OS x has been built ( BSD based ) is already a hudge + in favor of Apple. It's true that they are still carrying old security bugs but by essence OS x is much more safer than Windows. Windows architecture is a mess and a nightmare to secure. Even if OSx has some security issues it will be much more easy to fix.

LMAO

[blueZ3]

Wow dude, you had me in hysterics there... Seriously, coffee out the nose hillarity. Thanks for the laugh

Building your own box (by which psuedo-geeks mean "assembling six pre-built components into a working PC") makes one sooo technically superior. I mean, you probably have to have like what, a post-grad education to correctly install the MB and insert the PCI cards, right? Those PCs are just so complicated these days.

I used to build my own PCs... about 10 years ago. Then I grew up, got a life, and stopped spending my personal time fritzing around with hardware. I may work in the software industry, but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my free time doing IT work. Give me a Mac any day.

Re:LMAO

[toddestan]

I used to build my own PCs... about 10 years ago. Then I grew up, got a life, and stopped spending my personal time fritzing around with hardware. I may work in the software industry, but I'll be damned if I'm going to spend my free time doing IT work. Give me a Mac any day.

And I guess you must bring in hundreds or dollars an hour to justify that arguement? Spending a few hours of free time getting a PC to run from a pile parts is easily justifiable by me saving hundreds of dollars by doing it, not to mention getting what I wanted in terms of hardware. And as you said, building a PC nowadays is easy - I can go from a bunch of components in their shipping box to installing the OS in less than 2 hours.

Yes, nope, yes

[93 Escort Wagon]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs."

Okay, I'm speaking as a Mac user (for the past three years) here.

Points one and three are probably valid. But point two? I keep hearing long-time Mac people say this, and frankly it's garbage. If you take the small subset of Mac users that migrated from Linux or other Unix, then sure; but otherwise this one falls flat on its face. In my experience long-time Mac users seem to be, by and large, pretty clueless to the technical workings of computers and networks.

I realize that what I said in that last sentence does not strictly counter what the blogger specifically stated ("knows more about technology"), but it addresses what he obviously is implying - otherwise it would've been irrelevant to the discussion.

"Not A Large Target"

[catwh0re]

I hear this often, but since when was more than 10 Million users not a target? It's not an -easy- target, that's certain. In any event, the over-baked windows environment would yield at least many "hackers" trying the mac platform for the untouched revenue stream that it could potentially provide.

Similar to Linux, and other Unix based OSes.. maybe there is just something about them that makes them too difficult to launch remote exploits on? Such as a well layered security system and a history that always involved the idea of being a connected system.

This is hardly windows bashing, but more to highlight that other platforms do most certainly exist in great numbers, the argument that 'too small a target' is the reason for the lack of exploits is frankly crap. There are few windows 95 users and it still gets routinely targetted. Once they figure out an exploit, writing the rest of the application is basic.

Re:"Not A Large Target"

[warrigal]

The pre-OSX Macs were a far smaller target, yet there were virii galore. The Apple IIgs was an even smaller target, and there were virii. The MacOSX shares a lot in common with the grand array of Unix-based and Unix-like OSs; five years on and no virii.

Very hard to spread a Mac-specific virus around

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Seems to me that virus writers would want to target Macs because of all the talk about how Macs are less succeptable to viruses. It would be more prestigious to create a virus that spreads like wildfire through the "impenetrable" Mac community than to create one for the "wide open" Windows community."

It's very difficult to "create a virus that spreads like wild fire through the 'impenetrable' Mac community", because there is no such "community", per se. That is, it's not like Mac users are all huddled together so that a Mac-specific virus would infect them all. Rather, Mac users are dispersed throughout the larger computing community, so a Mac-specific virus has difficulty migrating to other Macs. It's like a biological virus that targetted left-handed red-heads. Left-handed red-heads are a small part of the US population, but if they all lived in one place, such a virus would spread through that population like wildfire. But since that population is dispersed throughout the larger US population, such a biological virus would find propagation to be very difficult.

For example, my own Mac has no connections to other Macs. It has a connection to my Windows computer through my home network, and it has virtual connections to other Windows computers through my email and IM contacts lists, but no real or virtual connections to other Macs (my buddies don't use Macs). So, if my Mac were to contract a Mac-specific virus (e.g. I foolishly downloaded a trojan/virus), it would do its ill on my machine and then spread itself to the computers that my Mac is connected to, only to find that those are Windows machines, not Macs. At which point the propagation of the virus terminates because the virus is Mac-specific and can't do anything on the Windows machines that it spread itself to.

