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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 sy

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.

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- 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.
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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.
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