Except this isn't a virus. It's a Trojan. It cannot spread/replicate itself, and it cannot infect a Mac unless you willingly install it by giving it your admin password. If you don't know the difference between the two, then you probably shouldn't be posting here.
Little know that OS X comes wit built in virus protect with the Xprotect.plist... Not advertised because Apple want to keep the impression that Mac's don't get infected.
You do realize this malware trojan still cannot infect you unless you give it your admin password? The fact that Safari opens up attachments that are considered safe is bad enough, yes but it does not expose a user to this issue. The user does that themselves by offering up their admin password.
They also failed to notice that this guy makes a living off of writing books for MS products like Windows and Office:
"Since 1994, Ed has written more than 25 books about Microsoft Windows and Office. Along with various co-authors, Ed is completely responsible for the content of the books he writes. As a key part of his contractual relationship with publishers, he gives them permission to print and distribute the content he writes and to pay him a royalty based on the actual sales of those books. Ed's books are currently distributed by Que Publishing (a division of Pearson Education) and by Microsoft Press.
On occasion, Ed accepts consulting assignments. In recent years, he has worked as an expert witness in cases where his experience and knowledge of Microsoft and Microsoft Windows have been useful. In each such case, his compensation is on an hourly basis, and he is hired as a witness, not an advocate.
Ed does not own stock or have any other financial interest in Microsoft or any other software company. He owns 500 shares of stock in EMC Corporation, which was purchased before the company's acquisition of VMWare. In addition, he owns 350 shares of stock in Intel Corporation, purchased more than two years ago. All stocks are held in retirement accounts for long-term growth."
I especially like the last part about financial interest, given his books are all Windows centric. The 'facts' in the blog are all of course un-provable since the person releasing the information is being 'protected'.
I have no doubt that Mac users will fall for a socially engineered trojan, but this sounds more like 'wolf' than malware explosion.
I have never understood the US publics horror at body scanners. So they show your junk. Who gives a shit? My junk looks just like my neighbors, and his neighbors, and so on and so on. I could care less if someone downloads a weird photonegative of it.
If they shorten lines at the airport, and avoid some of the pointless 'pat downs' then I'm all for efficiency. The scanned images are not all that personally identifiable in a real sense, and as far as I know they haven't been proven to be less effective than existing pat downs, those fake 'sniffers', etc.
I don't think anyone ever believed these are the end-all-be-all of airport security and I don't recall anyone saying they would prevent someone from tossing contraband over an airport fence. A basic premise of life..never put all of your eggs in one basket, applies here. Security checks at airpots are a necessary evil, and they won't be going away. Complaining that these won't stop someone from tossing something over a fence doesn't address what they do detect, or that they do have valid uses for common contraband at security checkpoints.
Along with the fact that Apple has drawn a line in the sand, and rarely if ever goes backwards. I would expect the next iPad display will not be Pen Tile, and it will probably be a high pixel density as well. Apple seems very ready to cut ties with Samsung, and I suspect if they are at that point they already have an alternative lined up. It would be foolish to piss off the supplier for parts on a hot seller unless you had another already lined up.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds between the two. Of that there is no doubt.
The problem with giving application level authorization is that a common virus always represents itself as the original program you think it is. If you allow program 'x' to bypass UAC then that becomes an immediate vector of infection.
If you had read the article, you would know that the info Apple stores relates to cell tower locations, and wifi hotspots. No identifying information is sent to Apple at all, and they would have no way of identifying you even if approached by the FBI. They would have to get their hands on your phone, which within a few days, already had a fix to remove the cache after a few days, and you can permanently delete it just by turning off the location services.
If it got to the point where warrants were issued, they could easily collect device specific info from the Cell providers. Apple's data didn't even have device specific identifiers.
Google on the other hand started talking about 'Openess' and finding 'balance', when their response was anything but. They basically stated that they weren't responsible for how the app's handled location data and that it was up to the app developers to be responsible. Of the two, I think Apples response was appropriate, both in patching the bug in the OS, and in anonymizing the data they do collect to begin with.