So, I don't see a *wide-spread* Mac-specific virus anytime soon. That's not to say that there won't be OS-agnositc viruses that can spread like wildfire such that its affected computers would include, but not be exclusive to, Macs.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[NutscrapeSucks]

number of IIS viruses being greater than the number of Apache viruses, even though Apache has a significantly larger market share.

That's mainly because Internet Marketshare statistics are irrelevant here. IIS runs millions and millions of machines (Intranet, Fileservers, Workstations, etc) that aren't counted in the stats, but still make it a fat target for virues.

In what world?

[shaitand]

"First off, Mac users... are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer"

My experience is just the opposite. Macs are typically chosen for two reasons. Either the user needs an extremely simple computer that can be operated without knowing anything about technology. Or the user works with multimedia and believes the Mac is a more powerful platform. Neither class of user knows much about technology.

In my experience there are extremely few Mac users who know what is inside the box , how it works, and how you fix it if it breaks. There are few who understand OS internals and how data is written on the drive, organized in memory, how filesystems work, etc. To most Mac users knowing about technology means knowing how to browse the web, knowing how to use an advanced app like photoshop, knowing a few cmd shortcuts, and/or believing they 'get' the unquestioned superiority of the Mac.

Macs are nice, they have ups and downs like anything else, but MacOS hides the details of the system so effectively that becoming a power user on that platform has no relation to knowledge of the technology that powers it. The same is true of the controlled hardware used in a Mac.

The average pc user who listens to the computer guy mumbling while fixing his machine will understand more about technology than an 'advanced' mac user. Not through any failing of the Mac user, but because the technology he is using does not lend itself to a need to understand that technology.

Please, lets put this myth of tech literate mac users to bed unless you are referring to already informed Unix guys who moved to OSX AFTER learning about technology.

Re:In what world?

[Anonymous Coward]

My experience is just the opposite. Macs are typically chosen for two reasons. Either the user needs an extremely simple computer that can be operated without knowing anything about technology. Or the user works with multimedia and believes the Mac is a more powerful platform. Neither class of user knows much about technology.

You forgot the third reason, the user earns a living supporting Windows and wants to come home to a computer that just works, without requiring a lot of maintenance.

Re:In what world?

[shaitand]

That is a reason not to use windows, not a reason to not use a pc ;)

The Mac users are mean to me!

[idsofmarch]

And Windows is for the family next door who can't figure out how to program their VCR.

The appeal for Macs is different for each person, some people like Virginia Tech like to make super-computers, others like to composite special effects, and there are lots of people who just want to be able to use their computer with having the OS get in their way because of shoddy design. And some people just think the computers are pretty.

Stop pretending that Windows users are somehow the salt of the earth while Mac users are elitist, especially considering you use the exact same techniques to try to convince people that Windows or Linux is somehow better.

Accept the fact some people like the Mac, it's effective for what they want to do, and the hardware is not 2x as expensive and you know it and the G5 and Intel Duo Core are very powerful parts of very well-designed machines.

If everyone who had a Mac sold it and bought a PC would life be suddenly better for you? If not, then shut up.

Bloggers are reliable news sources?

[BearRanger]

Opinions. A**holes. I'm sure you can do the math. And count me in...

There were *two* press releases from MacAfee. If Hesseldahl had referred to them both instead of using
inflammatory marketing and advertising techniques to characterize the Mac community this would never
have made it to /. It's just more FUD designed to sell their crappy products.

Since we all have an as ^H^H opinion, this "blog" is closer to mine:

http://comment.zdnet.co.uk/other/0,39020682,392672 48,00.htm

MAC for the Mac

[cpu_fusion]

One big step Apple should take in securing OS-X is using Mandatory Access Controls, ala SELinux. SEDarwin is a step in the right direction, and hopefully Apple is taking notice.

