That's REALLY stretching it. What are you going to do? Post a hacked/pirated version of Mac OS X that runs on a different kernel with different hardware support? That just ain't gonna fly.
Plus, what's the point? One of the key features of Apple's offerings is hardware compatibility simplicity. By intruducing mutant hardware, you've erased that advantage.
All 3 Jobs was involved. All 3 can be called failures.
While I think there's a little fact-bending regarding history going on here, it's irrelevant in the point that the iMac has been wildly successful. Jobs rode the iMac to introduction.
Apple is not a hardware or a software company. It is both.
Oddly, this concept is very difficult for some people to grasp. Since Microsoft is the "biggest, bestest" computer-related company in the world, and they make only software, that must mean that hardware and software have to be seperate, right? I just don't get that.
There is nothing that is intrinsically wrong with a company creating both the hardware and the software. In fact, to me, this seems like a much more seamless approach. This works well for Sun and IBM, why not for Apple?
Sure you can buy a G3 and install MkLinux, LinuxPPC, or whatever on it, but that's far from the norm.
A major reason people buy Macs -- the value proposition -- is that they are easier to use than their PC counter parts. This is do in large part to the fact that Apple creates both the hardware and the software. This results in one, unified package. This is what differentiates Apple from the rest of the PC world. This is, for example, why the transition from 68k to PPC and NuBus to PCI was so seemless to the end user.
Wintel PC manufacturers are clearly frustrated by the fact that the computers they produce can only be as good/bad as Windows itself is. This is evident as vendors (Sony, IBM, Compaq) struggle to customize their Windows desktops GUIs to suit their customers.
This is a bit less of a problem in the Linux world, as manufacturers could, in theory, start installing their own Linux distributions, rather than just using off-the-shelf Red Hat 6.
The two other expected announcements at MacWorld will be a larger iMac with a 17-inch screen
I highly doubt it. The next iMac design isn't slated to be announced at this show, and I would be very surprised to learn the iMac would gain a (more expensive, larger) 17" display.
At the time, the company was talking strictly about bits of AppleTalk and QuickTime that it wanted the open source
Actually, Mac OS X Server was the first thing to become open source material.
Darwin can be recompiled to run on Intel or Alpha or some other processor family. It can be and will.
I believe this has already happened. I thought I remembered running across a site that had a Darwin Intel build available on CD.
You can't expect Apple to wake up one morning and open source every bit of software they own and sell their machines at cost. Steve Jobs would probably thrown in an asylum and the stock holders would lynch him.
When Apple takes steps towards Open Source, as small as they may be, praise them, and encourage more of the sort. If we truely want open source to grow, we can't just pull the "you didn't do it my way so fuck you" approach.
I realize there is concern about diluting open source standards, but voice such concerns with constructive criticism. If there are certain things (such as contract clauses) that are a problem for the community, and it wouldn't be financial and/or legal suidicide for Apple to correct them, inform the right people and things will get better. We have proof of this.
While Apple is certainly a for-profit company, and they have an interest in keeping some of their secrets as secrets, they are certainly no Microsoft. They are not trying to own the planet, nor destroy every other choice out there.
While the press may twist things in and out, Jobs and crew do basically seem to have good intentions. Jobs doesn't even take a paycheck (well, $1/yr to get benefits). And they do listen. I've received more than one personal email response from Jobs on issues that concerned me about the company's direction.
Additionally, Darwin and the open sourcing of QTSS was not purely a marketing move. Avie Tevanian (VP of Software, ex-NeXTer) was the one who really felt that Apple/NeXT should give back to the Open Source community for all the stuff they took in -- gcc, Mach, Apache, etc.
Despite the fact that they need money coming in, and have some bad habits to kick, Apple is certainly no Microsoft.
This, btw, is the same approach Apple is taking with Mac OS X Server. It is not certified, and they don't really plan on doing it, but Apple said that if developers find any holes in the POSIX support, then they should report them as bugs.
The command line will always be there, it just may not be part of the standard install or on the same CD.
