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Thread: Intel, the end of Mac security?

  1. #11
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    How many vulnerabilities have been discovered in IIS over the years vs Apache? Apache is used far more than IIS is. Your argument only holds so much water. When you examine the track records of various pieces of software, you begin to see that the number of vulnerabilities far outweighs the proportion of users.
    Where is your evidence for this statement?................Apache is:

    1. Something you have to buy separately
    2. Something that you run deliberately.
    3. Something that you have to set up.

    I have a Windows2000 Professional box I built a couple of years ago..............IIS runs by default unless you turn it off so I think that your assertion about Apache is badly flawed. People have been running IIS by default and without knowing it.............that makes them "soft users" (sure, it is an MS failing, but it is compounded by users)

    It's all well and good to be the armchair theorycraft security hobbiest/researcher/whatever and make wildly baseless claims, but until you start finding vulnerabilities your ideas are still in the realm of theory.
    Well don't you fall into that category yourself? "Vulnerabilities" are irrelevant............."Exploits" are what do the damage.

    Anyway, the theme of the thread was geared towards OPERATING SYSTEMS, rather than specific elements of them?


  2. #12
    AO Curmudgeon rcgreen's Avatar
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    the same stupid people spouting off about how windows sucks and how it's so insecure... I'm always saying the same damn thing... "Windows only SEEMS less insecure because there's A LOT MORE computers running windows...
    Well, only time will tell, bit IMO windows is a lot less secure because it SUCKS.
    Or to put it more technically, the M'soft business plan has always been to
    make it easier for things to "work" with less inconvenience. And security
    is a big time inconvenience. The browser comes totally promiscuous with
    javascript enabled so that "everything will work". You wouldn't want the
    dancing hamsters on some fairy website to fail to dance...

    Apple is very authoritarian with its system, only wanting their own approved
    software to be installed. It isn't their philosophy to provide as many convenient
    ways for just anyone out there to do a "drive by install" of malware just from surfing
    a website. It's not just that there are fewer Macs around, but that the design
    makes them a less tempting target.

    Microsoft could do the same thing, but users would complain if it was harder to
    get software installed and working, or if the latest gizmos on the web didn't
    work properly. They walk a fine line between "security" and "convenience"
    and lean more toward "convenience".

    BTW, even though Apple is choosing (apparently) an x86 chip, there's no
    reason to assume they'll use a PC compatible BIOS, or other characteristics
    of the PC. So don't think that Windows, or Windows software (including malware)
    will automatically run on an Apple x86. They've already said they don't want
    to make Mac OS available to run on PCs.
    I came in to the world with nothing. I still have most of it.

  3. #13
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    Re: Re: Intel, the end of Mac security?

    Originally posted here by chsh
    Umm, well, for one thing, I've seen absolutely nothing to indicate that Apple will be switching architectures, merely suppliers.

    You should watch the World Wide Develepor Conference keynote address where the switch was announced. Steve Jobs is using Mac OSX during the presentation for his slides, iTunes, and other example applications. After he announces they will be switching to Intel processors, he shoes the Mac system properties, where it clearly shows an x86 processor is being used.
    There are a lot of things Apple isn't just going to abandon (like Altivec, etc), not to mention the expense of converting applications to a new architecture if these misunderstandings were indeed the case.
    Again, in the keynote speech at WWDC, Steve Jobs announces that the Mac OS and a huge majority of its applications have been in developement for x86 processors for over 5 years. The example proving this? The fact that he ran through all the programs commonly used on Mac OSX during the presentation, on his x86 Apple computer.
    Even apart from all of that, assuming they WERE switching to x86, it would not matter, as Spyware, Trojans, etc., are all written for the OS.

    This is the first true thing you've mentioned in this post. I still do not believe Mac users will have a lot to worry about initially, given both the nature of BSD and the fact that Mac users aren't automatically escalated to 'root' or 'admin' accounts by default.

    Robert Peaslee

  4. #14
    AFLAAACKKK!!
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    Well, only time will tell, bit IMO windows is a lot less secure because it SUCKS.
    Or to put it more technically, the M'soft business plan has always been to
    make it easier for things to "work" with less inconvenience. And security
    is a big time inconvenience. The browser comes totally promiscuous with
    javascript enabled so that "everything will work". You wouldn't want the
    dancing hamsters on some fairy website to fail to dance...
    I'll repeat nihil again...

    not only does Windows present a far greater number of targets, it also presents a disproportionally higher proportion of "soft user" targets
    It might surprise everyone to know how easy it is to disable things like javascript and active x in IE... Or better yet, how easy it is to download firefox... Which reminds me... Wasn't firefox known as the SECURE browser? And then everyone started switching and now look at it, vulnerabilities are being found left and right. Granted, I still beleive firefox is much more secure then IE, but isn't it kind of funny?
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  5. #15
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    an OS is only as good as the user. I like *nix, but I can sure as hell lock down a windows box better than I can a *nix box so for me, at this point in time, windows is far more secure. And it will remain this way until I have the time to actually get as familiar with nix as I am with windows. this holds true for everyone.

