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Finger Pointing Over iPod Windows Virus
rs232 writes sent us some choice quotes in the finger pointing over the iPod's that recently shipped with a virus on them. "It's not a matter of which platform the virus originated [on]. The fact that it's found on the portable player means that there's an issue with how the quality checks, specifically the content check, was done," Poon wrote in a blog entry. and "Steve, if you need someone to advise on how to improve your quality checks, feel free to contact me 8)."
How can something like this happen?! I just don't get it!
When I first heard about this, I thought brilliant. What better way for Apple to demonstrate how prone to viruses windows machines are, than to put a virus on an ipod that only affects windows machines.
It would appear that I have nothing of interest to offer nor anything insightful to add to these comments.
Who cares how it happened? It's Apple's problem. It's Apple's fault. End of discussion. Apple's comment was childish and absolutely un-called for. Apple should apologize publically, announce that they will improved their QA, and move on.
Great, add to the finger-pointing.
This isn't news.
Let the flamewar begin.
Oh SNAP! Steve Jobs got TOLD, son. Damn, that burn was off the heezy, fo'-sheezy! Now he needs to come back with "Yo, Poon. I improved your MOM's quality control." HOT DAMN!
Only a very small number of a specific model of iPod were affected by these Windows viruses. The entire blame rests with the factory making the iPods for Apple and putting the software image Apple prepared in advance not following good practices with respect to how they set up the empty drives before Apple's software went on them. The problem has been entirely fixed and you cannot even buy one of these infected iPods in the retail market today.
In other words, this is old news. And the size of the problem (the number of units affected) was so small, I would put good money down that we would not even know about the existence of this Windows virus problem if Apple had not disclosed it.
.. when you outsource your operations to McDonalds.
Profit.
More specifically, it's because both Apple and Microsoft need to cut corners on their products to make a suitable return.
Microsoft ends up releasing low-quality software that has serious security glitches. Such glitches allow for malicious software to easily harm systems and propagate throughout networks.
Apple, on the other hand, cuts down the quality of their hardware manufacturing processes. And with that decrease in quality, we see incidents like this happening.
Notice that some of the highest quality and most secure software products are those developed by organizations that have little care for outrageous profit. I'm talking about OpenBSD, for instance. Instead of focusing on matters of financial accounting, they focus on putting out damn fine software. Security problems of this magnitude become a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence for a project like OpenBSD, as they end up putting many measures in place to prevent repeats.
And everybody's blaming them for not noticing. But if you think about it, it was a pretty absurd thing for them to have had to "notice". As I understand it, the virus was implanted by one infected machine among a number of machines at a Chinese manufacturing shop they'd contracted iPod manufacture to. Apple said, "here's a thing that looks like an external disk: please put these bits on it for us". A simple and straightforward enough task, one would think -- but in a world where autorun exists and is or has been enabled by default, perhaps not so straightforward.
It's as if I had a letter to mail to 1000 of my customers, and I took one original down to my friendly print shop and asked them to make 1000 copies, and I or the print shop used an automated machine to fold the 1000 copies and stuff them in envelopes and mail them, and only after they were mailed out and opened by my customers did we start discovering that for some strange reason 1% of them had "FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE" overprinted on page 2. And then found out that the "strange reason" was that one of the copy machines at the print shop, among the several that the print shop divided my job among, was "infected" by a "virus".
If that happened to me, I'd be annoyed, too. (It'd be even more annoying if I were accused of ignorance for not having protected myself against this "obvious" threat, that evidently everybody else knows about and makes allowances for.) And I know my response would not be to ask the print shop to be more careful next time, or to run an "antivirus" soluton, or something. I'd take my business elsewhere, and more importantly insist that my future printing contractors use a different brand of copier, one that's not susceptible to preposterous failure modes like that, because even if there is some alleged way of papering over that particular flaw, who knows how many other equivalently egregious bizarre flaws it's got that haven't been discovered and papered over yet?
... because this is just ridiculous. Wonder when this will pop up in Microsoft marketing "iPod vs Zune" - 'Zune does not contain viruses like iPod'. Media never stops to amaze me.