I'd love to see the next iteration of OS-X deliver:
1. A standard framework for Mandatory Access Controls
2. A firewall configurable to prompt the user to whitelist the behavior of new applications
3. Clearer encouragement to run as a non-administrator account
4. A virusscanning framework, without necessarily commiting to providing the signatures
5. Use of the virtualization technology built into the CPUs of the Intel macs to more strongly isolate applications

I'd rather see Apple, not McAfee, add this value to the platform. The above features are what an Operating System should provide, in my opinion ... not what a third-party vendor should tack on.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[Anonymous Coward]

> OS 9 had a ton of viruses and they had even a smaller market share than OS X.

Here are some actual market share figures. OS X (post 2001) is lower than Classic.

[Typical] Mac user?!

[EasyMoney]

Some topics are guaranteed to raise the temperature of any discussion. Religion ... politics ... economics ... Windows or Mac! But it seems to me that most posters are missing the larger issue, that being the reason(s) for purchasing or using a computer in the first place.

Before I go further, please allow me to identify myself somewhat. I am the Director of Information Systems for a Community Action agency in Northwest Ohio. I started using computers (as opposed to technology) by punching and sorting cards, then submitting batch jobs to the data center operators. I used CP/M (far superior to PC/DOS, IMHO), and still distinctly remember Seattle Computer, Apple II / III / GS / LISA, original PC, Epson QX-10, Windows version 1.0, ad infinitum /. nauseam. I will not claim to be an expert, but am quite comfortable with Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux(es? Linuxi? : ) ), and have made a living consulting, installing, and supporting computers for 25 years.

Strictly speaking, there are only two reasons to use a computer. (1) Because I _want_ to use a computer, or (2) Because I want to _do_ something. I believe those who use a computer because they want to are the ones who will garner the most knowledge about computer and information technology. Conversely, those who use a computer because they want to do something will garner the least of this same knowledge, but will be content as long as they can get their work done. This applies more or less equally to Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, et alia (anthropomorphically speaking).

The only group deserving of criticism is the third and unmentioned group, the group of people who will _not_ under any circumstances use computers or information technology even when it is to their distinct advantage to do so. In a work environment this might get you fired. At home it will just make you appear to be a Ludite.

We all know people, and might even be related to some, who know just enough to turn on the computer and perform a few - in our opinion - trivial tasks. No problem. We can slowly introduce them to additional capabilities, and they may even start asking about what else they can do. But they have reached and hopefully will maintain our ideal goal of being technologically functional. Their VCR may still flash 12:00 but they can answer email.

Judge by an individuals willingness to learn, not what they already know.

"I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter." ~ Blaise Pascal

more technically minded?

[Some_Llama]

From TFA:
"because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer"

Um, I thought the whole appeal of MACs was that you didn't need to know how it works, it just works?

I can vouch for my mother personally who is about as technically literate as a sack of potatos, she gets a lot of use out of her MAC making newsletters, burning DVDs, etc.. but her whole reason for staying with MACs is because "Windows is so complicated"?!?!?!

tweak to the wording of the question

[mattsucks]

'Is Mac OS X the NeXT Windows?'

Well, it kind of is...

Zonk is on crack

[anand78]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer" How dumb can this comment be. I guess mac zealots should do a realty check now. You are paying twice for a laptop that is painted WHITE, oh yes and it has a white half bitten apple. Regarding knowing more about technology than PC users, I could concur if you meant Windows users, but PC linux users.

Dear McAfee,

[jocknerd]

Thank you for your concern regarding OS X and viruses. Because of this information you have put forth, I will pay more attention to the coming virus threat to OS X. If, and when that should happen, I will be sure to follow your advice and get some anti-virus software. Unfortunately for you, it won't be your product. I'll download ClamavX instead.

Thank you for your concern,

A very "frightened" OS X user.

Target this!

[iolaus]

First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer, and by and large are a bit more affluent than those who buy cheapo commodity Windows PCs ... When you take into account the ongoing growth in general PC ownership, even if Apple pushes its annual unit sales to 12 million or more by 2010, its share of the overall market will still account for about 4%, leaving Windows the far more tasty target.

If this self-richeous zealot douche is representative of Mac users; virus writers might start to see them as the "tasty target".

MOD PARENT UP!!

[Anonymous Coward]

see above

And? Mod parent down.

