4 ms·

The virus thing is getting a little old, five words sum it up to joe sixpack, although he sometimes has to take a couple minutes to think about it till he fully

The virus thing is getting a little old, five words sum it up to joe sixpack, although he sometimes has to take a couple minutes to think about it till he fully gets it. "Ever heard of dodo flu?" (I guess it should be tasmanian tiger flu or something? eh)

tptacek 17y ago
This argument doesn't mean anything. Who cares why Mac users don't have to worry about viruses? They don't. Houses in Kenilworth, IL have a lot less to worry about from crime than do houses in the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago, but that's not because the houses themselves are intrinsically more secure. Would you argue someone should move to Edgewater instead of Kenilworth if they're worried about crime?
- etherael 17y ago
  I'd argue that a fortress in Edgewater has less to worry about than a thatched hut in Kenilworth, especially if the socioeconomic situations of the areas in question is about to be reversed. Keep in mind, if Mac OS X ever does become the dominant player, it will be targeted by the same people currently targeting windows, I'm totally unbiased on this issue, I use linux almost exclusively, neither of these eventualities has any effect on me, it's simply a statement of fact. If OS X ever does win it's going to have to deal with the exact same set of enemies as windows currently does. But when that happens surely we'll be better off right because the OS X codebase is more inherently secure than windows? right? right? Pwn2own, how did that go down again. Hmm.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    So you would recommend that someone move to a fortified house in a high-crime neighborhood, as opposed to a nice house in a rich suburb, so that they'd be less exposed to crime. Then you back that argument up by repeating my argument. Glad we're on the same page.
    - etherael 17y ago
      I'm saying the metaphor doesn't really work, when you're discussing the vulnerability of an operating system on the internet, you're talking about a security system exposing an attack surface to a potential intruder with exactly equal opportunity for exploitation, it doesn't take me any more effort to attack the guy at 203.2.193.124 than the guy at 203.2.192.124. So the question has to be how secure is the actual system on the other end? If the vast majority of computers currently run windows, it makes sense from a criminal perspective to target the weakest link, and thus the reason we have the massive proliferation of windows viruses vs the "did it to prove it could be done" proliferation of Linux or OS X based viruses. I think you already know all this but are just trying to be difficult. This is the typical response from a mac fan.
      - deleted 17y ago
        [deleted]
        etherael 17y ago
        Your last three words are the telling point; "at the moment". The edgewater / kenilworth thing, I'm Australian and thus entirely geographically ignorant about US locations, but thanks for the tip. I still don't believe that the metaphor stands up at all well. For example, I could write a really simple operating system that consisted of pretty much nothing but a filesystem and a tcp/ip stack, in order to see any of the content on the disk all you need to do is telnet to port 31337 and enter the string "bobsyeruncle^M" and it just streams out the contents of the attached filesystem. This operating system would be invulnerable to all windows viruses and worms on the net, just like OS X, but to say that it is "more secure than windows" is extremely disingenuous at best. If for some completely bizarre reason it ever became popular, putting that claim to the test would show even Joe Sixpack that it was indeed not at all more secure than windows. This is the same as the situation with OS X, if it gains majority market share it will have to deal with the same hostile environment windows currently has to deal with in terms of attackers, worms, viruses, exploits, etc. Nobody at the moment is bothering because it is only (8?9?)% and thus they can pretend that OS X is immune to viruses just like I could pretend my theoretical operating system is immune to viruses. That doesn't make it so.

tptacek 17y ago

This argument doesn't mean anything. Who cares why Mac users don't have to worry about viruses? They don't. Houses in Kenilworth, IL have a lot less to worry about from crime than do houses in the Edgewater neighborhood in Chicago, but that's not because the houses themselves are intrinsically more secure. Would you argue someone should move to Edgewater instead of Kenilworth if they're worried about crime?

etherael 17y ago
I'd argue that a fortress in Edgewater has less to worry about than a thatched hut in Kenilworth, especially if the socioeconomic situations of the areas in question is about to be reversed. Keep in mind, if Mac OS X ever does become the dominant player, it will be targeted by the same people currently targeting windows, I'm totally unbiased on this issue, I use linux almost exclusively, neither of these eventualities has any effect on me, it's simply a statement of fact. If OS X ever does win it's going to have to deal with the exact same set of enemies as windows currently does. But when that happens surely we'll be better off right because the OS X codebase is more inherently secure than windows? right? right? Pwn2own, how did that go down again. Hmm.
- tptacek 17y ago
  So you would recommend that someone move to a fortified house in a high-crime neighborhood, as opposed to a nice house in a rich suburb, so that they'd be less exposed to crime. Then you back that argument up by repeating my argument. Glad we're on the same page.
  - etherael 17y ago
    I'm saying the metaphor doesn't really work, when you're discussing the vulnerability of an operating system on the internet, you're talking about a security system exposing an attack surface to a potential intruder with exactly equal opportunity for exploitation, it doesn't take me any more effort to attack the guy at 203.2.193.124 than the guy at 203.2.192.124. So the question has to be how secure is the actual system on the other end? If the vast majority of computers currently run windows, it makes sense from a criminal perspective to target the weakest link, and thus the reason we have the massive proliferation of windows viruses vs the "did it to prove it could be done" proliferation of Linux or OS X based viruses. I think you already know all this but are just trying to be difficult. This is the typical response from a mac fan.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
      - etherael 17y ago
        Your last three words are the telling point; "at the moment". The edgewater / kenilworth thing, I'm Australian and thus entirely geographically ignorant about US locations, but thanks for the tip. I still don't believe that the metaphor stands up at all well. For example, I could write a really simple operating system that consisted of pretty much nothing but a filesystem and a tcp/ip stack, in order to see any of the content on the disk all you need to do is telnet to port 31337 and enter the string "bobsyeruncle^M" and it just streams out the contents of the attached filesystem. This operating system would be invulnerable to all windows viruses and worms on the net, just like OS X, but to say that it is "more secure than windows" is extremely disingenuous at best. If for some completely bizarre reason it ever became popular, putting that claim to the test would show even Joe Sixpack that it was indeed not at all more secure than windows. This is the same as the situation with OS X, if it gains majority market share it will have to deal with the same hostile environment windows currently has to deal with in terms of attackers, worms, viruses, exploits, etc. Nobody at the moment is bothering because it is only (8?9?)% and thus they can pretend that OS X is immune to viruses just like I could pretend my theoretical operating system is immune to viruses. That doesn't make it so.