    Well, only time will tell, bit IMO windows is a lot less secure because it SUCKS.
    if its true that customers purchase what they like than apparently more than 90 percent of computer users disagree with you.
    Everyone is going to die, I am just as good of a reason as any.

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  6. #16
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    Yikes! It is amazing to me how ignorant PC/Non-Mac users can be about Apple. Instead of just guessing and speculating about what will happen, and pulling rumors out of the air and believing them, why don't you just watch the *****ing webcast?

    http://stream.apple.akadns.net/

    Okay, for those that don't seem to have the latest rev. of clue...

    1) The underlying OS for Mac OS X is Darwin, which is a port of FreeBSD with some extra stuff from NeXTStep, Mach-O, OSF1, and some really neat memory protection schemas. You can think of Mac OS X as a modified FreeBSD with a super-spiffy desktop; that's basically what it is.
    Code:
    top, bash, ksh, vi, emacs, ps, nc, nmap, snort, gcc, gdb, strace, perl, Apache, python, MySQL,
    , it's all there or easy to get with guess what, the 'Ports Collection'.

    2) It (OS X) started out life way back in the early 90s as NeXTStep. Google image search NeXTStep (http://images.google.com/images?hl=e...ep&btnG=Search). Hmmm, looks remarkably like WindowMaker doesn't it? Guess what...

    3) Mac OS X, a.k.a Darwin, the desktop/video/audio engine (Quartz), the window manager (Aqua), and all of the Apple-produced apps have been compiled and tested on both Intel and PowerPC from the very beginning. Intel binary versions of all of these apps exist internally at Apple.

    3) Apple releases secuity updates much faster than any other commercial vendor that I know of; on rival or better with any Open Source OS.

    4) PowerPC is owned by IBM, which is loosing interest in further development. The search for another CPU/arch was a necessity.

    5) Yes, the switch to Intel means that Macs will run the same core hardware hardware as PCs, but not necessarily be the entirely the same as your Dell PC.

    6) Apple has flirted with using Intel CPUs on and off since the mid-90s, this time they had to commit due to the upcoming end-of-life of PowerPC.

    7) Like it or not, Mac OS X is secure because it was designed to be that way. Not because of some fantasy that nobody uses it or anything silly like that. Apple has the #2 market share for the desktop OS market, yes ahead of Linux. The firewall is FreeBSD's 'ipfw', which is pretty damn good, and Apple solved/thwarted the kind of memory abuse problems that have plagued UNIX for it's 30+ year history by simply making all memory read-only to other processes; plus some other spiffyness.

    8) I don't have a problem with Windows in general. Yeah, I wouldn't use it, but I can see why people do. Now to the point of 90% of the market share. Do you really think it is that way because every PC user make a decision that 'Yes, I want to run Windows intead of these other OSes for the Intel platform'. No, it is because up until a year ago you could not buy a factory built PC without Windows already installed. That is the only reason. Lots of folks like Windows that's true. But the 90% reflects a very wise strategy by Microsoft rather than the 'will of the people'. Have you every seen a card next to a PC in BestBuy stating 'Choose from these Operating Systems: ...'. Of course not.


    Please, if you don't like Apple for some personal reason that's fine. Just don't be yet another clueless PC user who just makes **** up about Macs/Apple with ignorance and blind prejudice. It just makes you look stupid.

    -- spurious
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  7. #17
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    Re: Re: Re: Intel, the end of Mac security?

    Originally posted here by nihil
    Where is your evidence for this statement?................Apache is:

    1. Something you have to buy separately
    2. Something that you run deliberately.
    3. Something that you have to set up.
    Not on a whole host of common linux distributions.

    I have a Windows2000 Professional box I built a couple of years ago..............IIS runs by default unless you turn it off so I think that your assertion about Apache is badly flawed. People have been running IIS by default and without knowing it.............that makes them "soft users" (sure, it is an MS failing, but it is compounded by users)
    Redhat circa the same ancient (in computing terms) years you are mentioning came with Apache and WuFTPd running by default. Compare like systems if you're going to bring out old service-packless operating systems.

