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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)."
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.
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.
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?
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.
This isn't a "hardware manufacturing" problem. The iPods got hooked to a Windows machine, probably during some QA process, and got infected. The hardware is fine.
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.
According to TFA, the infected Windows machine was used for compatibility testing. Do you work for Apple? How do you know what kind of machines they use in their iPod manufacturing process?
It happens because Apple doesn't make their products. Subcontracters do. Apple doesn't have any factories.
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?
Insults don't have to be false. Actually, in general, if they're clearly false they're rarely insults.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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).
No, it wasn't a virus for the iPod. It's a windows virus sitting on the iPod's filesystem.
Completely different beast.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
SONY. BATTERIES.
Who got the blame ? Was it only Dell, Fujitsu and their friends ?
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]