It's not just the iPod, viruses on shipped hardware seem to be getting more common. For example see below. Can't give other documented articles, but remember similar cases this past year. Anyone? The swipe at Microsoft sounds a lot like Jobs, looks like his personality has infected the company too. But Apple could win this by instating new controls over subcontractors and making a PR campaign in which they force them to use Macs or otherwise emphasize steps they've taken to minimize infection from Microsoft-based hardware. :)
Quote from article:
Earlier, McDonald's and Coca-Cola faced a similar problem in Japan during an MP3 player giveaway, though the events are unconnected. The iPod virus only affects Windows machines, and does not alter the behavior of the portable device itself or Mac operating systems.
The blame for this lies entirely at the feet of Microsoft.
Who created the Operating System which will execute arbitrary code -- for that matter, arbitrary code which ought to require administrator privileges -- without the say-so of the user? Microsoft did.
That is the problem. For sure, they had a reason to do that -- they wanted to hide "difficult" decisions from the user in order to make their operating system beginner-friendly. Their model seems to be "Programmers know what they are doing, users don't." Unfortunately for everyone concerned, that has well and truly bitten them in the arse.
If Vista is more secure than Windows XP, then it will necessarily be harder to use. The only way it could be more secure than XP while remaining as easy to use, is if only certain trusted parties are allowed to write software for it. (Which is effectively what you've almost got with some OSes; anyone is allowed to write software, but software distributors -- who may well be independent of the software creators -- maintain a catalogue of what is "safe", based on their own judgement after reading the Source Code. Tech-savvy users can check the Source Code for themselves. Non-tech-savvy users know they can rely on the software distributor's judgement. Any distributor who does a bad job by distributing dangerous software loses custom.) But that would create a monopoly, or at best a cartel.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
What's so bad about that quote? That it is nothing but truthful?
The fact of the matter is that Windows should be far more resilient to malicious software, regardless of whether the vector is a network, an email attachment, or a piece of Apple hardware.
Don't forget that there's nothing Apple can do but make such facts public knowledge. Considering how Microsoft limits access to the Windows source code and development process, there's basically nothing Apple could do to help improve the situation. If Microsoft's software is so readily vulnerable to exploits, then the only party to blame is Microsoft.
The worst thing is how long ago they were warned about it. Posts in Apple's forums were within a day or two of when it started happening. I posted about it here http://www.pirate-king.com/episode/1436 weeks before it hit the major news outlets.
I even talked to the editors at The Register about the story.
Therapist: "Okay, now it is time to address frustrations. Mac, express a frustration about PC. "
Mac: "I'm really upset that you proved vulnerable to the virus we somehow loaded onto our flagship product."
Therapist: "I see. PC, express a frustration about Mac."
PC: "Mac, Why did you try to get me sick in the first place?"
Therapist: "Mac, maybe you'd better come in twice a week to deal with your anger-displacement issues."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I used to work for a small company that made CD-ROM's
Only after we recieved 3000 copies of our free handout Amsterdam nightlife CD-ROM did we discover that there was a windows virus on all of them.
We simply slapped a "MAC only" sticker on them and handed them out!
The buck stops with the label on the cover. Sorry, whoever you contract to do stuff with is your business; when you're selling something with your trademark on it, any problems are between YOU and the CUSTOMER. In Apple's case, their problems are between APPLE and the CUSTOMER. Blaming third-parties, whether those contracted to, or those completely uninvolved (Microsoft), is just unprofessional. I know Apple was itching to score points at an easy target like Microsoft, but guys: this is a screwup, APPLE's name is on the front, not whatever podunk assembly in the Hunan Province, and not Microsoft. Even a "minor" attack like, "Bad Microsoft, Worse Us" is out of place in PR copy. Leave that bit of trollwork to professionals, like Dvorak.
Microsoft will ship it's upcoming media player "Zune" with Mac OS 7 (or System 7) viruses, trying to prove that Mac users (of 10 years ago) are susceptible to viruses and that it's all Apple's fault for how they got on there and how insecure the Mac OS really is.
Never monkey with another monkey's monkey.
Did somebody miss the real news story?
Hmmm. That sure is embarrassing, when it happens.
_ security_fixes_infected/
0 02/06/va_nimda_korea.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/25/microsoft
http://www.dgl.com/dglinfo/1996/dg961023.html
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2
Apple really has nowhere to run for cover on this now.
Why? Bootcamp.
They are putting out an architecture that will run Windows alongside OSX; so now they have a responsibility not to _aid and abet_ destruction of a customer's info.
What that Windows OS does after they delivered it is not their lookout; but they have a responsibility to their customers to not _facilitate_ in any way _another_ vector of attack to that machine.