[TheNoxx]

Sorry, but that is possibly the worst analogy I've ever heard. Stationary and lighters and small shit like that isn't a business you could possibly used FUD campaigning for, so of course Bic isn't going to use FUD tactics through published papers or otherwise, because, well, WTF would they say? "WARNING!! Lots of rain spreading across the midwest, matches won't be enough to light your smokes!!" Or maybe "Caution, consumer! You may die alone and depressed if you don't carry enough pens and paper with you at all times to write down a possible life partner's number when first meeting them!"

Honestly now, I don't mean to offend, but this is a matter of common sense. The reason that those kinds of businesses don't use the kind of ultra-capitalist tactics that security companies use is because they can't. I'm sure some companies have tried it before, but quickly realized that you're not going to scare someone into buying a fuckload of your ultra-durable coffee cups or chairs.

Why I won't ever use McAfee anti-virus

[guruevi]

I am a recent convert to the faith of Mac. Currently I have a mixed environment at home consisting out of 1 iBook, 1 PowerBook, 1 HP laptop with Gentoo, 1 Windows PC and 2 Linux PC's with Debian and CentOS.

I have handled mixed environments at all my working places. What I've learned out of it:

McAfee broke a lot of times (automatic virus definition updates) causing different mail clusters to stop processing e-mails. On Windows it caused a lot of lock ups, lock downs (where no one could login anymore from remote) and sometimes it just plain stopped working. On Mac the same problems were spotted.

McAfee just churns out virus updates (sometimes every 4 hours) without decently testing them which causes a lot of sysadmin problems. Sometimes over 20 hours per week were spent just fixing the damn things.

On decently updated and secured Mac or Linux boxes I have never, ever seen a virus outbreak. This is due to the inherited security in the kernels. On decently updated and secured (as far as that is possible on for example Exchange boxes) Windows servers, I have seen different defaces through IIS and virus outbreaks but most of the time it were script kiddies or dumb users causing that to happen.

The problem with McAfee in a controlled environment is that it breaks more than secures stuff. I have used ClamAV as a stand in for McAfee on the mail clusters (working before the McAfee daemon) and after a week it was obvious that McAfee didn't do anything anymore. The point is, I wouldn't trust a Windows environment with ClamAV, but for the tinfoil hat users, I would recommend using ClamAV (or ClamAVX for Mac OS X) and it hasn't yet caused any more or big problems for me than McAfee did. Linux and Mac is so much more secure by design that imho it is not necessary yet to make big expenses on any commercial viruspackage.

There is a port...

[Hymer]

of ClamAV to Mac OS X (10.2, 10.3, 10.4). It is called clamXav. It does have on access scanning and a GUI.
I use it on my PowerBook, it is quite easy to install, configure and use.

--
...did I say it is free ?

Ever look at it this way?

[Anonymous Coward]

PC users know more about their computers because they HAVE to to keep the ^%(*%$%%^& things running!

When your computer "just works", where's the incentive to fiddle around with it and dig into the guts of it? It just plain ain't necessary!

Anecdotes are "insightful" now?

[Theaetetus]

I don't know a single person who I would call knowledgeable about IT who has a Mac. All the Mac users I know (roughtly a dozen) know, and care, nothing about IT. That's pretty well why they wanted a Mac in the first place

Well, thanks to the power of Slashdot, you now know several more people who are knowledgeable about IT and who have Macs.

The more you know! [star]

Is MacOS X the next Windows ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is MacOS X the next Windows ?

No

Numbers alone make you a virus target?

[AtlantaSteve]

even if Apple pushes its annual unit sales to 12 million or more by 2010, its share of the overall market will still account for about 4%, leaving Windows the far more tasty target

If I had the time, energy, moral flexability (and okay, talent) to write a decent virus... the Apple crowd would be the most "tasty" target I could choose. What they lack in numbers, they make up for in annoying attitude.

apple users are smug, making them tastier

[Anonymous Coward]

just like free range chicken and cows, smug computer users make *MUCH* tastier targets for viruses and worms because its fun to watch them get kicked in the face. That negates the ~3% market share effect.

No. This time MOD THENOXX down!! (overrated)

[Anonymous Coward]

His opinions are his own, however someone who hurls abuse and calls other people names just for happening to have a different opinion...

RE: PS:

[Warlock7]

I have to point out that I am not alone in the use of that phrase:

...there is empirical evidence that more highly educated people use more complex syntax than less educated people, consistent with the idea that greater exposure to literacy correlates with greater *use* of complex syntax...

