Virus writers BEWARE!!!

[vmsfreaky1 0]

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So *nix isn't for the general user???
Tell that to all the Mac OS X users

Or Xandros Users

http://www.xandros.com

[livendive 8]

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Suppose you bought a new house, which was promptly infested by squirrels. Would you blame the squirrels, or would you blame the builder who left gaps under the eaves of the roof which enabled the squirrels to get in?

When mice infested my house, I trapped and killed them. It was a lot more effective than complaining about the home builder. And in any case, squirrels (and mice) are relatively unintelligent creatures just looking for shelter; they don't mean to be destructive. Authors of malicious code have no such claims to innocence, and deserve what they get in return.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[AggieDave 6]

I'm waiting for a Mac diehard to state that "Apples can't get a virus, its impossible" or "there are no viruses written to attack a Mac platform" so I can laugh at them being sorely mis-informed.



OS X was built off of the NeXtStep the OS written for the NeXt platform, which was based on one of the best systems ever written...4.3 BSD. It then evolved into OpenStep. It evolved through a few releases to OS X. So although OS X is a dirivative of a Unix system, it is very very far from being a unix based system.

Apple tried that in '88 or '89 if I remember correctly. It was called something like A/UX, based on the POSIX system (the same system that motivated Mr. Linus a few years later). All of that was based, sort of, on a few different releases of Ma Bell's Unix system...all in all Apple's actual attempt at a Unix based system SUCKED. There's a reason why a true unix varient or even a close relative isn't a factory built and released install. They fucked the pooch on it and it'll be a while until its ok to try that one again.

OS X is a good system for somethings, but a true unix varient it is not.



You are now returned to your regularly scheduled programming and the former geek AggieDave will now go back into geek retirement.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[ryoder 1,401]

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Suppose you bought a new house, which was promptly infested by squirrels. Would you blame the squirrels, or would you blame the builder who left gaps under the eaves of the roof which enabled the squirrels to get in?

When mice infested my house, I trapped and killed them. It was a lot more effective than complaining about the home builder. And in any case, squirrels (and mice) are relatively unintelligent creatures just looking for shelter; they don't mean to be destructive. Authors of malicious code have no such claims to innocence, and deserve what they get in return.

Blues,
Dave

Rodents by neccessity, must be physically on your property to cause damage. Virus writers can be anywhere on the planet. So how do you propose to trap and kill them?

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[ryoder 1,401]

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OS X is a good system for somethings, but a true unix varient it is not.

So please explain or cite sources to define how it is not a Unix variant.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[livendive 8]

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Suppose you bought a new house, which was promptly infested by squirrels. Would you blame the squirrels, or would you blame the builder who left gaps under the eaves of the roof which enabled the squirrels to get in?

When mice infested my house, I trapped and killed them. It was a lot more effective than complaining about the home builder. And in any case, squirrels (and mice) are relatively unintelligent creatures just looking for shelter; they don't mean to be destructive. Authors of malicious code have no such claims to innocence, and deserve what they get in return.

Blues,
Dave

Rodents by neccessity, must be physically on your property to cause damage. Virus writers can be anywhere on the planet. So how do you propose to trap and kill them?

The simple answer is that I don't. It's not my area of expertise. I was simply responding to your assertion that the blame should fall on the OS "builder" rather than the virus writers themselves. Of those two parties, one is trying to make something useful (albeit it flawed) while the other is trying to make something destructive. The blame falls on the latter.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[murrays 0]

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I'm waiting for a Mac diehard to state that "Apples can't get a virus, its impossible" or "there are no viruses written to attack a Mac platform" so I can laugh at them being sorely mis-informed.

It's not impossible to get a virus on a Mac.

There are about 70 Mac viruses that run on pre-OS X operating systems. It is possible to get one of these if you are running your Mac in Classic mode to run older software or you have a Mac that will allow you to boot into one of the older OSes (new macs won't boot into anything but OS X). For OS X I don't know of any that are "in the wild". There were a couple of scares a year or so ago but nothing came of it to my knowledge. The actual risk is pretty low.

The advantage of using a Mac is that you, at the present time, aren't a target for these malicious pukes that write viruses. Whatever the reason, I enjoy not having to wage a constant battle to keep the viruses, spyware and other crap off my computer. It's like being invisible...and that suits me just fine.

Until recently, my mother-in-law had a PC that was generally rendered useless every little while because her 18 year old grandson, who doesn't have a clue about safe computing or anything else for that matter, was always over at her house getting the thing loaded with spyware and viruses. On my suggestion, she bought a Mac when it was time to replace her old PC and she is thrilled with it. It always works, never gets messed up and is perfect for her basic e-mail and web-surfing needs.

(I have just spent more time replying to this message than I have spent getting rid of "unwanted and uninvited software" in my Mac in the last 5 years....which is Zero.)

Macs aren't suitable for everybody but there are an awful lot of people out there who would have fewer headaches and be much happier with one imo.

--
Murray

"No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets." - Edward Abbey

[stardog 0]

YOu might also want to create a user account that does not have administrative privaledges on the local machine. Run your machine under this account when you can. Should be most of the time unless you need to install programs for example. Also look at getting away from IE, try firefox.

[ChangoLanzao 0]

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YOu might also want to create a user account that does not have administrative privaledges on the local machine. Run your machine under this account when you can. Should be most of the time unless you need to install programs for example. Also look at getting away from IE, try firefox.

Sure would have been cheaper than buying a Mac, don't ya think?

*****************************************************

[AggieDave 6]

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So please explain or cite sources to define how it is not a Unix variant.

I did explain it. I thought it was pretty clear.