A fine distinction, but an important one nonetheless.
If you shouldn't be using the stick with Apple hardware that runs Wintel, then they would have had a little more wiggle room...
It's hardly Apple's fault that Windows is a virus whore.
Absolutely agree. So the remaining question is: aside from the ill-advised potshot, has Apple done right or wrong by those customers? Have they (a) disavowed all responsibility, told customers it's their problem, told them to go talk to the "podunk assembly plant in Hunan Province" if they need help, or (b) done everything they can to mitigate and prevent future recurrences of the problem?
How exactly can a Windows virus jump from a Windows computer on to an iPod (completely different architecture), then back onto a Windows computer? Is there some MAJOR similarities between the two architectures, or is it that there's absolutely no way this could have been an accident?
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses..."
In other words: don't blame me, she was asking for it!
You have tried to support your argument with faulty reasoning! Go directly to jail; do not pass Go, do not collect $200!
Apple has an ethical duty to provide products that don't harm the computers of its customers. If Sony did this they would be drawn and quartered by slashgeeks. But Apple fanboys high-five eachother, saying, "Way to go Apple. This shows how bad Windows is." Stakeholders in Apple are hurt by this and I find it unprofessional of Jobs to blame Microsoft for Apple's failure.
The whole thing is sort of stupid. It is Apple's fault, it is their product and by selling it to you took responsibility to support it. An example is the Dell battery recall; Sony produced the defective batteries, but it is Dell's responsibility to provide a recall system since they sold you the laptop.
Apple is keeping mum about it; there is a link from the main support page, but it's pretty small. But this is just stupid:
"As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it."
That is inane. Blame Windows. And the whole even more upset with ourselves for not catching it is a poor way to cover it. That is like ford saying "A limited number of tires on Mustangs will spontaneously fail, causing a serious accident. As you might imagine, we are upset at drivers for not being more durable during such a crash, and even more upset at ourselves for not catching it"
Apple should apologize, improve the QA, and take responsibility for the problems the viral iPods have caused.
But how is it an insult? It's pointing out a very real fact: Windows poorly handles malicious software. It may not be a fact that Microsoft or Windows fanatics are proud of, but nevertheless, it's still a fact.
Suppose for the moment that you have a 2" erection. If a woman tells you, "piquadratCH, you have a small cock," then it is not an insult. The fact is that you do have a small penis, and her letting you know that is not an insult, even if it makes you feel terrible.
Now, suppose that you have a 18" raging boner. If that same woman tells you again that you have a small cock, it's an insult. Why is it an insult? Because it completely contradicts the truth, which is that you do have a massive penis.
I hope you can see the difference between insults and the truth. Had Windows been a system known for its extreme security, and Apple made the same comment, it would have been an insult. But considering how poor Windows security has been for two decades now, it's not an insult, and merely the truth.
I remember picking up "The Giant Black Book of Computer Viruses" from the library in the early 90s; all of those listed pre-dated Windows. Apple is crying, "What? There are viruses?" as if this is some sort of recent development. What exactly am I missing?
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
I've just had my replacement iPod fail exactly as the first one did. On both, iTunes just finished loading my music, said it was safe to disconnect, and the units started boot cycling and can't be got out of it. Anyone else have a similar issue with one of the new 80GB video iPods?
Everyone knows there's no Sanity Clause. I mean check.
I've read that the underlying problem was more subtle, which might explain some of Apple's expressed frustration with MS. I can't confirm this but it may have been that the infected PC got the infection from a blank, formatted, drive from the drive manufacturer. Even if that is not true in this case, there is nothing stopping it from being true.
It's a pretty subtle bug that, until now of course, I know would have bitten me since I would not have looked for it. I, and the technicians who do jobs for me, often replace burned hard drives in my clusters and computers with units straight out of the box. In some cases we have pre-formatted hot-swap spares still in the shrink wrap sitting on the shelf waiting to go in.
On my macs and linux machines, I sometimes use external USB drives to share with Windows PCs. I don't usually reformat these specifically because I don't entirely trust that the macintosh disk formatting program will create a prisitine PC FAT format. In all likelihood it can, I just don't have the ability to know. And I have reason to doubt: past experience has shown that when one OS provider emulates another's native formats (e.g. Samba or UFS or HFS++ or ZFS or NFS) that the emulation is usually less than complete or has artifacts.