I believe Apple wants to be sure (for good reason) that developers don't use the command line as a crutch and force newbies to 'tar|gunzip|make|make install' stuff.
It was fun to watch, although the only educational value was the fact that they stole it all from Xerox.
Well, not really. Not at all.
Apple hired some Xerox people like Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn. In fact, Jobs gave Xerox some Apple stock, a lot, in fact, for the exact purpose of bringing in Apple programmers to inspire them to go in new directions. From what I understand, Xerox was AWARE of what Jobs was doing. They just didn't care.
Additionally, the PARC stuff didn't have folders, or files being represented as icons. The original Xerox stuff had far more in common with X11 than Mac UI. Xerox turned left, Apple turned right, then Xerox started to veer a bit towards the right.
Meanwhile, in Windows95 Microsoft blantantly copied things like the Trash, Folders (even started called them that instead of directories), and the Apple menu. Even worse, Win95 borrows _heavily_ from NeXT, so Bill screwed Jobs over twice.
In my mind, there is a clear difference between Jobs striking a deal with Xerox to get the Apple developers in there and get inspired, and Microsoft just taking without asking.
Intel boxes are fast enough for 99% of desktop users. "Faster" doesn't turn many heads these days unless you're talking high-end CAD, animation, data mining, etc, and Apple doesn't exist in these markets anyway.
Faster was your word, not mine.:) I don't think anybody will buy into the platform because it's simply faster. When referring to dual/quad G4s, I only meant that this is what's required to compete head-to-head in terms internet serving.
Once that plateu has been reached, then ease-of-administration issue merits consideration of the platform, particuarly for people that don't grok concepts like glibc2.
OSX. The last thing IS managers want is to have to integrate yet another OS into the office network. Why would they bother when they can already do anything the Mac would do for them with cheaper Wintel boxes they already administer?
You make a good point, and I don't have a particuarly good answer to that. But the fact is everything changes, and it can be initiated by anyone at any time. Linux is proof of that.
Apple has never and will never be a piece of the enterprise puzzle.
Never is a long time.
Scott
...and Apple's a software company. Right?
on
Apple Sale Rumors
·
· Score: 2
My reply to Don Crabb, the author of the article. In short, it ain't gonna happen -- just like it hasn't happened for the past five years.
----- Regarding your article -- just because "persistent, well-informed, and highly reliable sources" are telling you a looney story, doesn't mean it's true. Apple has become very adept at spreading misinformation campaigns to locate and plug its security holes. A few points:
> But as long as the company has neither the inclination (which means as long as > Steve Jobs is not interested), nor the resources to try to sell its wares to > corporate accounts,
I don't understand this at all. There is no resource issue that prevents Apple from selling to enterprise markets. They just aren't ready yet. Wait until Q1/Q2, when the next version of Mac OS X Server hits (in addition to Client) -- along with dual or quad processor G4s.
> * In short, Jobs saves the company. But saves it for what?
It's his baby.
I'm not sure why you're so transfixed on the money issue. While he has stock, he only takes a $1/yr paycheck. All evidence points to the fact that he's not in it for the money.
> Enter the Walt Disney Company, or some other entertainment giant such as > Time-Warner or Viacom.
This is an old story. It was part of a previous misinformation campaign.
> Apple could be the first computer company to really build a cheap crossover > computer/game console/Web access box. An access box that would pump 3D digital > video and sound like a bat out of hell.
How many times are we going to go down this road? Again and again, people come out with boxes like this, and again and again, nobody buys them. Steve is quite clearly against this. Remember Columbus?
> Enter Disney and Mickey Mouse or Time-Warner and Bugs Bunny.
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are not going to sell games, except to preschoolers. That's a niche -- the very thing you purport Apple is trying to get away from. Computer game sales today are based on technological prowess, reviews/word of mouth and multiplayer capabilities.
Movie licenses just don't do that well. The most popular games in the last few years are basically the Quake and Myst francises.
> But it sures beats being a 7 percent solution the rest of Apple's life. I > can't imagine Steve Jobs settling for that.