From TFA:
Subsequently, a notable exchange between Google rep Alan Davidson. Trying to dance around how Google handles location settings in Android, Davidson explained: We’re trying to increase openness, but it’s not no-holds-barred. We do have a content policy in our market. We don’t go after trucking companies for carrying faulty goods, you go after the manufacturer. There’s a balance. Not buying it, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse fired back: You do go after the trucking company if they know what they’re carrying. Google’s in a better position to know what’s going on than a seventeen year old that wants to try a cool app. I don’t think that’s a comfortable analogy for you to rely on.
This kind of response from Microsoft or Apple would never be tolerated on slashdot. This thread just seems to be glossing over Google's response. The proper response from both companies is to work to provide better protections. Apple has already taken those steps within a few days of the bug being reported. Google just sidestepped the question with no commitment to finding a better approach.
Open Disk Utility. Press Shift + Command + N. Select volume or folder to image. Select type of image (CD/DVD Master or whatever suits your needs), click OK.
You can also just drop any CD/DVD partition right onto your Mac hard drives doing a 'restore' to a new partition. I've put the install disk right on a hard drive partition as a 'bootable CD' without much hassle.
About inline with the first post, claiming Apple will soon be closed, without the slightest bit of proof to that fact, and it's marked as insightful./. has become a joke as of late. It's too politicized and no longer interested in fact. The location bug was a good example. It was all doom and gloom, and evil unleashed until it was revealed that Droid did it too. Then it was acceptable but only for a short time that happened to coincide with the length of time that Droid kept the data.
Although I agree it's definitely a push to promote the app store, there is no indication anywhere that the Mac platform will be locked down, and you won't find a citation anywhere other than hearsay, yet it's immediately modded as it sits now without anything relevant or otherwise to back up such a claim.
Do they warn you before you buy it that you will be tracked by Google with every app and function that uses location awareness? If not, then they may have a case. Without that prior warning, someone may buy a phone, and not realize that it would be severely crippled since there is no way to opt out of this tracking without losing core functionality on the phone as well as a wide array of apps.
They're Idiots. I just got my first Android phone. You get warned when you go through setup. You get warned when you install and start EVERY APPLICATION that they'll be tracking you. There is no ambiguity if you have half a brain.
This isn't a hack. It asks for an admin password and then launches an installer, assuming you have Safari set to open 'safe' packages. It's another trojan, not a virus. I seriously doubt that anyone believes a Mac is unhackable (white hat conventions put that to bed years ago as OS X is typically one of the first to be hacked). This is a lot of noise about nothing and no different than someone downloading software from an unknown source and installing it, putting in the admin password when prompted, and then feeling shocked when something bad happens. The only difference here is that they see the installer/admin password prompt while browsing which would alarm most Mac users, especially with a prompt for an admin password. Turning off the 'open safe' option in Safari would disable this vector.
This is not some clever hidden install that happens behind the scenes without some user intervention. The simple truth is that OS X, Linux, and Unix all have basic protections that Windows lacks in regards to executables, and when it comes to executables, the user is the weakest point, not the OS.
This isn't a virus. It's a trojan, and it can't do anything unless you put in your admin password, and then allow the installer to actually install. Not exactly low profile. I agree with the parent. Mac users will probably just ignore it.
If your going to make things up you should at least wait a decade or two so that people have time to forget. The democrats at their height only had a majority in the Senate. They never had a super majority. Had they had one we wouldn't have ended up watering down healthcare into what it is.
Democrats had 58 senators Independents had 2 (they are called independents and not Democrats for a reason) Republicans had 40 senators.
That is not unassailable. It's not a super majority that allows carte blanche action. It is a majority. Nothing more. For that reason it still requires the cooperation of every single Democrat, and at least 2 senators from the Independent pool or the Republican pool to cross the Isle. The problem with your pretty picture is that Democrats rarely vote as a single block as they tend to vary widely in beliefs and opinions where the Republican party tends to have a strong conservative social core, with pro-business values in a highly bi-partisan environment.