Its a watered down variation of...

Well, I'm not going to repost what I posted.

Some would argue that its a unix variant since it has its roots in Unix. If that's true then DOS is a unix system as well.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[ryoder 1,401]

There are three different ways to define "Unix":

1. OS's descended (containing remnants) from AT&T's original code.
We are talking copyright issues here.

2. OS's officially certified by The Open Group to use the "Unix" trademark. http://www.opengroup.org/certification/idx/unix.html We are talking trademark issues here.

3. OS's implementing the POSIX API's, meaning you can interoperate with other Unix systems, and you can compile and execute code written for Unix systems. (This is sometimes referred to as the "Looks like a duck; walks like a duck" definition.)

The first and second definitions are important only for legal reasons.

For the end user, the last one is the only one that matters. By this definition all of the following are Unix: Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[AggieDave 6]

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3. OS's implementing the POSIX API's...(This is sometimes referred to as the "Looks like a duck; walks like a duck" definition.)

Exactly, that's why I don't consider OS X to be a unix varient. A watered down version of an OS that was a version of a different OS based on a completed different OS that happened to be one of the best BSD varients ever made...sure. A true unix varient? No.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[lummy 4]

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3. OS's implementing the POSIX API's, meaning you can interoperate with other Unix systems, and you can compile and execute code written for Unix systems. (This is sometimes referred to as the "Looks like a duck; walks like a duck" definition.)

The first and second definitions are important only for legal reasons.

For the end user, the last one is the only one that matters. By this definition all of the following are Unix: Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, HP-UX, Solaris, etc.

By that definition, Windows NT OS's are UNIX...


Winnt Posix

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[ryoder 1,401]

Everyone I've talked to who ever tried to use it, found it unusable. The general consensus was that it was an attempt to pay lip service to the POSIX API in order to get a foot in the door of any govt/commerical contract that required POSIX compliance.

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.

[lummy 4]

I'm not trying to disagree with you, I would never consider Windows a *nix, just pointing out that the definition of what a *nix system isn't valid.

Back to the original argument, (or maybe it was the second or third variation of the argument) The notion that one OS is more secure than another is just as antiquated as the *nix definition. There are exploits, hacks, vulnerabilities and viruses for every OS in use. True, *nix systems aren't a likely target for viruses but they are vulnerable to exploits that Windows would never see. Don't patch Apache, sendmail or use an older version of DNS and lets see how long your system stays secure. Just as an example,I came across a php exploit (a student was running a canned php app in his home dir) which was exploited within a week of it being announced. Luckily in that case, our webserver runs as an unprivileged user and the damage was contained. However, I'm sure there were quite a few IRC channels which were flooded.
I also hate to say it, but the MAC being the greatest thing since sliced bread is just plain ludicrous. They are just as vulnerable to macro viruses as windows systems. And even if they aren't affected by a particular virus, they can still be carriers and help spread a virus to everyone else. a responsible computer user owes it to theirselves and to everyone else to make their system as clean and as secure as possible.

I subscribe to some security lists and get to read this arguement quite a bit. There was one study done that showed OSX is attacked just as often as WinXP (sp1)

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A recent honeypot test (6 systems, configured, plugged into broadband, left alone for two weeks) by Avantgarde in San Francisco should make it clear enough why you should be using AV (and other security in depth features.) Note the frequency of attacks on the platforms in the following table - notice the two favorites - and unpatched XP box and a Mac OS X box, almost identical in number of attempts. Seems to me the attackers must know something about which platforms yield results given the number of times they attack particular platforms.
Platform Total attacks Attacks/day Attacks/hour
XP SP1 139,024 8,177 341
OS X 138,647 8,155 339
Win SBS 25,222 1,400 61
XP SP2 1,386 82 3.4
XP w/ZoneAlarm 848 50 2.1
Linspire 795 46 1.9

If it's necessary, I can post quite a few posts from sys admins who have seen quite a few Mac's with infections..

I'll repeat, each and every one of us is reponsible for keeping our systems as clean and as secure as possible. Maybe the next virus I won't get is because a DZ.COM MAC user used an AV scanner or maybe I CAN get to my favorite webpage because another DZ.COM Nix user made sure his system wasn't vulnerable to a DOS attack.

I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. I promise not to TP Davis under canopy.. eat sushi, get smoochieTTK#1

[ryoder 1,401]

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I subscribe to some security lists and get to read this arguement quite a bit. There was one study done that showed OSX is attacked just as often as WinXP (sp1)

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A recent honeypot test (6 systems, configured, plugged into broadband, left alone for two weeks) by Avantgarde in San Francisco should make it clear enough why you should be using AV (and other security in depth features.) Note the frequency of attacks on the platforms in the following table - notice the two favorites - and unpatched XP box and a Mac OS X box, almost identical in number of attempts. Seems to me the attackers must know something about which platforms yield results given the number of times they attack particular platforms.
Platform Total attacks Attacks/day Attacks/hour
XP SP1 139,024 8,177 341
OS X 138,647 8,155 339
Win SBS 25,222 1,400 61
XP SP2 1,386 82 3.4
XP w/ZoneAlarm 848 50 2.1
Linspire 795 46 1.9

.

There is a difference between "attack" and "succeed in an attack".
Here is a link to the article you reference: http://www.avantgarde.com/ttln113004.html

If you read the article, it says:

"While receiving more attacks, the Microsoft XP SP2 machine and the Macintosh OS X 10.3.3 were not compromised by the attacks."

So why should I care how many times someone ATTEMPTED to hack a machine, but did not succeed???

"There are only three things of value: younger women, faster airplanes, and bigger crocodiles" - Arthur Jones.