This is just the beginning. P1 will change a lot.
There are other fundamentals holes in story thinking. If Apple was going to be bought by a consumer company (like Disney), why would they ship Mac OS X Server? Why would they release Darwin? Why would they continue to develop AppleShare IP?
The "Apple will be bought out" argument is as old as "Apple should do software only/Apple should do hardware only." Apple's not going to be bought anytime in the near future. It's against everything that they have worked for. Here's a partial list of companies that, over the past several years, were supposed to have bought Apple:
Speed? Processor speed is virtually irrelevant in Internet serving, as bandwidth and disk access are the gating factors.
Perhaps if you're just spitting out raw HTML, but dymanic content needs speed.
I won't bore you with the details, 'cause I'm sure you know them. Price, component availability
Hmmm. Well, G3s take Ultra2 SCSI, Ultra ATA, PCI, and PC100 DIMMs. In fact, PPCs were using DIMMs before intel boxes were. Not sure what other kind of components you're looking for -- at least as a server.
The other advatange that PPC-based systems have is near-zero configuration issues, due to standardized hardware. The Yellow Dog site also cites lower power consumption with 20 G3s than 20 Pentiums, due to the far more power-efficient PowerPC. How useful is this in reality? I don't know.
There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding this issue, and I've put a explanation up at macnn.com, but it makes sense to try to help as many people possible understand exactly what the problem is -- including Apple.:) Here is the crash case:
When 32 or more copies of ApacheBench (ab) are pointed at a CGI script on a website running on Apache/Mac OS X Server machine, the kernel will panic, usually within 30-60 seconds, forcing a reboot.
The general thinking is that this many copies of ApacheBench running at once mimicks the load generated by hundreds of clients accessing a site at once. ApacheBench can be launched locally or remotely (assuming sufficient bandwidth), which is where the problem comes in. Somebody with malicious intent could decide to launch 32 copies of ApacheBench _from_their_machine, against a server, and crash it.
In the test, c't directed 32 copies of ApacheBench at the "test-cgi" script which is in/Local/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/. By default, the script is not executable. You must 'chmod +x test-cgi' for it to work. However, this could probably happen with any script, though tests of that sort were not published.
I actually tested this on my Blue G3/400 running MOSXS and did get a kernel panic. I got essentially the same results whether launching the attack from the same machine that the webserver itself is on, or launching the attack from a linux machine on the same network. Incidentally, I ran this same test again a Red Hat Linux 5.1 (2.0.34 kernel) box, which did not experience any problems during the "attack."
Important Points: ----------------
(1) This is, first and foremost, a security concern. The type and volume of traffic required to make the OS crash would most likely not be generated by normal web clients. However, ApacheBench can be launched remotely, and with malicious intent.
(2) The crash is not triggered by 32 successive CGI requests, as some people seem to think. Informal MacNN tests show that in one case, Apache actually serviced 1666 CGI requests in 26 seconds before crashing. The c't article is a bit confusing in this manner, but the "32" refers to 32 or more ApacheBench processes being launched -- each of which issues hundreds of requests.
(3) The problem is not with a particular CGI script. It is a problem with an immense ammounts of requests for CGI scripts coming in during a very short period of time.
(4) The problem can not be stopped by simply removing ApacheBench from the server. An attack can be launched remotely.
(5) The script used for the c't test is a bourne shell script. A Perl or C script may not exihibit the same results. PHP may also be immune (though I have no proof of any of that).
(6) This problem is most likely present in Darwin as well, so those interest in resolving the problem could probably download the source and work on a fix.
(7) Red Hat Linux 5.1 (2.0.34 kernel) running Apache 1.3.3 seems to weather the attack well, so it's almost certainly an OS issue.
(8) In some cases, bandwidth may become constrained before an attack is successful in bringing down the system.