It would be a major hassle and expense, to have to reformat every drive in a rack of clusters one is upgrading. But apparently that is now the requirement to be sure the manufacturer did not ship you a virus on the "blank" harddrive.
The problem is perhaps more diabolical than it seems. Imagine some Apple engineer putting out some specs for the process standards the Chinese manufacturer must follow. He's paranoid they won't have good practices with keeping their windows boxes clean. He also wants to assure the peripheral performance is comaptible with the ipod loading software and to assure the integrity of the data transfers to the ipod. So he decides that the sure way to do this is to make absolutely certain the box has never been on the internet, and to spec every part, so the machine has to be built at the chinese factory from scratch. They then load in the special Apple approved Windows software CD with apples programs and data. Seems foolproof. But it's not.
One might argue that to actually eliminate you have to boot from a trusted CD and then format the drives. But wait, this does not solve the problem. Isn't the problem of creating a trusted CD or and ipod install the problem we started out trying to solve? So one has to some how have a system that one can trust to do this. And that system has to be available to the manufacturer. It's kinds slippery.
If you were about to suggest "well just use Linux" to format the drive, well then apparently you just emitted the same faux paux apple did. Blaming Windows for the problem.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Just like those unnamed laptop companies should just recall those exploding batteries and not mention $sys$SONY
this other post proves the point. MS managed to print virsues on one of their own CDs. Empirically it is hard to find a virginal safe point when working with Windows.
As for the responsibility of the blunder, I absolutely agree with you. The buck stops at Apple. Whoever the fault it was, Apple did contract them and put their logo on the products as the approval and sell them as their own products. Did Apple refuse the responsibility? I can't find the evidence to the contrary. They admitted the problem, apologized and provided the way to neutralize the problem.
What people do have problems with is how Apple explained the incident. To me that's a bit unreasonable. Was Dell wrong when their laptops burst to fire and specifically attributed the problem to Sony's batteries or Ford to GoodYear tires? No. Both Sony's batteries and GoodYear tires were defective. Similarly, Microsoft Windows is defective. Companies do have the right to explain how a blunder happened when assuring the customers the steps being taken to prevent the same thing from happending again.
What's so different in those cases? Sony's batteries and GoodYear tires have no fanboys. I was tempted to say it's because both Apple and MS make OSes, but both Sony and Dell make laptops too.
I wonder if anyone has a botnet of photocopiers yet. Nobody would suspect that! What's scary is that they could be used for corporate espionage!
AC
Apple are *not* blaming the users of the ipod (the "drivers"), they are expressing some anger at the ultimate cause of how it happened ("the tire manufacturers"), and you better believe that if tires started randomly blowing out on cars, and there was an avenue of blame available, then Ford damn well would lay that blame firmly at the tire-manufacturers feet.
Since they're also volunteering this information, announcing a way for users to completely recover ("new body cloning device" ?), and expressing even more anger at themselves for not catching it, I don't really see the big deal.
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
When I first read that quote from Apple it really gave me the creeps.
I like Apple as a company too much to want to hear this kind of spin from them. I understand that they are embarrassed by having infected products going out to customers, but that doesn't excuse using that old Republican technique of trying to point fingers in order to deflect blame.
For example, the GOP tried to pin the entire Foley/Page sex scandal on the Democrats and George Soros, but that appears to have backfired as most people dislike that sort of scummy avoidance of responsibility. If Foley isn't writing emails and IMs trying to get into the drawers of congressional pages, there's no scandal, period. Nothing the Dems or George Soros did afterward have any bearing on that fact.
I don't want to see Apple doing that same sort of ugly spinning, but I guess that's what happens when the marketing people take over. I watched "Thank You For Smoking" last night, and the whole movie was about this very issue. It's a great flick by the way.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Although it wasn't many people, so it probably won't happen, this sounds like a perfect lawsuit. Like a computer version to having pieces of glass in your food...... Sounds like it could be won if damages occurred. Apple is lucky it wasn't worse, or this could have become a legal problem for them.
In undeveloped countries, the consumer controls the market. In capitalist America, the market controls you.
If the "more upset with ourselves" phrase was in the original quote and people left it out to make Apple look [more] arrogant [than they actually are], shame on them.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Seriously, if Windows was more secure then it would be safe, even in the test labs, and since Apple admits to knowing this, they should in their labs have active security measures against such problems, if they're gonna offer their product on the Windows platform as well.
