What is Digg?367 Comments
- epistemological, on 12/22/2007, -6/+150"Given Apple's marketing toward the young and the trendy, you wouldn't expect the U.S. Army to be much of a customer. Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Wallington is hoping hackers won't expect it either."
So maybe publishing an article about it is not the best idea 0.o - isunktheship, on 12/22/2007, -16/+124So THATS why this war is so expensive!
- ZephyrNinety, on 12/22/2007, -9/+82Wouldn't Linux be cheap AND more secure? Not that I got a problem with Macs, but Linux is so cheap/free.
- SirBotchness, on 12/22/2007, -10/+76Next week we'll have an article stating that new army apparel includes black turtle necks and smug attitudes.
- Yarkz, on 12/22/2007, -9/+68*grabs popcorn for flame wars and pushes this too front page*
- JeffreyLloyd, on 12/22/2007, -39/+87They should have been doing this long ago.
- SuperMoses, on 12/22/2007, -12/+60Digg BREAKING: Hackers create hacks for Macs now that Army has switched.
- Ossuary, on 12/22/2007, -8/+53Eeeegads at the flame wars this could cause... Either way, diversity is good.
- NeoNightmareX, on 12/22/2007, -8/+53Dugg for rhyming title
- BryanJK, on 12/22/2007, -13/+54Actually wrong, the Unix/Linux/Mac operating systems are far more secure than windows. Such as it is harder too get directly too the core and other things like that.
- darkhero, on 12/22/2007, -18/+59Why don't they just use Linux and save a trillion dollars.
- mllawso, on 12/22/2007, -17/+541. Everyone uses windows. Virus coders want to target the largest demographic to increase their virus' chance of propagation.
2. Windows has the largest amount of 3rd party software written for it, and people don't think twice about what they install More software = more exploits (Think Flash, Java, etc)
3. Windows doesn't support real user distiction via file permisions. It's realativly easy to write code in windows that modifies "protected" files.
4. Everyone and their pet dog can create a program in windows. There is a huge selection of free (or pirated) and easy to use SDKs floating arount the web. - Kwipper, on 12/22/2007, -6/+32Feel free to bash the Macintosh all you want, but for god sakes man. Have some respect for the soldiers that are serving our country, and dying on the front lines overseas, thanks to our president who is a war mongering ***** with a speech impediment.
- stalefries, on 12/22/2007, -1/+24*to
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -3/+24"Apple addressed this vulnerability within their Mac OS X 2007-009 security update."
...from the same link you provided. - BossKey, on 12/22/2007, -6/+27Simple. The virus count of OS X is nowhere near proportional to its market share. Not when the number of viruses is at or near zero. Apple is not an invisible company. They have high visibility and really snobby marketing (I am a Mac user). Surely they are a big enough target that someone would be proud to bring down millions of Macs run by users complacent about security? Can't be that hard, can it, or so you say? Whoever did that would become a hacker hero of the universe.
But no one has. So it isn't just market share or visibility.
Hmmm....maybe it's the ARCHITECTURE? - atdigg, on 12/22/2007, -5/+26Like hackers read Forbes...
- moxx, on 12/22/2007, -2/+23The Air Force buys macs actually, my bro is in airforce intel and they have mac's in some of their buildings.
- elipabst, on 12/22/2007, -1/+22Same reason they buy $90 hammers and $300 toilet seats.
- antitab, on 12/22/2007, -1/+20"are they using 1990s technology in Vista"
Well, yes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT
Then again, Apple is using 1980s technology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEXTSTEP - BossKey, on 12/22/2007, -2/+20@ferrariman60
Apple has been visible for years now, ever since the iPod. And the Mac, though low in market share (which only represents a slice out of time), is not low in installed base (which represents machines in use). Millions upon millions of users over 20 years.
Come on, hackers have had most of the decade to crack OS X, are they that lame?
...or maybe...is it the OS X architecture? - Wazzuper1, on 12/22/2007, -4/+22Wrong. A "long time ago", the Mac OS was laughed at for its instability. Prior to OS X, it was really just a POS. It sure loved to crash on me when I was playing Jigsaw :P
And I don't know why the article has come out now...military branches have been using Macs some time shortly after OS X came out. - KanosWRX, on 12/22/2007, -13/+30They will just learn new ways to hack the Mac seriously people, don't you know no system is immune from being hacked. There is always a way, the Mac OS isn't some god send like people may want to think just because its based off Unix.
- Scheissen, on 12/22/2007, -8/+25So ignoring the fanboys, does the Mac gets viruses or not? I think OS X has a 5-10% market share so there is still a large amount of people to infect if there are viruses. If so, then why is Windows so vulnerable like are they using 1990s technology in Vista?
- robodan, on 12/22/2007, -2/+19I don't understand why people are burying this Linux comment. It seems like an excellent point. Linux is FREE, and just like OSX, it is a *nix based system.
- Virgule, on 12/22/2007, -0/+16because they would save a trillion dollars!