Possible workarounds: --------------------
(1) Configure router to filter immense number of requests from one IP address (like DoS attack)
(2) Disable CGI execution, or simply remove all files from/Local/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables
(3) Disable Apache, if you're only using MOSXS for Macintosh management, AppleShare or QuickTime streaming
Scott Stevenson Macintosh News Network http://macnn.com/
Re:Mozilla... Is it even worth the download?
on
Mozilla M6 released
·
· Score: 2
Actually, MSIE 4.5 Mac is rock-solid on the machines I've used. If one has random crashes, one usually has to trash the "Internet Preferences" file from the Preferences folder.
MSIE PPC is fast, stable, and has a very slick UI. Not too surprising, since some members of the development team are from Claris.
Other than being made by Microsoft, the only real problem it has is all that crap it spews all over the system folder. Wait, is that redundant?
Of course, there are some other browsers -- iCab is very good. But I'm really hoping (like everyone) that Mozilla comes in and saves the day for all platforms everywhere.
- Scott
Please note: This is no logo but a mascot!
on
KDE Gets a Mascot
·
· Score: 1
A mascot does not need to be cute, that's just the only way it's been done until now.
Exactly my feelings! This is what I posted at linuxtoday:
------
No offense to the artist, as it is clearly a very good rendering, but the dragon just doesn't inspire me -- there's nothing unique about it. I've seen dozens of characters just like him. The idea of a mascot is you see it and you think abou the product (or whatever). I see the dragon and I think about all kinds of children's stories.
It seems like the KDE character has to be something with a bit more "ummmph."
Slashdot Mirror
This is far from the first time I've heard of this sort of behavior from Microsoft employees. It's the mindset.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
That's REALLY stretching it. What are you going to do? Post a hacked/pirated version of Mac OS X that runs on a different kernel with different hardware support? That just ain't gonna fly.
Plus, what's the point? One of the key features of Apple's offerings is hardware compatibility simplicity. By intruducing mutant hardware, you've erased that advantage.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Its motherboard is almost identical to the motherboards found in the PowerBook G3s of the era.
This is completely and utterly intentional, BTW. Apple has been working towards a unified hardware architecture.
------
Scott Stevenson
Just proved the author's point.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
All 3 Jobs was involved. All 3 can be called failures.
While I think there's a little fact-bending regarding history going on here, it's irrelevant in the point that the iMac has been wildly successful. Jobs rode the iMac to introduction.
------
Scott Stevenson
Apple is not a hardware or a software company. It is both.
Oddly, this concept is very difficult for some people to grasp. Since Microsoft is the "biggest, bestest" computer-related company in the world, and they make only software, that must mean that hardware and software have to be seperate, right? I just don't get that.
There is nothing that is intrinsically wrong with a company creating both the hardware and the software. In fact, to me, this seems like a much more seamless approach. This works well for Sun and IBM, why not for Apple?
Sure you can buy a G3 and install MkLinux, LinuxPPC, or whatever on it, but that's far from the norm.
A major reason people buy Macs -- the value proposition -- is that they are easier to use than their PC counter parts. This is do in large part to the fact that Apple creates both the hardware and the software. This results in one, unified package. This is what differentiates Apple from the rest of the PC world. This is, for example, why the transition from 68k to PPC and NuBus to PCI was so seemless to the end user.
Wintel PC manufacturers are clearly frustrated by the fact that the computers they produce can only be as good/bad as Windows itself is. This is evident as vendors (Sony, IBM, Compaq) struggle to customize their Windows desktops GUIs to suit their customers.
This is a bit less of a problem in the Linux world, as manufacturers could, in theory, start installing their own Linux distributions, rather than just using off-the-shelf Red Hat 6.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
The two other expected announcements at MacWorld will be a larger iMac with a 17-inch screen
I highly doubt it. The next iMac design isn't slated to be announced at this show, and I would be very surprised to learn the iMac would gain a (more expensive, larger) 17" display.
At the time, the company was talking strictly about bits of AppleTalk and QuickTime that it wanted the open source
Actually, Mac OS X Server was the first thing to become open source material.
Darwin can be recompiled to run on Intel or Alpha or some other processor family. It can be and will.