If I make a product that screws up something in a typical environment that it's supposed to be in, then it's my fault and no one else's, no matter how cruddy that environment is. This isn't like an unknown flaw or something that's unforseen. Windows is what it is, and if a known shortcoming isn't worked around by your product, then your product is at fault.
Common, your product gets infected because of some slopiness, and you blame another company??
If Jobs doesn't like it, then stop making the iPod work on Windows. How would he like it if all of a sudden the iPod would be "disabled" by MS? He'd sue the living hell out of them (and for good reason).
Take the responsability for the screw up and fix it.
I think you mean:
Therapist: "Okay, now it is time to address frustrations. Mac, express a frustration about PC. "
Mac: "I'm really upset that you loaded a virus on our flagship product when we connected it to you for QA testing."
Therapist: "I see. PC, express a frustration about Mac."
PC: "Mac, Why did you use me for QA testing in the first place?"
Therapist: "PC, maybe you'd better come in twice a week to deal with your anger-displacement issues."
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
The buck stops with the label on the cover.
So you are in agreement Microsoft is at fault for its Windows operating system being the host of thousands upon thousands of computer viruses? Because the buck stops at Microsoft, right? Or were you going to blame someone else?
...Microsoft Bob?
The difference is that Dell's press releases don't mention Sony batteries, but _their_ batteries, which Sony happened to manufacture. Ford sold trucks with Goodyear-branded tires, and recalled same.
I repeat, for those fanboys who are hard of hearing: it's the job of the professional media trolls to place the blame. Apple coulda scored tons by just profusely apologizing for the Windows virus getting into their distribution system. There are plenty of press hacks who will "go the extra mile" and explain why Windows sucks. This has nothing to do with fanboys and everything to do with business sense. Sorry, Apple screwed up. Don't cry too much, or your tears might crack your G4 cube.
According to some quotes in TFA, the Windows machines are used to check for compatibility, as iPods can connect to Windows as well as Macs, not for the manufacturing process itself. Perhaps the low number of infections (said to be 5%) means only a few iPods were given that check (normal QC wouldn't require every one to be checked for a consumer item).
Obviously Windows shouldn't be used in a production environment, given its susceptibility to this sort of thing. The real mistake was Apple allowing their contractors to use unprofessional tools. In the future hopefully they'll insist on the use of Macs or Linux, or embedded systems.
Begs the question (in my mind) of how much it costs our economy to be reliant on Windows.
First rule of apple - always be evil. Take BSD source, refuse to release iTunes on open source platforms. Take Microsoft's money, slag them off before during and after. Then take all of your shareholders for a ride while you issue yourself big fat stock options.
No one seems to notice - Apple is fucking their customers up, yes they just happen to be Microsoft's customers too, but their response is "we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses" (probably a joke in poor taste) but far far worse is we are "even more upset with ourselves for not catching it." Apple are upset. How deeply sad. Wouldn't it be nice if they said sorry?
Lucky for Apple, neither or those things matter. This was in the news for a day or two, but beyond that the only people talking about it are the /. trolls.
For one thing, though I just bought an 80GB iPod, this didn't affect me, since the first thing I did was attach it to my G5 at work, so it was re-formatted into HFS the moment I started up iTunes.
But, I have to wonder why Apple prepares them on Windows machines in the first place. OS X has native support for FAT32 filesystems, so why not just prep them on OS X in the first place? And furthermore, why even have HFS iPods anyway? FAT32 iPods work fine on OSX.
A sentence you'll never see on an Internet discussion board: "You know what? You're right."
I find it interesting (a disgusted kind of interesting) that nobody seems to want to blame the virus writers whenever there are security problems.
If someone broke into your house and stole all your stuff, it's the fault of the person who broke in. To blame the homeowner because they failed to notice some obscure 3rd story window wasn't locked very well is putting the blame on the wrong person.
Certainly Microsoft is culpable for not handling security better but let's not forget about the sorry sacks of excrement that are writing these viruses. We should not be treating these people like vigilantes or heros. They are criminals and they should be treated like criminals.
- Dave
Don't you think it's the same kind of situation?
:)
A small number of shipped product managed to get shipped infected with E.Coli.
The spinach company regrets that certain people were not more hardy to E.Coli infestation and regrets them not figuring it out before it happened.
Yet for some reason I don't see people defend them. I wonder why. Maybe because love for Mac stuff is bigger than love for Spinach
Hyperom.com
...the iPod in the productline. And it is their fault for not using a Mac or Linux box to test the iPod after every Microsoft Windows box 'touched' the iPod before boxing it up.
