How safe are apples?

BillScarab

Sorry, are you suggesting spammers are targetting people with specific OS's? Spammers just target email addresses regardles of what OS they run.

BillScarab

Sorry, just re-read your post and I see what you're on about now. Too much Speckled Hen.

It's a good point but there's a big difference between changing the name of a bank in your spam email and hacking a totally different OS.

Blacksheep1979

alexjohnson wrote: »

It isn't "finger in ear" but observed fact. No, that isn't denial, but observed reality: hence the QED.

Sorry but hardly QED - you've proved nothing, lets go through your previous 'facts'

if you put a Mac on the internet will you get that worm that floats around infecting XP machines? Nope

Do you? No - could you? Yes

Are you vulnerable to fly-by Active-X exploits? Nope.

But you are vulnerable to quicktime exploits - kinda makes up for it

Do you have to worry about attachments? Not really.

Yes you do or would if there were more targeted attacks

Can anyone hijack your machine to make it dial up very expensive lines?

Erm look at the link in my 1st post... Run code and you can make it do wha tyou want

Do you need to run anti-virus software that will slow down your machine? Nope.

Currently not really but again more market share more likely to need it. Again - hardly point proven, just because your house is out in the middle of nowhere doesn't make it more secure, just less likely target.

alexjohnson wrote: »

A brief walk through my spam inbox also suggests the "smaller user base" argument doesn't hold a lot of water as initially yes, it was all Citibank (US) and PayPal. Now it is any number of obscure US banks and credit card outfits. Someone out there has read about fat tails. I very much doubt the Mac market is being ignored: economics simply doesn't allow that to work. for any length of time.

How hard is it to write an up to date exploit? How hard is it to write an email.... I think miller who performed the exploit (and I'd like to think I probably do too) has a touch more experience in this than you and what he said regarding why he targeted the mac over the windows/linux system

I thought of the three it was the easiest

QED?

PrinceGaz

superscaper wrote: »

Why? The cyanide is naturally occurring in the seeds. :rolleyes: You didn't think I was referring to pesticides or something were you?

Umm, yes I did :embarasse

Anyway as to whether the small userbase of Apples affects how secure they are, I'd say yes and no.

No, because being less used doesn't magically mean it has less vulnerabilities.

Yes, because fewer people are spending time finding ways to exploit the vulnerabilities which exist.

The whole PC vs Mac security question is echoed by the similar IE vs Firefox vs Opera browser security, the difference being the browser market-share has shifted far more than that of PCs and Macs. Before Firefox rose in popularity, attacks on it were quite uncommon. Now that Firefox has a considerable number of users, vulnerabilities in it are frequently targetted such that it needs patching as often as IE.

Meanwhile Opera, with a very small but loyal userbase of around 2% can go for literally months without a single vulnerability being found, because hardly anyone is bothering trying to find vulnerabilities in it. But if Opera's popularity rose to say 20%, it would probably need patching just as often as other browsers.

It doesn't matter what type of computer you have or what you run on it. As someone else said earlier, the most important thing in determining how safe a computer is is the person using it.

superscaper

PrinceGaz wrote: »

Umm, yes I did :embarasse

Ahh well, completely naturally occurring I'm afraid. So just don't stuff yourself with apple seeds (although it'd have to be an awful lot to do any damage).

jmc160

alexjohnson wrote: »

It isn't "finger in ear" but observed fact. No, that isn't denial, but observed reality: hence the QED.

I think you mean "selectively manipulated".

Look at South Africa (hear me out on this one). I have a South African extended family, and therefore I meet a lot of them. You often hear talk of things like "95% of criminals in South Africa are black". Well, yes, because 95% of the population is black!

I think the same stands here - there's a lot less attacks on Macs because there's a lot less Macs. This attitude that Mac users seem to have of "My machine is untouchable!" will IMHO come back and bite them hard at some point when all these Macs with no AV software get hit.

QED?? You've made some bold claims of fact - let's see them backed up with some references.

JustPassingBy

jmc160 wrote: »

I think the same stands here - there's a lot less attacks on Macs because there's a lot less Macs. This attitude that Mac users seem to have of "My machine is untouchable!" will IMHO come back and bite them hard at some point when all these Macs with no AV software get hit.

QED?? You've made some bold claims of fact - let's see them backed up with some references.

The number or frequency of attacks is not a problem. It's nature of the threat and the rate of success which should be looked at.

There are no viruses for competently administered unix-like systems and I'm not aware of such a system being shipped in an unsafe state They cannot exist because of the separation between user and system.

Perhaps you would like to outline how you think a virus could cross system boundaries and spread to other systems.

Brian.

JustPassingBy

PrinceGaz wrote: »

It doesn't matter what type of computer you have or what you run on it. As someone else said earlier, the most important thing in determining how safe a computer is is the person using it.

A user decides to make all the system files on their machine executable by anyone and world readable. That's fine. They have the right to shoot themselves in the foot. 1 system down; 100,000,000 still safe.

Brian.

JustPassingBy

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

Do you need to run anti-virus software that will slow down your machine? Nope.

Currently not really but again more market share more likely to need it. Again - hardly point proven, just because your house is out in the middle of nowhere doesn't make it more secure, just less likely target.

No. Market share is irrelevant. There will never be a virus for a competently administered unix-like system.

The location of your house is of no consequence if it is guarded day and night by five battalions of the SAS.

Brian.

superscaper

JustPassingBy wrote: »

The location of your house is of no consequence if it is guarded day and night by five battalions of the SAS.

Brian.

Methinks you have a bit too much faith in the Mac's security. You can never prove any computer system to be safe and you can never prove the market share to be irrelevant until it actually changes in reality (to much higher than the 6% or whatever it is).

The mac uses a writeable medium to store it's operating system, by definition that will always theoretically make it potentially vulnerable. You certainly can't say "never" as if that's a fact.