I believe this has already happened. I thought I remembered running across a site that had a Darwin Intel build available on CD.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
How much of a Unix killer can it be without remote administration?
I guess there's that PC Anywhere thing, but that sounds like a royal bandwidth hog.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
You can't expect Apple to wake up one morning and open source every bit of software they own and sell their machines at cost. Steve Jobs would probably thrown in an asylum and the stock holders would lynch him.
When Apple takes steps towards Open Source, as small as they may be, praise them, and encourage more of the sort. If we truely want open source to grow, we can't just pull the "you didn't do it my way so fuck you" approach.
I realize there is concern about diluting open source standards, but voice such concerns with constructive criticism. If there are certain things (such as contract clauses) that are a problem for the community, and it wouldn't be financial and/or legal suidicide for Apple to correct them, inform the right people and things will get better. We have proof of this.
While Apple is certainly a for-profit company, and they have an interest in keeping some of their secrets as secrets, they are certainly no Microsoft. They are not trying to own the planet, nor destroy every other choice out there.
While the press may twist things in and out, Jobs and crew do basically seem to have good intentions. Jobs doesn't even take a paycheck (well, $1/yr to get benefits). And they do listen. I've received more than one personal email response from Jobs on issues that concerned me about the company's direction.
Additionally, Darwin and the open sourcing of QTSS was not purely a marketing move. Avie Tevanian (VP of Software, ex-NeXTer) was the one who really felt that Apple/NeXT should give back to the Open Source community for all the stuff they took in -- gcc, Mach, Apache, etc.
Despite the fact that they need money coming in, and have some bad habits to kick, Apple is certainly no Microsoft.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Isn't it interesting how active competition actually reduces prices while diversifying offerings? Amazing. Imagine if Microsoft had to face that.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
I just think it pretty much illustrates Apples's true stance on open source or free software or whatever you want to call it.....
Just because they won't develop two completely different OS architectures in parallel? Please. Darwin seems luck a much better approach.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
This, btw, is the same approach Apple is taking with Mac OS X Server. It is not certified, and they don't really plan on doing it, but Apple said that if developers find any holes in the POSIX support, then they should report them as bugs.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
The command line will always be there, it just may not be part of the standard install or on the same CD.
I believe Apple wants to be sure (for good reason) that developers don't use the command line as a crutch and force newbies to 'tar|gunzip|make|make install' stuff.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Steve Jobs was the star of the movie. Gates was just there because he had to be.
You notice it was called "Pirates of Silicon Valley." Microsoft was never in Silicon Valley.
- Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
It was fun to watch, although the only educational value was the fact that they stole it all from Xerox.
Well, not really. Not at all.
Apple hired some Xerox people like Jef Raskin and Bruce Horn. In fact, Jobs gave Xerox some Apple stock, a lot, in fact, for the exact purpose of bringing in Apple programmers to inspire them to go in new directions. From what I understand, Xerox was AWARE of what Jobs was doing. They just didn't care.
Additionally, the PARC stuff didn't have folders, or files being represented as icons. The original Xerox stuff had far more in common with X11 than Mac UI. Xerox turned left, Apple turned right, then Xerox started to veer a bit towards the right.
Meanwhile, in Windows95 Microsoft blantantly copied things like the Trash, Folders (even started called them that instead of directories), and the Apple menu. Even worse, Win95 borrows _heavily_ from NeXT, so Bill screwed Jobs over twice.
In my mind, there is a clear difference between Jobs striking a deal with Xerox to get the Apple developers in there and get inspired, and Microsoft just taking without asking.
BTW: There is a good article on this.
Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
A thick notebook of research exists to backup every scene
Yes, with "at least" one source each.
Scott
------
Scott Stevenson
Intel boxes are fast enough for 99% of desktop users. "Faster" doesn't turn many heads these days unless you're talking high-end CAD, animation, data mining, etc, and Apple doesn't exist in these markets anyway.
Faster was your word, not mine.
Once that plateu has been reached, then ease-of-administration issue merits consideration of the platform, particuarly for people that don't grok concepts like glibc2.