    Well don't you fall into that category yourself? "Vulnerabilities" are irrelevant............."Exploits" are what do the damage.
    No, I'm asking for proof instead of wild speculation. That you don't understand the difference is rather plain and quite obvious.

    Originally posted here by PeasleeR
    You should watch the World Wide Develepor Conference keynote address where the switch was announced. Steve Jobs is using Mac OSX during the presentation for his slides, iTunes, and other example applications. After he announces they will be switching to Intel processors, he shoes the Mac system properties, where it clearly shows an x86 processor is being used.
    You're right, I probably should. I haven't seen any WWDC coverage, only the news reports, none of which explicitly stated this.

    This is the first true thing you've mentioned in this post. I still do not believe Mac users will have a lot to worry about initially, given both the nature of BSD and the fact that Mac users aren't automatically escalated to 'root' or 'admin' accounts by default.
    Actually, it is not the first true thing I mentioned in my post. Suggesting I am lying simply because I haven't seen the specific footage you have is stupid. Everything I wrote in that post was true, hence why it was not categorical, and was experiential ("Everything I've seen" vs "This is the way it is").
    Chris Shepherd
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  8. #18
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    Actually, it is not the first true thing I mentioned in my post. Suggesting I am lying simply because I haven't seen the specific footage you have is stupid. Everything I wrote in that post was true, hence why it was not categorical, and was experiential ("Everything I've seen" vs "This is the way it is").
    Easy, tiger. I didn't mean it to suggest you were lying, only that I was in agreement.

    What's with the hostility?

  9. #19
    Senior Member nihil's Avatar
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    Compare like systems if you're going to bring out old service-packless operating systems.
    Where did you get that erroneous assumption from? It is actually at SP4 and still tries to run IIS by default (OK IIS has been patched somewhat). My point is that users have been exposed to IIS running by default for a considerable period of time

    My objection to MS is that they release things running by default that are not required neccessarily. The user should be prompted to select or reject these before installation.

    Not on a whole host of common linux distributions.
    We are not talking about linux distributions here? so what is the relevance of this comment?

    No, I'm asking for proof instead of wild speculation. That you don't understand the difference is rather plain and quite obvious.
    I would have thought the issue was whether you understood the difference between an "exploit" and a "vulnerability" . A vulnerability is only a problem if:

    1. You actually use that stuff (remember I have noted that you may be doing so unwittingly with MS)
    2. Somebody has written an EXPLOIT that actually works.
    3. You have NOT applied the appropriate patches, assuming that they are available.

    Now, let me explain a few realities to you there are in this World, a large number of people who do nothing other than search for vulnerabilities in Microsoft Operating Systems........that is how they earn their living or hope to gain glory. Some even go to the lengths of producing POCs.............so, you have unwittingly produced another flaw in your own argument.......

    A lot of what they publish is pure theory, so "vulnerabilities" become even less relevant.

    There are a lot more of them looking at MS products than others, so you are bound to get more results.

    I really do wonder what would happen if the same attention was given to another OS?

    A bit like the old military dialogue "very pretty, but can they fight?".....MS have been in the "front line" for years. No-one else has, in terms of being attacked.

    If you do not believe me, please take a trip on the "dark side"........they do not leave MAC and *nix alone because they are too difficult they do it because they do not consider it worth the effort........at this moment in time

    Finally, you have chosen not to answer my question as to why you introduced an IIS vs Novell argument into a thread that was patently about OPERATING SYSTEMS ...........you are aware that neither of those are operating systems?

    And yes, I can read, so I do not need to learn.......perhaps you should consider some brushing up of analytical thought processes?

  10. #20
    AFLAAACKKK!!
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    Yikes! It is amazing to me how ignorant PC/Non-Mac users can be about Apple
    I did not mean to be ignorant, in fact I am sick of the ignorance of Mac/linux users towards windows... But let's not get linux into this...

    Redhat circa the same ancient (in computing terms) years you are mentioning came with Apache and WuFTPd running by default.
    People running Redhat are not soft users... Most of them know about those services running by default and will turn it off if they don't need it... But let's keep on topic here...

    No, I'm asking for proof instead of wild speculation. That you don't understand the difference is rather plain and quite obvious.
    If you've never heard that windows is attacked more because there is more windows computers... Then you have to get out of that rock your hiding under... You think we're pulling this out of thin air?? That is rather humorous if you ask me. I will find the PC world magazine where they put up a locked down linux box VS a locked down windows box VS a locked down mac box... They even measured the average amount of time a patch is available for a vulnerability... Windows had the least amount of vulnerabilities... But I admit they had the slowest average patching time but that's besides the point...

    When I find that magazine I will scan the pages and send them to you, hell you might be able to find the article on their site.
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