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -7/+23I'm sure the virus writers are burning up their keyboards as we speak.....
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -6/+22Yes, cause as we know, hackers have hacked OS X too many times to count.
- masterc, on 12/22/2007, -1/+16*how's
- Shootfast, on 12/22/2007, -6/+20See guys? THAT's where the extra 10 billion dollars is going, not on war machines at all!
- ha1f, on 12/22/2007, -1/+15You lack comprehensive reading skills.
- ha1f, on 12/22/2007, -0/+13It's a generalization through exaggeration. Anyone one with 1/4 a brain can see that he doesn't mean everyone, because "clearly" not everyone uses Windows. Stop trying to pick fights, fanboy.
- macattacks10, on 12/22/2007, -0/+13Wzzuper, just so you know, those are called trojans because they require the user to install, and even those are next to nonexistant. Viruses are not the same thing as trojans because a virus installs itself unknowingly and without permission. Those ones you granted permission.
- TruthKid, on 12/22/2007, -1/+14We do have linux on some of our systems. A lot of the actual tactical systems we use are based off Unix. Our vehicle systems were based off of Solaris, and they just switched to Red Hat. They teach us Army computer guys Unix/Solaris/Linux so the stuff is out there. Unfortunately you have a bunch of people stuck in their ways, and instead of saving tax payers millions of dollars by not renewing our corporate XP and Office licenses and switching to Open Office and (insert linux distro here). This would also solve the problem of idiots circumventing security to install their own personal software (huge problem).
As far as Uncle Sam replacing its millions of windows boxes with macs, not gonna happen in our lifetimes. - Yarkz, on 12/22/2007, -3/+16Thank you :)
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -13/+26Before you Microsoft fanboys scream that OS X is insecure, please provide us with all these Mac users who have been hit by viruses designed for the Mac. Links would be nice. I personally know of the Ultracodec phishing malware, but malware doesn't count as a virus.
Before you reply please note: The first criteria for a virus is that it copies itself and infects a computer without permission or knowledge of the user. The second criteria of a virus, is that it copies itself. - isunktheship, on 12/22/2007, -3/+15oh wow you really are sitting here watching flame wars. hows the popcorn?
- gquaglia, on 12/22/2007, -1/+13Yeah, and isn't that big blue "E" the internet?
- GregR, on 12/22/2007, -5/+17The whole security through obscurity thing has been disproven many times for those that aren't too deaf to hear.
- BossKey, on 12/22/2007, -1/+13Here are some people who run a project from Mac laptops.
Are you calling them stupid?
http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/people/20040103_Sp_EDL_ ... - inactive, on 12/22/2007, -7/+19Why don't you give us some actual evidence to that assertion? Can you even name any actual viruses that have affected Macs in the last three years?
- slayerab, on 12/22/2007, -1/+12How else are we going to upload the virus that detroys the alien mothership? It is about damn time
- TunaFisu, on 12/22/2007, -0/+11Actually, to put it short, unix is a real multiuser system that had a real security scheme that is based on limiting user access when windows hadn't even been thought of. As far as security is concerned, Vista is just now catching up to what unix had in the early 80's.
Jobs did probably one of the best decisions of his life when he based os X on a working system and just built a flashy interface for it. - jaxcs, on 12/22/2007, -4/+14I don't want to get into a pissing contest cause that's just a waste of time. While some Mac fanboys will say that the Mac is better because it's OS is just superior, what the Army is saying is that the Mac is better because there are fewer viruses written to hack Mac servers. The former is an unqualified statement of superiority, while the second is a factual statement. It isn't that a month from now that Mac specific viruses won't pop up by the hundreds, it's that as of right now, there are fewer viruses that can affect the Mac.
- LostinService, on 12/22/2007, -2/+12Given the Army's ability to fight a ground war recently, maybe they might be able to win a flame war. :D
- gaucho4, on 12/22/2007, -1/+11Exactly. CTU Los Angeles uses Macs all the time.
- inactive, on 12/22/2007, -1/+10That Secunia report has already been debunked.
Some vulnerabilities where actual faults within Apple’s proprietary code:
a Leopard Mail attachment could launch an attachment with a malicious script in its resource fork
an Apple Java implementation flaw could allow a bypass of Keychain controls to add or delete keychain items
a vpnd flaw could allow a hacker to crash the VPN server.
The rest were related to external software:
14 flaws in Sun’s Java SDK or JRE
two tcpdump flaws in open source code could result in a crash
6 Perl library flaws that could result in a crash
a GNU tar flaw could play into a user assisted file deletion
CUPS could crash
two Samba flaws had unknown consequences
a Python flaw could cause a crash
four flaws in different versions of Rails could result in remote reading of xml files or man in the middle attacks.
an OpenSSL flaw could result in certificate spoofing - isunktheship, on 12/22/2007, -1/+10Lol, at least correct everything: "Oh wow, you really are sitting there watching flame wars. How's the popcorn?"
- PaulPinfield, on 12/22/2007, -2/+11No, they read Digg...
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