OSX. The last thing IS managers want is to have to integrate yet another OS into the office network. Why would they bother when they can already do anything the Mac would do for them with cheaper Wintel boxes they already administer?
You make a good point, and I don't have a particuarly good answer to that. But the fact is everything changes, and it can be initiated by anyone at any time. Linux is proof of that.
Apple has never and will never be a piece of the enterprise puzzle.
Never is a long time.
Scott
My reply to Don Crabb, the author of the article. In short, it ain't gonna happen -- just like it hasn't happened for the past five years.
-----
Regarding your article -- just because "persistent, well-informed, and highly reliable sources" are telling you a looney story, doesn't mean it's true. Apple has become very adept at spreading misinformation campaigns to locate and plug its security holes. A few points:
> But as long as the company has neither the inclination (which means as long as
> Steve Jobs is not interested), nor the resources to try to sell its wares to
> corporate accounts,
I don't understand this at all. There is no resource issue that prevents Apple from selling to enterprise markets. They just aren't ready yet. Wait until Q1/Q2, when the next version of Mac OS X Server hits (in addition to Client) -- along with dual or quad processor G4s.
> * In short, Jobs saves the company. But saves it for what?
It's his baby.
I'm not sure why you're so transfixed on the money issue. While he has stock, he only takes a $1/yr paycheck. All evidence points to the fact that he's not in it for the money.
> Enter the Walt Disney Company, or some other entertainment giant such as
> Time-Warner or Viacom.
This is an old story. It was part of a previous misinformation campaign.
> Apple could be the first computer company to really build a cheap crossover
> computer/game console/Web access box. An access box that would pump 3D digital
> video and sound like a bat out of hell.
How many times are we going to go down this road? Again and again, people come out with boxes like this, and again and again, nobody buys them. Steve is quite clearly against this. Remember Columbus?
> Enter Disney and Mickey Mouse or Time-Warner and Bugs Bunny.
Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are not going to sell games, except to preschoolers. That's a niche -- the very thing you purport Apple is trying to get away from. Computer game sales today are based on technological prowess, reviews/word of mouth and multiplayer capabilities.
Movie licenses just don't do that well. The most popular games in the last few years are basically the Quake and Myst francises.
> But it sures beats being a 7 percent solution the rest of Apple's life. I
> can't imagine Steve Jobs settling for that.
This is just the beginning. P1 will change a lot.
There are other fundamentals holes in story thinking. If Apple was going to be bought by a consumer company (like Disney), why would they ship Mac OS X Server? Why would they release Darwin? Why would they continue to develop AppleShare IP?
The "Apple will be bought out" argument is as old as "Apple should do software only/Apple should do hardware only." Apple's not going to be bought anytime in the near future. It's against everything that they have worked for. Here's a partial list of companies that, over the past several years, were supposed to have bought Apple:
Sun
Microsoft
IBM
Sony
Disney
Oracle
It just ain't gonna happen.
Take it easy,
- Scott
[scott@nuke ~]$ telnet www.ebay.com 80
Trying 216.32.120.133...
Connected to pages.ebay.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET / HTTP/1.0
HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Server: Microsoft-IIS/3.0
Speed? Processor speed is virtually irrelevant in Internet serving, as bandwidth and disk access are the gating factors.
Perhaps if you're just spitting out raw HTML, but dymanic content needs speed.
I won't bore you with the details, 'cause I'm sure you know them. Price, component availability
Hmmm. Well, G3s take Ultra2 SCSI, Ultra ATA, PCI, and PC100 DIMMs. In fact, PPCs were using DIMMs before intel boxes were. Not sure what other kind of components you're looking for -- at least as a server.
The other advatange that PPC-based systems have is near-zero configuration issues, due to standardized hardware. The Yellow Dog site also cites lower power consumption with 20 G3s than 20 Pentiums, due to the far more power-efficient PowerPC. How useful is this in reality? I don't know.
Scott
Why can't audio/video be as easy as Linu- oh, wait...
Linux may be many things, but my experience has been that "easy" is not one of them.
