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Microsoft has real security problems- rampant viruses and trojans, and a major business on that platform is selling after market security products (probably why

by nirvana 14y ago

Microsoft has real security problems- rampant viruses and trojans, and a major business on that platform is selling after market security products (probably why Microsoft has never closed these holes.) Apple killed the virus problem of the late 1980s dead, with only the most robust viruses surviving in the early 1990s, but none since. Apple has had an automatic updating program for at least 15 years, long before Microsoft, including monthly (if needed) security updates patching holes as they are found. Microsoft makes a lot of money from the security holes its own products, many of which were put there deliberately as "marketing features" that later turned out to be security vulnerabilities that apparently Microsoft finds it unprofitable to close. I've seen the source code for both Windows and OS X. Windows is very poorly engineered in general, with a great deal of cruft (leading to inadvertent security holes) while OS X is generally well engineered, benefits from being open source and pulling from open source BSD and from being fostered by a company that does not make any money from shipping security holes. However, Apple's superior quality for the past 2 decades has resulted in a great deal of growth in profits and prominence for Apple, and this means that you can always get a lot of attention by claiming Apple has security holes. In fact, people have been making these claims for the past 15 years, in articles like this. And yet there aren't massive botnets of Macs (the one trojan that got any traction has been eliminated) while there are millions upon millions of infected windows boxes out there to this day. The idea that Microsoft is ahead of Apple on security is a joke to anyone who knows their history or knows their engineering. Ok, You got me. This is obviously a troll, and I responded.... and of course the people commenting here seem to have no real knowledge of the matter, but anyone not bashing Apple is getting down voted. This is the kind of crap that makes "Hacker" news suck.

someone13 14y ago
> Microsoft makes a lot of money from the security holes its own products, many of which were put there deliberately as "marketing features" that later turned out to be security vulnerabilities that apparently Microsoft finds it unprofitable to close. [citation needed], please. I'm not being snarky - in fact, if you have a citation, I'd love to be able to use this in my discussions with others.
cooldeal 14y ago
> and this means that you can always get a lot of attention by claiming Apple has security holes. In fact, people have been making these claims for the past 15 years, in articles like this. So there were no vulnerabilities and all the patches that Apple released were NOOPS? > ...the one trojan that got any traction has been eliminated Really? From http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/20/antivirus-researchers-confirm-flashback-still-infects-more-than-500000-macs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/20/antivir... >The idea that Microsoft is ahead of Apple on security is a joke to anyone who knows their history or knows their engineering. So Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky lab doesn't know his engineering and history but you do. Somehow I think the onus is on you to prove your credentials are better than him. >"Security firm Dr. Web released new statistics Friday showing that the process of eliminating Flashback from Macs is proceeding far slower than expected: On Friday the security firm, which first spotted the Mac botnet earlier this month, released new data showing that 610,000 active infected machines were counted Wednesday and 566,000 were counted Thursday. That's a slim decrease from the peak of 650,000 to 700,000 machines infected with the malware when Apple released its cleanup tool for the trojan late last week. Earlier in the week, Symantec reported that only 140,000 machines remained infected, but admitted Friday that an error in its measurement caused it to underestimate the remaining infections, and it now agrees with Dr. Web's much more pessimistic numbers." Are those propaganda and lies too?

by nirvana 14y ago

someone13 14y ago

> Microsoft makes a lot of money from the security holes its own products, many of which were put there deliberately as "marketing features" that later turned out to be security vulnerabilities that apparently Microsoft finds it unprofitable to close. [citation needed], please. I'm not being snarky - in fact, if you have a citation, I'd love to be able to use this in my discussions with others.

cooldeal 14y ago

> and this means that you can always get a lot of attention by claiming Apple has security holes. In fact, people have been making these claims for the past 15 years, in articles like this. So there were no vulnerabilities and all the patches that Apple released were NOOPS? > ...the one trojan that got any traction has been eliminated Really? From http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/20/antivirus-researchers-confirm-flashback-still-infects-more-than-500000-macs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2012/04/20/antivir... >The idea that Microsoft is ahead of Apple on security is a joke to anyone who knows their history or knows their engineering. So Eugene Kaspersky, the founder of Kaspersky Antivirus and Kaspersky lab doesn't know his engineering and history but you do. Somehow I think the onus is on you to prove your credentials are better than him. >"Security firm Dr. Web released new statistics Friday showing that the process of eliminating Flashback from Macs is proceeding far slower than expected: On Friday the security firm, which first spotted the Mac botnet earlier this month, released new data showing that 610,000 active infected machines were counted Wednesday and 566,000 were counted Thursday. That's a slim decrease from the peak of 650,000 to 700,000 machines infected with the malware when Apple released its cleanup tool for the trojan late last week. Earlier in the week, Symantec reported that only 140,000 machines remained infected, but admitted Friday that an error in its measurement caused it to underestimate the remaining infections, and it now agrees with Dr. Web's much more pessimistic numbers." Are those propaganda and lies too?