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* Posts by Matthew Gray

2 publicly visible posts • joined 30 Mar 2008

Mac is the first to fall in Pwn2Own hack contest

Matthew Gray

@Ign R. Amis

"Considering Windows storied history of being pwned in every way imaginable, that doesn't leave many options to the contest participants."

so the fact that vulnerabilities have been found, and corrected, somewhow lessens the fact that the OS X box fell first. Oh, and from further reading, the Ubuntu box failed to fall completely.

"When someone actually finds a real virus or malware for OSX in the wild, then I'll consider getting off the pedestal."

http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_138578.htm there's one. (particularly humourous imo that the pictures being offered aren't naked celebs, as with pc users, but images of the next OS X release :D - that's gotta say something about mac users)

and in response to both, the argument your OS is safer because hardly anyone has bothered to make use of exploits is fairly redundant. It mearly means less people have bothered exploiting the flaws, becuase there's no point attacking a 4% market share.

In fact, what will happen is in a few years time, this "better than tho" attitude will bite you in the ass. somebody WILL release a virus, and all the "i don't need virus protection" crowd will fall flat on their faces as their unprotected systems go belly up.

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Matthew Gray
Flame

*sigh*

okay, i signed up to post this...

"It seems the word "hacking" is vastly misunderstood these days."

sure is... hacking is just writing code, and code, to be executed on a computer. "cracking" is the act of wiritng malicious code (criminal hacking... hence cracking)

Also, to try and make this vulnerabilty seem less valid owing to the fact it requires a user to click a hyperlink is also fairly naive, all it takes is one reatrd and a "hot babes here" in underlined blue. That retard could be sitting infront of any of the three boxes in fairness, although given the fact that there's at least one retard out there who hapily states "The fact remains that I would be happy to put my Mac outside a firewall with no virus protection" makes me start to loose faith in the human race. Along with making me think the Mac might just be that more susceptible to attc, due to user-error.

Oh, and while i'm at it (pauses for breath) did i just read that os x disables firewall by default? I've been accused of overconfidence before, but that seems like inviting trouble for me. especially wiht above mentioned "I don't need a firewall" type users out there. In vista not only does it turn on your firewall by defualt, it bitches if you turn it off, or neglect to install virus protection. Cue arguments about this being becuse microsoft know their OS is open to attck. well i say, i'd rather spend days installing layers of security, and never need it, over proudly proclaiming that my OS is free of hacks whilst having my card details slyly read but some sly b*****d who decided to test that theory.

Oh, and what's all this more desirable spew too? I've used macs, and as far as i can tell you pay for a pretty box and some pretty software. Seems you pay twice the price for half the spec too.

annnnnnnnd (pauses again for breath) where's that guy who was aying that market share has nothing to do with how many security flaws there are... Well, i suppose market share doesn't affect how many exist in the code, but it will definately affect how many are found. a cracker is going to spend more time looking for holes in a system used by 90 odd percent of users, as it's going to be of more use to them. This is the reaosn you don't find Macs in botnets... quite simply why bother designing a botnet for such a limited audience? a botnet is supposed to be huge.

I really hope that this report knocks some of those mac users off their pedestals. Quite simply, the majority of you seem to be under the delusion your OS has some kind of super shield. Well it hasn't. Less viruses exist for it becuase people aren't as interested in wirting viruses for your OS. viruses are supposed to take down huge businesses. not just their art departments.

Oh, and finally, for the record, i use both Gentoo and Windows, i am under no delusion as to their security, both are virus protected and behind a software and hardware firewall, and I never click links for free pron no matter how tempting the offer may seem. And I don't hate OS X. I believe it has its positives, along with its negatives. It just angers me that for so long Windows users ahve had to put up with flac from users of other OSes... point in fact, PCs are cheaper than Macs, and Windows is more user-friendly than Linux. so in my opinion it's no surprise Microsoft comandeers such a large market percentage.

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