If anything it was an amazing thing that they managed to pass any improvements to basic health care policy. I just wish they had been able to do more and remove the 'for profit' piece from health care altogether.
None of this matters to Joe User. They buy video discs to watch movies, not burn content. I was also surprised at the summary. Blu-ray is being adopted at the same rate or faster than DVD, yet they are claiming it's failed?
This is in spite of the fact that back when DVD was introduced, there was no streaming of video content to compete at all, other than poor quality stamp sized video.
I would hardly classify that as a failure since it's meeting or surpassing DVD and it has streaming to contend with.
I can see why Apple would be a little pissed. I don't' think this is specifically about the guts of the OS, but more about the basic appearance of the phone and home screen. We already know there were quite a few iPhone clones, essentially cashing in on iPhone lookalike qualities. This one is pretty obviously aimed at that same audience.
Actually the alternative to flash that they are pushing is HTML5. iTunes movie rentals and games are irrelevant as those use an app, not HTML to play content.
Someone has to take a stand. Apple did. Had it been some other company,/. would have most likely cheered them on, as they used to despise flash as if it was the devil itself. When Apple said no, suddenly/. loved flash and couldn't wait to get it on their mobile devices. It would be funny if it wasn't so painful to watch.
Frankly I don't miss it (I have an iPhone). I have yet to need it on any site I frequent on my phone. Without fail they all seem to have either M. sites for mobile devices, or they just have shit sites that don't require Flash to navigate or for some core functionality.
It didn't pass because the Democrats never had a super majority in the Senate. That requires 60 votes and the Dems only had 58 at their highest. It would have required complete unison for every Democratic senator (something that rarely happens) in addition to getting the two independents to vote for it as well. Get 1 squeamish senator and the deal fails.
That doesn't make the reverse true either. The Republicans don't have anywhere near enough support to pass this in the senate at the moment and they definitely do not have enough to get the 2/3'rds required to override a Presidential Veto.
I find it interesting that any mention of 'Republican' is immediately getting modded as troll or flamebait when the article itself points out the fact that this is driven by the Republican party. This only had 10 votes from the Democratic party. Just because you don't like the facts (and they are facts), doesn't make it trolling or flamebait.
Only if the Republican party gains more power in the next election. They currently hold a third of the cards, not the whole deck. I agree it's a bad sign but expected. The republican party has always looked out for business interests and this is no exception.
I'm just surprised that they got 10 Democrats to vote with them. That's just as troubling.
Also, wasn't the FCC key in getting the special treatment these broadband companies now enjoy?
Slashdot Mirror
Except this isn't a virus. It's a Trojan. It cannot spread/replicate itself, and it cannot infect a Mac unless you willingly install it by giving it your admin password. If you don't know the difference between the two, then you probably shouldn't be posting here.
You should probably tell Apple to take down that particular part of their website then...
http://www.apple.com/macosx/security/
You do realize this malware trojan still cannot infect you unless you give it your admin password? The fact that Safari opens up attachments that are considered safe is bad enough, yes but it does not expose a user to this issue. The user does that themselves by offering up their admin password.
Well if you count the cost of the OS, then yes, you did.
They also failed to notice that this guy makes a living off of writing books for MS products like Windows and Office:
I have no doubt that Mac users will fall for a socially engineered trojan, but this sounds more like 'wolf' than malware explosion.
I have never understood the US publics horror at body scanners. So they show your junk. Who gives a shit? My junk looks just like my neighbors, and his neighbors, and so on and so on. I could care less if someone downloads a weird photonegative of it.
If they shorten lines at the airport, and avoid some of the pointless 'pat downs' then I'm all for efficiency. The scanned images are not all that personally identifiable in a real sense, and as far as I know they haven't been proven to be less effective than existing pat downs, those fake 'sniffers', etc.
I don't think anyone ever believed these are the end-all-be-all of airport security and I don't recall anyone saying they would prevent someone from tossing contraband over an airport fence. A basic premise of life..never put all of your eggs in one basket, applies here. Security checks at airpots are a necessary evil, and they won't be going away. Complaining that these won't stop someone from tossing something over a fence doesn't address what they do detect, or that they do have valid uses for common contraband at security checkpoints.
