Slashdot Mirror
Mac Developer Mulls Zero-day Security Response
1.6 Beta writes "Landon Fuller, the Mac programmer/Darwin developer behind the 'month of Apple fixes' project, plans to expand the initiative to roll out zero-day patches for issues that put Mac OS X users at risk of code execution attacks. The former engineer in Apple's BSD Technology Group has already shipped a fix for a nasty flaw in Java's GIF image decoder and hints an an auto-updating mechanism for the third-party patches. The article quotes him as saying, 'Perhaps [it could be] the Mac OS equivalent to ZERT,' referring to the Zero-day Emergency Response Team."
No wonder Mac sales are stagnant and Apple is starting to distance themselves from being strongly associated with computers with their corporate name change recently. A few years ago every single Windows user I knew was in some stage of planning on moving to Apple hardware due to the almost constant virus/spyware outbreaks on their systems.
Windows XP SP2 and now Vista have put a complete end to all that talk from the Windows people I know. It has to be well over a year, maybe two, that I had to deal with or heard about one of my Windows using friends talking about their system getting hit.
Apple has really gone downhill in their OS efforts ever since they got dumped by IBM. Security problems that Mac users have never had before, lackluster progress with OS X, and even the much lauded Mac hardware has problems comparable to other x86 OEM boxes. One has to wonder at what point does Apple just throw in the towel on the whole niche OS that is about to explode in userbase any day now and just sell off the useful parts of OS X to Microsoft or some Linux company so they can focus on what they seem to really care about these days - iPods.
What I like is that along with the innovation, Apple continues to think more about the customer than M$, in more ways than one. Fanboy, yup.
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
Mac's are infallible jerk face!
If you think people doing this for publicity is bad, wait until OS X gets enough market share for these vulnerabilities to be bought, sold and used to compromise computers en masse. I don't know about you but I think a worm would be a lot more publicity whoring than disclosing these bugs publicly so they can be fixed. It's a nice wake up call if anything. Mac users need to start taking security seriously before it's too late. Just because you think your operating system is better than (insert other OS here) doesn't mean it's invincible. Apple takes bugs too personally and tries to cover them up quietly to protect their image. Sure the bugs get fixed but which bugs? How do I know they really are fixed? What if they made another mistake? These are reasonable concerns and it shows that Apple is worrying about the bottom line more than the customer. You have to realize that MOAB isn't an unwarranted attack against Apple. It's backlash for years of flaky technical support, deceitful practices and arrogance on the part of the Mac community in general. We really need to get passed blaming how others reveal Apple's mistakes. It's unproductive and harmful to consumers.
Yeah, that's clearly their intention after you look at the non-apple issues such as the ones in OmniWeb, Transmit, VLC, Flip4Mac, Rumpus, et cetera. Clearly, those are an attack against apple's "flaky technical support".
I think those would just fall under "arrogance on the part of the Mac community in general". Please by all means pick only 1 out of 3 reasons given to argue against. I'd hate for you to respond to what I actually wrote. Anything to distract away from the gaping security hole OS X is turning out to be...
Landon Fuller is such a tool. And Apple has forever written itself into computer history as the company that fucked up one time too many. First it releases a Macintosh Unix which still has the industry laughing uncontrollably, and now it's letting its tool fix all its security vulnerabilities. I will venture that in the corridors of One Infinite Loop those morons are so confused right now no one knows what to do, and no one dares say a word, for fear of getting his/her head chopped off by Steve Jobs.
I seriously think Apple just cooked its goose. And I don't think it was the intention of MoAB to do this. I think Apple did it all on its own.
And I think there's one more tool in this scenario: Slashdot. This story is not newsworthy. It seems obvious Apple PR is calling in favors. As in where did Rob get his PowerBook anyway? There is no way this stupid PLANTED story merits attention on Slashdot. Aside from Apple telling Rob to plant it.