The early beliefs about the education level of the Unabomber were that he was probably a relatively uneducated laborer. Yet the notes and letters he sent in connection with his mail bombs, as well his following Manifesto, gave strong indication that he was a more highly educated person.

As in previous studies of the exceptionally gifted, the kids in Gross's cohort tended to be the firstborn of small families. The parents were older than average, having delayed having babies until they had completed tertiary studies or achieved financial security. They and the children's grandparents were more highly educated than most people of their generation and more likely to be employed in professional or managerial positions. Children whose parents were born in Asia were significantly over-represented in the group.

There are theories that Shakespeare's plays were actually written by someone else, perhaps someone more highly educated. Names suggested include the statesman and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, the Earl of Southampton (Shakespeare's patron), Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford and even Queen Elizabeth.

Students believed that this is mostly because employers and supervisors in Dominica do not appreciate the talent of the more highly educated and self-motivated employees. Instead, those persons are perceived to be threats to the career mobility of their associates.

Just some examples of the use of the phrase.

If a highly educated person, person A, is viewed to be such by someone with a lesser education than person A, person B, while someone with more education, person C, than person A is present, then isn't person C more highly educated than person A?

Have you every tried to buy McAfee for the mac?

[mr_zorg]

The only way I know of to get McAfee for the mac is to buy a .Mac subscription. Which I don't want. I can't even find their Mac Virex (?) software on their website... No thanks, I'll just run ClamAV.

I stopped reading at

[DeadboltX]

First off, Mac users ... tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer

Pardon me while I L-O-L over here in the corner

OSX Users Aren't more "Technically Adept"

[Anonymous Coward]

The simple fact that Apple users are "Self-Selected" doesn't show anything about their technical abilities. In fact, Apple's "Easy to use" interface promotes keeping users "technically inept".

Its like Apple is saying "It's ok users, you don't need to know how to end runaway processes... Command Prompt??? You don't really need to know what it is.". While as with Windows, Microsoft has seen fit to add little "features" that often require the user to get outside their "comfort zone" and tinker with the inner workings of the operating system. As you can clearly see, Microsoft's honorable goal is to increase the "Technical Aptitude" of the general population wheras Apple is trying to "Dumb down" the population with software that "Just works".

Remeber, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger -- so as far as technical abilities Windows users in general must be stronger than Apple users because Apple users aren't being pushed to "excel".

If you didn't get it, a courtesy laugh isn't necessary... I can't hear you anyways.

Re:OSX Users Aren't more "Technically Adept"

[aristotle-dude]

That is a load of horseshit. To say that MSFT makes software software difficult to use and install/configure to help users grow is preposterous. Their software has usuability flaws because they work by the the moto "barely sufficient". Given their marketshare, they do not feel the pressure to put in the effort to create better software.

Having said all that, very rarely would you need to use the command prompt to install features. You must be thinking of hacking the UI through unsupported means. I used to do that when I was a windows user at home. You might be surprised to find out that much of the UI in OS X in far more hackable and Apple even provides you with the tools to do it in the form of the Developer tools.

Re: PS:

[AviLazar]

Thanks for the references, it just sounds bad. It is using two adjectives, in a non-breaking sentence, to describe one word. "More" educated and "highly" educated. It just does not sound right. Just like when my friend said that the picture he just bought is "very unique".

Infatuation with root access == red herring

[toadlife]

This isn't a reply directly to the parent AC, but to this thread in general. Everyone here has been bickering on about how one might or might not be able to get root access on a Mac machine, but to me that's silly becuase it's an argument that is largely irrelevant.

Brining the topic of root access up is a giant red herring in this security argument because not having root access doesn't keep one from using a computer. If I'm a malware writer who is looking to bring Macs into my botnet, as long I can get my code executed on the target machine, I can turn that computer into a drone that does my bidding. Certainly, root access is preferred, as there are certain things I can't do without root, but I still do plenty without it.

People have been saying this for years

[Aqua OS X]

Well, people have been saying this for as long as I can remember. They said it about classic Mac OS, and they say it about OS X.

In all my years of using MacOS I've had two viruses. The Autostart worm and Sevendust. Both exploited classic MacOS and therefore did not require user authentication... as "Leap-A" does.