Along with the fact that Apple has drawn a line in the sand, and rarely if ever goes backwards. I would expect the next iPad display will not be Pen Tile, and it will probably be a high pixel density as well. Apple seems very ready to cut ties with Samsung, and I suspect if they are at that point they already have an alternative lined up. It would be foolish to piss off the supplier for parts on a hot seller unless you had another already lined up.
It will be interesting to see how this unfolds between the two. Of that there is no doubt.
The problem with giving application level authorization is that a common virus always represents itself as the original program you think it is. If you allow program 'x' to bypass UAC then that becomes an immediate vector of infection.
If you had read the article, you would know that the info Apple stores relates to cell tower locations, and wifi hotspots. No identifying information is sent to Apple at all, and they would have no way of identifying you even if approached by the FBI. They would have to get their hands on your phone, which within a few days, already had a fix to remove the cache after a few days, and you can permanently delete it just by turning off the location services.
If it got to the point where warrants were issued, they could easily collect device specific info from the Cell providers. Apple's data didn't even have device specific identifiers.
Google on the other hand started talking about 'Openess' and finding 'balance', when their response was anything but. They basically stated that they weren't responsible for how the app's handled location data and that it was up to the app developers to be responsible. Of the two, I think Apples response was appropriate, both in patching the bug in the OS, and in anonymizing the data they do collect to begin with.
From TFA:
This kind of response from Microsoft or Apple would never be tolerated on slashdot. This thread just seems to be glossing over Google's response. The proper response from both companies is to work to provide better protections. Apple has already taken those steps within a few days of the bug being reported. Google just sidestepped the question with no commitment to finding a better approach.
Disappointing.
Squirrel!
And yet Microsoft's name isn't on this list. Google's name is.
Also, how in the world do they equate an opt-out for tracking as increasing your security risk? WTF?
Open Disk Utility. Press Shift + Command + N. Select volume or folder to image. Select type of image (CD/DVD Master or whatever suits your needs), click OK.
You can also just drop any CD/DVD partition right onto your Mac hard drives doing a 'restore' to a new partition. I've put the install disk right on a hard drive partition as a 'bootable CD' without much hassle.
About inline with the first post, claiming Apple will soon be closed, without the slightest bit of proof to that fact, and it's marked as insightful. /. has become a joke as of late. It's too politicized and no longer interested in fact. The location bug was a good example. It was all doom and gloom, and evil unleashed until it was revealed that Droid did it too. Then it was acceptable but only for a short time that happened to coincide with the length of time that Droid kept the data.
Although I agree it's definitely a push to promote the app store, there is no indication anywhere that the Mac platform will be locked down, and you won't find a citation anywhere other than hearsay, yet it's immediately modded as it sits now without anything relevant or otherwise to back up such a claim.
Do they warn you before you buy it that you will be tracked by Google with every app and function that uses location awareness? If not, then they may have a case. Without that prior warning, someone may buy a phone, and not realize that it would be severely crippled since there is no way to opt out of this tracking without losing core functionality on the phone as well as a wide array of apps.
This isn't a hack. It asks for an admin password and then launches an installer, assuming you have Safari set to open 'safe' packages. It's another trojan, not a virus. I seriously doubt that anyone believes a Mac is unhackable (white hat conventions put that to bed years ago as OS X is typically one of the first to be hacked). This is a lot of noise about nothing and no different than someone downloading software from an unknown source and installing it, putting in the admin password when prompted, and then feeling shocked when something bad happens. The only difference here is that they see the installer/admin password prompt while browsing which would alarm most Mac users, especially with a prompt for an admin password. Turning off the 'open safe' option in Safari would disable this vector.
This is not some clever hidden install that happens behind the scenes without some user intervention. The simple truth is that OS X, Linux, and Unix all have basic protections that Windows lacks in regards to executables, and when it comes to executables, the user is the weakest point, not the OS.