;-/
Shame on Apple.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I remember back in the pre OS X days, at Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference, they put some CDs in our tote bags with Macintosh viruses. They discovered it after we got the bags, but the first day. All the sessions started with a big slide warning about the bad CDs.
Even worse, I once worked for a company that sent out a press release with a Microsoft Word virus. Sending a virus in a press release not good marketing.
Isn't it ironic blaming Apple for a Windows virus? Kind of like the Bush administration constantly blaming Clinton for everything they have done. It's a Windows virus folks not a Mac one. A vendor screwed up and it got onto some iPods. Apple didn't infect the machines since viruses can't migrate from one platform to another.
I always lay the final blame on the virus writers. If I were in charge, they'd be hunted mercilessly by Special Forces units paid for by a small tax on business that would cost less than dealing with all the virus BS.
But we live in a culture that incresingly tolerates bad behavior, and blaming the victim has always been popular. Look at rape trial defense arguments back in the "good old days".
Nope, but if viruses came with a label on the cover, then I'd say that's where the blame needs to go.
Seriously, I think it's time for the death penalty for virus writers. Sure, it's excessive, but it'd show those assholes that finally we mean business.
"Common, that's so cheap..."
It's both common and cheap (much like this comment). The great unread mass of kids today. Just another sign of the apocalypse.
This is analagous to th city of Cupertino missing a terrorist arrest and then blaming New York City for being such a common target for terrorism....
And we wonder why we've been dealing with viruses for so long without a real solution being created....
IOW the quality control (using Windows PCs) was the problem, so how could it be the solution?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
The driver isn't being blamed for causing the crash - they're being blamed for being a squishy bag of wet meat that can't tolerate being introduced to their steering column at high speed.
Of course not.
Apple wouldn't allow PC QA equipment now, would they?
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
I would absolutely say it's your fault. You didn't follow the chain of command. I'm your customer, not Print Shop A's. If you want, blame Print Shop A; But let Print Shop A blame the virus prone printer.
Dell's Press Release: Dell Updates Sony Battery Recall Information
But we don't mean business. If we meant business, we might insist that Microsoft actually disable some of the gaping holes that make the rampant virus problem possible. But instead, we (well, some of us, apparently, but enough to give Microsoft the excuse) insist that any "hardening" of the OS or browser against viruses must not impede our god-given right to email each other easily-runnable executables when we want to, or to perform 1-click installs of browser extensions when we want to. But since there's no way for the OS to distinguish between emailed executables from your buddy, versus email viruses; or between 1-click installable toys that you want, versus spyware; we basically tell Microsoft that we want the virus and malware problems to continue. Microsoft can't fix the problem, even if they want to (not that it's cleasr that they want to), because we've gotten so accustomed to the stupefyingly dangerous "features" which underlie the virus problem that we refuse to wean ourselves from them. (Or so it seems.)
I wish people would get it that VIRUSES ARE NOT AN OS SECURITY ISSUE! They are a user issue. Worms are an application or OS security issue, but not viruses. Viruses existed on DOS (And yes, they worked just as well on DR-DOS as MS-DOS), and they spread by bad user decisions, not OS security issues.
Installing OSX or Linux on every computer in the world will NOT stop viruses. Once Mac or Linux is installed on 50% of home computers AV software for both will be just as much of a requirement. The fact they are needed less now is because the users of those systems are more educated in computer security, and there is a lower pool of dumbasses to help the virus spread.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
Well, I can't think of any way to test whether an iPod works with a PC than to use PC QA equipment.
According to TFA, "Vice president of iPod product marketing at Apple, Greg Joswiak, had no specific response to the comments; however, he did acknowledge that the iPods became infected by a Windows system used to test compatibility."
Want a high quality FOSS RTS game? Try Warzone 2100!
I realize that people who make their living by promoting the use of Windows would take exception to the snide tone of the press release. But isn't this instance of infection almost a nullity? I went to the bother of reading a few articles about the specific virus involved and although it is annoying to have it present at all it looks rather toothless in this circumstance. When you connect an iPod to a PC or Mac it shows up as a drive but customarily you only interact with it through iTunes which will not propagate the virus. Since the iPod appears as a USB drive it doesn't implement the auto-launch capability when it mounts so the user has to actually find and mindlessly launch the virus. I'm sure there are people dumb enough to do this but combined with the scarce presence it all seems like much ado about very little. Is there a greater risk than I've inferred?