I'd say that's a fairly decent track record.

If something is going to infect MacOS X it is probably going to exploit user error. There -are- people who are dumb enough to think they need to enter their password after clicking on a jpeg. There may come a point when Apple needs to make their authentication dialog boxes retard proff. Currently, that's not a big problem.

I think this will be somewhat of an issue for Vista, which is going to nag the hell out of users. I fear that may result in a "boy who cried wolf" scenario with it's users.

User authentication is actually fairly rare in OS X. Most operations and third party software installations do not require authentication. So when they do pop up, there tends to be a moment of pause.

Practice makes perfect

[thefinite]

There are a lot of reasons you might have misinterpreted your sample. For example, you may only be getting calls from a subset of people who buy Macs for their publicized ease-of-use. The rest of them, a possible majority, may figure things out without calling you.

Of course, my favorite interpretation is that Windows users just have more practice with tech support telling them to open a command prompt. :P

Re: PS:

[Warlock7]

Heh, it's funny that you say that. We have a guy here in our office who says that his code is "very complex". This strikes me as being a bit redundant. :)

I believe in this case, that "highly" is an adverb which describes the adjective "more" and "educated" is a verb, I think, all of these are describing the "people/person" which is the noun. Educated is the tough one here because it is also an adjective and in this case is more of an adjective than a verb.

educated
adj.

1. Having an education, especially one above the average.

First it was Intego and now it is McAfee.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is an article out in InfoWorld about some of these security companies using FUD factor to drum up business for themselves.
In the end is the user education of the real problems and how to recognise them and mitigate them is the focus of security. You can best security software in the world but if the user doesn't know what is doing and then he receives an spam email message telling that person to disable the security software because it is a "threat" then the software is useless.

Means, motive, and opportunity...

[argent]

You have a motive.

You still need the means and the opportunity.

Means: ActiveX makes Windows a MUCH easier target to hit.

Opportunity: There are more Windows boxes out there.

Means is mostly ignored in these analyses. They assume all operating systems and applications are comparable and that it's mostly the opportunity that Windows provides that makes it a preferred target.

Up until around 1997 Windows viruses and worms were mostly exploting poor file system security over LANs, and social engineering attacks in email. Then they came up wiith Active Desktop and the email worm problem went from "pay attention to what you're doing" to "oh shit!".

virus removal software

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok everyone... first of all, my little conspiracy theory is that most viruses are MADE BY THE ANTIVIRUS COMPANIES to begin with. Think about it... you work for an antivirus company... what guarentees job security? Well... write more viruses. Anyway, the thing is that the only reason you need antivirus in the first place is because the system is not secure or you have a pebcak problem. If you have an open source OS, the problem gets fixed. If you have a pebcak problem, this will eventually fade out over the next few years because all people are generally becoming computer-capable because of instant messenging services.

Re:What about OS 9 viruses?

[DurendalMac]

Macaddict issue 27 had a virus on the CD. I remember some users reporting the havoc it wreaked. OS X doesn't have a SINGLE known virus. There is malware, no doubt, because no system will ever be free of that. But viruses? Not there.

Mac Users Are The Dumbest Ever

[ztransform]

"First off, Mac users on average pay more for their computers, are self-selected because they tend to know more about technology than your average PC buyer".

The blogger who wrote this has a severe case of his ego up his ass.

How is this different from Symantec?

[sharpestmarble]

Symantec does the same thing. IIRC, they did the same thing twice in the past year. Cry wolf, then everyone will buy our stuff.

Best single sentence...

[vingt]

That's the best single sentence rebuttal I've read all year.

I had to post as I used my latest set of mod points yesterday.

Several points

[noidentity]

- I've read often that Macs are too rare to support easy spread of viruses; an infected machine simply can't find enough Macs to spread to (it's a lonely world).

- There are two virus markets: one that pays the ego of the writers, and another that pays money for useful services (botnets). The former would profit by writing a successful Mac virus, while the latter would profit much less than writing one for Windows.

- For the average user, the question isn't about his computer's vulnerability in theory, it's about the practical risk of his data and the effort necessary to reduce this to an acceptable level.

- Apple includes a software firewall and makes regular security updates, so it's not like the security of the OS is being ignored.

