Antonio,
I hate to correct you on this, but there have been 2 recent Mac OSX viruses/trojans. The first was a file that appeared to be a music file. When the media file was played through a program (such as iTunes) nothing bad happened, but when the file was double clicked on, it popped up a message box indicating it's presence. As I said, not really that malicious.
However, the more recent virus is fairly nasty, though I think it's also just . . . It's a file that is circulating around the various warez programs and sites . . . basically it's an AppleScript file that advertises itself as a fully usable version of Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac. Upon clicking on the ridiculously small file, the script is run which removes the home directory of your account (analogous to the My Documents folder for Windows users). This one is a bit more nasty on first look, but upon reflecting upon it, I think I like it. After all, the people who get this trojan loose their own mental property as they were attempting to rip off others mental properties . . .
IL Bill On Monday, May 17, 2004, at 01:59 PM, Antonio Aparicio wrote:
John, nobody is bashing anyone. Calm down. We are just discussing the merits of one OS over another. They are just tools/machines. Clearly virus and spyware are more prevalent on the Windows OS thatn elswhere PRECISELY because of the design of that OS. To date there have been Zero, thats right a 0 viruses on Mac OSX for example. Your "security through obscurity" explaination for this is just a sign of how much some poeple seem to be in denial about this. I use both Windows and OSX for work and play, and it doesnt take a genius to realise that there is a big difference in quality between the two. If an 18 year old can sit in his bedroom and write a virus capable of spreading to millions of Windows PCs in a matter of minutes doesnt that raise your suspiicion about the secirity of that OS at all? Arent you just a bit concerned?
Antonio
a myth to explain why that is the case
On 17 May 2004, at 20:39, John Francis wrote:
Thats right, viruses and spyware are different, but are both examples
of the substandard quality evident in the Windows OS, which is where my
contribution to this thread began.
Antonio
Do you think we could take the mindless Microsoft bashing somewhere else,
please?
The main reasons why viruses and spyware are more prevalent on Windows is not because of any underlying inferiority of the OS (the NT-based OSes are at least as secure as Linux or OS-X in that regard): rather, it's because most of the virus and adware writers target the Windows platform because it is where most of the payback can be found. It's not worth attacking the small Mac part of the marketplace, nor Linux.
The main weakness come with the applications. And that's because the inherent design of the protocols underlying the web, email, etc. were crafted in the days before trusting your neighbour became impossible. Viruses, spyware, etc. propagate in such an environment, just as spam does. Why? Because it's not easy to set up a secure system. And as the marketplace seems to value connectivity and flashy graphics more than security, that's where the development effort is going.
It's just as hard to run a secure Linux box as it is to run a secure Windows box (possibly even harder; there are less tools available). In fact many of the compromised email servers on the net are Linux systems; sendmail buffer overrun attacks aren't aimed at Windows.
The biggest weakness in the whole setup is the stupidity of users. That wouldn't change, even if everybody switched to Linux overnight. People would *still* download Trojan Horse programs disguised as pornography, and they'd still click on virus-laden email links.