This isn't a virus. It's a trojan, and it can't do anything unless you put in your admin password, and then allow the installer to actually install. Not exactly low profile. I agree with the parent. Mac users will probably just ignore it.
That's false. Any app that needs to use location data (and iAds embedded in them) would have to request permission to use location services.
If your going to make things up you should at least wait a decade or two so that people have time to forget. The democrats at their height only had a majority in the Senate. They never had a super majority. Had they had one we wouldn't have ended up watering down healthcare into what it is.
Democrats had 58 senators
Independents had 2 (they are called independents and not Democrats for a reason)
Republicans had 40 senators.
That is not unassailable. It's not a super majority that allows carte blanche action. It is a majority. Nothing more. For that reason it still requires the cooperation of every single Democrat, and at least 2 senators from the Independent pool or the Republican pool to cross the Isle. The problem with your pretty picture is that Democrats rarely vote as a single block as they tend to vary widely in beliefs and opinions where the Republican party tends to have a strong conservative social core, with pro-business values in a highly bi-partisan environment.
If anything it was an amazing thing that they managed to pass any improvements to basic health care policy. I just wish they had been able to do more and remove the 'for profit' piece from health care altogether.
None of this matters to Joe User. They buy video discs to watch movies, not burn content. I was also surprised at the summary. Blu-ray is being adopted at the same rate or faster than DVD, yet they are claiming it's failed?
http://www.ps3news.com/Console-News/blu-ray-poised-to-eat-away-at-dvd-disc-sales/
http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/The-Blu-ray-Rollercoaster--Adoption-Rate-Surges-Again/1593298
This is in spite of the fact that back when DVD was introduced, there was no streaming of video content to compete at all, other than poor quality stamp sized video.
I would hardly classify that as a failure since it's meeting or surpassing DVD and it has streaming to contend with.
You have to admit that at a glance it would be easy to confuse the two. Other than the Samsung logo, they look identical.
From TFA:
http://mobilized.allthingsd.com/files/2011/04/apple-samsung-examples.png
I can see why Apple would be a little pissed. I don't' think this is specifically about the guts of the OS, but more about the basic appearance of the phone and home screen. We already know there were quite a few iPhone clones, essentially cashing in on iPhone lookalike qualities. This one is pretty obviously aimed at that same audience.
Actually the alternative to flash that they are pushing is HTML5. iTunes movie rentals and games are irrelevant as those use an app, not HTML to play content.
Someone has to take a stand. Apple did. Had it been some other company, /. would have most likely cheered them on, as they used to despise flash as if it was the devil itself. When Apple said no, suddenly /. loved flash and couldn't wait to get it on their mobile devices. It would be funny if it wasn't so painful to watch.
Frankly I don't miss it (I have an iPhone). I have yet to need it on any site I frequent on my phone. Without fail they all seem to have either M. sites for mobile devices, or they just have shit sites that don't require Flash to navigate or for some core functionality.
It didn't pass because the Democrats never had a super majority in the Senate. That requires 60 votes and the Dems only had 58 at their highest. It would have required complete unison for every Democratic senator (something that rarely happens) in addition to getting the two independents to vote for it as well. Get 1 squeamish senator and the deal fails.
That doesn't make the reverse true either. The Republicans don't have anywhere near enough support to pass this in the senate at the moment and they definitely do not have enough to get the 2/3'rds required to override a Presidential Veto.
I find it interesting that any mention of 'Republican' is immediately getting modded as troll or flamebait when the article itself points out the fact that this is driven by the Republican party. This only had 10 votes from the Democratic party. Just because you don't like the facts (and they are facts), doesn't make it trolling or flamebait.
Only if the Republican party gains more power in the next election. They currently hold a third of the cards, not the whole deck. I agree it's a bad sign but expected. The republican party has always looked out for business interests and this is no exception.
I'm just surprised that they got 10 Democrats to vote with them. That's just as troubling.
Also, wasn't the FCC key in getting the special treatment these broadband companies now enjoy?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30686_3-20004392-266.html?tag=mncol;txt