He's a Comanche Indian, right?
Come on now... how can this be seen as anything other than outright sabotage on Apple's part given their current "I'm a PC and I get viruses" television ad campaign?!
I bought a home theater system from Amakon and it came packed with explosives. Ofcourse, Amakon is upset that my home is not fireproof, and weren't aware that I am allergic to explosives.
What profession do you come from? In my observation, professionals are the ones who always rush to blame somebody else, and cover their own butt. When your revenue stream is affected by who gets the blame, you have a strong reason to ensure that somebody else gets it.
Taking the blame for something you did wrong is the completely unprofessional thing to do here.
I'd be shipping the Zune with software which displays pictures of big hairy windows developers arses which only appear on OSX.
Good solution really, not a virus, not spyware, and they haven't got any software for OSX which prevents DevArses from appearing on their designer 32" LCD displays.
Task Mangler
From: Steve
To: Bill
Subject: Zune developpement
Bill, I think we should put more programmers to work on an mac virus to be planted inside Zune players.
- Steve -
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
SONY. BATTERIES.
Who got the blame ? Was it only Dell, Fujitsu and their friends ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
-- Ford sold trucks with Goodyear-branded tires, and recalled same. --
It was Firestone, not Goodyear
And, Ford _did_ blame Firestone for the problem:
_ recall__from_bad.shtml)
"Ford blames all the trouble on the tires.
"This is a tire issue," Nasser said, "and only a tire issue.""
(From http://www.sptimes.com/News/062001/Firestone/Ford
When a vendor reports a problem with their product, the public demands as much information on this as possible, particularly when only a percentage of the product is impacted. The public wants to know if they are impacted by the problem, or how such a thing could happen. A simple statement about "we screwed up" and wait for the press to dissect the issue is more what a politician does, then a technology product company. I don't see anything wrong with Apple's statement, particularly because they admit they are more upset at themselves for not anticipating the issue and the root cause of the problem is the trusting nature of the operating system in question.
At the very least, Apple alerted Microsoft customers about the dangers of plugging in a USB storage device, whether its from the factory or because you dragged it around the office after the factory shipment.
Sleep is for the Weak
And here's Dell's press release where they mention Sony batteries:
r p/pressoffice/en/2006/2006_09_29_rr_000?c=us&l=en& s=corp
http://www.dell.com/content/topics/global.aspx/co
Round Rock, Texas, September 29, 2006
Dell announced today that additional information was received regarding affected battery packs containing cells manufactured by Sony, which has led to an increase in the number of recalled batteries from 4.1 million units to approximately 4.2 million units
Sleep is for the Weak
In other words, Apple has poor quality assurance on their quality assurance process.
Meh...I guess things have been kind of quiet in the "my *nix distro is better than yours" front lately. Might as well vent on the mac vs. PC side of things.
Stanton Boyd: What kind of a name is Poon?
Fletch: Comanche Indian.
Apple didn't snipe at their QA people, though, they sniped at an unrelated third party. This would be like making comments about a desk manufacturer because Sony's battery caught fire in Dell's PC and spread to the desk it was sitting on. The desk maker was not involved in the manufacturing -- their QA people definitely were, and saying "QA fucked up and put a virus on the iPod" would be honest, even if QA was a third party. I don't think anyone would blame Apple.
I agree, Apple cocked up here. The thing that craps me off the most about iPod is I have to format it to suit the PC at work if I want to use it on both the office poo box and my mac at home. Therein lies the problem. If the iPod Doze installer included a driver for HFS+ disks, viruses would have to be a little cleverer to work with iPod. Having to format as a FAT32 disk makes me feel dirty ;-)
"I hope you like Guinness, Sir. I find it a refreshing substitute for, er... food." Col. Jack O'Neil, SG-1
It was only one model of the iPod line and only those that were produced over a very limited time period. Unlike the problems with Windows which include EVERY version of Windows ever produced. What it says to me is if a major manufacturer can't maintain a clean windows machine what hope does the consumer have? Switch now.
Exactly my point. Dell recalled their batteries, which happened to be manufactured by Sony. There's one mention of Sony, and it's neutral. That gives the press the ammo they need to slather the blame all over Sony. The Apple PR would have been more effective without the "While we are angry with Microsoft..." dig.
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