- If the anti-virus companies want to write viruses in an attempt to create a market, it might actually benefit the Mac platform by helping to make it more secure. Why turn down well-funded security auditing, provided for free?

Oh yes, the dastardly OSX/Leap "Virus".

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm really getting tired of Symantec (and now McAfee) spreading FUD and outright misinformation about OSX/Leap.

1st off, it's a Trojan Horse, not a virus.

2nd, It requires a user stupid enough to input an admin password when opening a file they thought was a picture.

3rd, all it does is present the message "Welcome to Darwin". It's a proof of concept Trojan, not a malicious one.

Bullshit

[Listen Up]

Sure they know how to do their basic email, web surfing, music stuff but beyond that they have no clue.

You've just described about %99 of the people who use computers, Windows or OS X.

It's all about being an elitist for them. They look at Mac's and say if I get one of those i'll be cool.

Wrong. Doctors especially general practicioners are so fucking busy that they simply do not have time to get to know a computer operating system regardless of whether it is Windows or OS X. They generally work 8-16 hour days and on-call or working on the weekends. Sure, the doctors may use Windows without a problem at work, but maybe they simply want a different computing experience at home in their limited free time? Maybe their families use OS X both professionally and at the children's school. Why not buy something your entire family can use and enjoy? Maybe they are trying to keep up on the latest technology in any way that they can? Your views are highly jaded and out-of-touch with most of the medical and/or professional community.

The exact same way they purchase a car.

Bullshit. There isn't anyone who after 10-12 years of schooling/interning, a very limited amount of free-time and a very large salary wouldn't spend their money on the things that make them happy. If I had one day off a week and made $150,000 a year I sure as hell wouldn't buy a GM product and drive it around. Hell, even regardless of that who cares if people spend the money they earn on what makes them happy? They deserve every bit of what they have earned, purchased, and enjoy. Again, your views are highly jaded and your statements are highly jealous as well. Maybe you should do something with your life, buy the things you want, and then maybe you won't be so jealous of the people who have already done those things with their life.

Many virii exist, but McAfee won't help you

[grrrl]

The biggest threat to OS X users are the 'virii' an AV will not protect you against - poorly written software and drivers.

People trust the CDs that come with their latest printer/scanner/multi-function, but in my experience they are the biggest memory-hogging, system crashing, bloatware you could find.

Examples: Brother multifunction drivers install a 'ControlCenter' that loads (in the background) and prompts EVERY user to set up the printer, even if it is already configured. It is hidden away in the printer driver directory (/Library/Printers - not obivous given it is an application - though one you can't launch or control or quit yourself). It loads about 3 or 4 'agents' that run in the background and use over 100 MB of memory footprint each! WTF!

I found the HP scanner programs are just as bad - the acutal program to scan is great, but the bloatware you have no choice but installing (in random places) alongside makes me feel dirty inside.

Not that anyone will notice now...

[PFI_Optix]

But I feel I must comment on the fact that this got modded flamebait by not one but TWO people.

I responded to a post stating that McAffee had a distinct conflict of interest, due to their primary interest being that of making money. I pointed out that Apple is equally interested in making money, and if they are going to continue to do that they must expand their user base. This necessarily will include less technical users, and users less-willing to learn things like security.

What I didn't say was that their advertising reflects this. The switch ads and their general anti-PC campaign target people who don't know much anything about Macs and not much more about PCs. They want to attract Average Joe who doesn't have a clue what the difference between BSD and System V is.

Windows is quite capable of being a secure OS, even under the onslaught of thousands of new attempts at breaching it. What makes Windows so insecure is ignorant users who cannot or will not learn to secure their systems from threats and allow those threats to propagate long after they should have been wiped out. If you move those same users over to OSX, they will begin opening or allowing to remain open security holes that will be tapped into as soon as there are enough such holes for malware authors to find them worth attacking.

It's impossible to make an OS perfectly secure. OSX is easier to secure than XP; don't think I'm implying otherwise. It and Linux are designed to be harder to penetrate. I have found that as a result, they are also far less flexible and more difficult to use from the perspective of novice users. I've seen Linux systems that were laid wide open by user ignorance.

So to the posters who wasted mod points on this post: You're nothing but blind zealots. You can't accept a reasonable argument that runs contrary to what you have already decided is the absolute truth. In that sense, you have much in common with the rabid creationists.