Scott
There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding this issue, and I've put a explanation up at macnn.com, but it makes sense to try to help as many people possible understand exactly what the problem is -- including Apple. :) Here is the crash case:
/Local/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables/. By default, the script is not executable. You must 'chmod +x test-cgi' for it to work. However, this could probably happen with any script, though tests of that sort were not published.
/Local/Library/WebServer/CGI-Executables
When 32 or more copies of ApacheBench (ab) are pointed at a CGI script on a website running on Apache/Mac OS X Server machine, the kernel will panic, usually within 30-60 seconds, forcing a reboot.
The general thinking is that this many copies of ApacheBench running at once mimicks the load generated by hundreds of clients accessing a site at once. ApacheBench can be launched locally or remotely (assuming sufficient bandwidth), which is where the problem comes in. Somebody with malicious intent could decide to launch 32 copies of ApacheBench _from_their_machine, against a server, and crash it.
In the test, c't directed 32 copies of ApacheBench at the "test-cgi" script which is in
I actually tested this on my Blue G3/400 running MOSXS and did get a kernel panic. I got essentially the same results whether launching the attack from the same machine that the webserver itself is on, or launching the attack from a linux machine on the same network. Incidentally, I ran this same test again a Red Hat Linux 5.1 (2.0.34 kernel) box, which did not experience any problems during the "attack."
Important Points:
----------------
(1) This is, first and foremost, a security concern. The type and volume of traffic required to make the OS crash would most likely not be generated by normal web clients. However, ApacheBench can be launched remotely, and with malicious intent.
(2) The crash is not triggered by 32 successive CGI requests, as some people seem to think. Informal MacNN tests show that in one case, Apache actually serviced 1666 CGI requests in 26 seconds before crashing. The c't article is a bit confusing in this manner, but the "32" refers to 32 or more ApacheBench processes being launched -- each of which issues hundreds of requests.
(3) The problem is not with a particular CGI script. It is a problem with an immense ammounts of requests for CGI scripts coming in during a very short period of time.
(4) The problem can not be stopped by simply removing ApacheBench from the server. An attack can be launched remotely.
(5) The script used for the c't test is a bourne shell script. A Perl or C script may not exihibit the same results. PHP may also be immune (though I have no proof of any of that).
(6) This problem is most likely present in Darwin as well, so those interest in resolving the problem could probably download the source and work on a fix.
(7) Red Hat Linux 5.1 (2.0.34 kernel) running Apache 1.3.3 seems to weather the attack well, so it's almost certainly an OS issue.
(8) In some cases, bandwidth may become constrained before an attack is successful in bringing down the system.
Possible workarounds:
--------------------
(1) Configure router to filter immense number of requests from one IP address (like DoS attack)
(2) Disable CGI execution, or simply remove all files from
(3) Disable Apache, if you're only using MOSXS for Macintosh management, AppleShare or QuickTime streaming
Scott Stevenson
Macintosh News Network
http://macnn.com/
Actually, MSIE 4.5 Mac is rock-solid on the machines I've used. If one has random crashes, one usually has to trash the "Internet Preferences" file from the Preferences folder.
MSIE PPC is fast, stable, and has a very slick UI. Not too surprising, since some members of the development team are from Claris.
Other than being made by Microsoft, the only real problem it has is all that crap it spews all over the system folder. Wait, is that redundant?
Of course, there are some other browsers -- iCab is very good. But I'm really hoping (like everyone) that Mozilla comes in and saves the day for all platforms everywhere.
- Scott
A mascot does not need to be cute, that's just the only way it's been done until now.
- Scott
Exactly my feelings! This is what I posted at linuxtoday:
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No offense to the artist, as it is clearly a very good rendering, but the dragon just doesn't inspire me -- there's nothing unique about it. I've seen dozens of characters just like him. The idea of a mascot is you see it and you think abou the product (or whatever). I see the dragon and I think about all kinds of children's stories.
It seems like the KDE character has to be something with a bit more "ummmph."
- Scott