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315 Comments
- baalzebub, on 10/12/2007, -21/+382dont worry, they will...
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -34/+228I thought they already have!
Voice Recognition Hack...
Zero Day Hack...
http://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&q=vista+hacks ...
etc. - jman8888, on 10/12/2007, -28/+197Trust me.. Its happening i give it 3 months to have 1000 viruses. Any takers?
- DeathBorn, on 10/12/2007, -24/+161Future news:
"Gates retracts dare after Vista operating system exploited" - easy4lif, on 10/12/2007, -24/+127LOL, and thats why we hear about all these macs being taken over all the time.
- zachlutz, on 10/12/2007, -22/+101I don't think this title or description accurately represents Gates' harsh comments. While I believe he was wrong about saying the Mac is less secure, this posting makes it seem as if Gates is asserting that Vista is unhackable. Only time will tell in how often Vista gets exploited. My money says it'll happen much more frequently than on the Mac.
- easy4lif, on 10/12/2007, -12/+90he's gonna regret this
- NickDouglas, on 10/12/2007, -4/+80"And to our enemies I say, bring 'em on!"
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -31/+95@7of7
You're either out of your mind, totally ignorant or deliberately lying. Windows security is a joke and always has been. Vista will be no different and you know it. - Elranzer, on 10/12/2007, -18/+79It's not the smaller market share. On Mac OS X (as well as most UNIXs including Linux), you do not run as an Administrator/Root user. The "Power User" is prompted for the admin password when executing any admin tasks.
In Windows Vista, you still run as the Administrator(!), it just has this annoying User Account Control feature, which by the way can be suppressed as a compile option by executables.
Try doing a mass exploit when your average joe user is not running as administrator/root. - metalhead3767, on 10/12/2007, -46/+105In order for the voice recognition hack to work your voice recognition needs to be turned on and your microphone needs to be as close to your speakers as it is to your mouth. Its extremely unlikely. Besides the person would need to play the sound on the computer that would make these commands. Its all FUD. There are no real exploits in vista.
Another story was posted about the amount of exploits in XP compared to Mac. Mac had way more but less people use the OS so it is not a target. All the apple people buried it. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -10/+65Sounds a lot like something another loser executive said a few years ago: "Bring 'em on."
- randomgeek, on 10/12/2007, -12/+55He makes a statement like that, then links to a blog. Not just any blog, but a zdnet blog. Credibility -1. The blog also appears to be exhibiting the digg effect because every Apple user just called ***** on the parent post.
- gcnaddict, on 10/12/2007, -16/+57The voice recognition "hack" isn't a hack because it's not exploiting a flaw. Nothing gets compromised. There is no buffer overflow, no illegal operations, etc. None of that exists. Everything is working as planned. As such, it's the fault of the person not using a directional microphone or a headset.
- glasgowm, on 10/12/2007, -15/+56"Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine."
Yes, there's thousands of security holes for the mac..
I could name a list of viruses off the top of my head,
err...
oh wait, there's none. - DiggChainey, on 10/12/2007, -12/+50Too bad he didn't bet instead of dare.
- PasteEater, on 10/12/2007, -44/+75@jimmypetro and all others
Can we put this argument to rest already? Pretty please?
The Mac has a smaller marketshare. We know this. Is it less of a target because of this? Probably.
But who really cares? The fact is, there are no viruses for the Mac. None. There is no malware or spyware. None. At least, not right now.
All software has bugs in it. That's just the way it is. The whole Month of Apple Bugs bears this out (although, in fairness, some of the bugs that they posted were not Apple's fault... for instance Transmit is not an Apple product, nor is Flip4Mac).
I happen to believe that the Mac is more secure because it is built upon a better foundation. But I could believe that the Mac has no viruses because it doesn't rain every Sunday. Either way, I don't have to waste my time dealing with all of that crap.
Honestly, we really need to find something better to argue about, because we just keep repeating the same things ad nauseam. - NewChar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+31Tomorrow's headline: Microsoft's Gates' dares "anybody" to exploit Vista
- Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -7/+33He'll regret? He's hardly even active at MS anymore. His poor successor will have to deal with all the crap. Ballmer is hardly doing well with the boat he's now the captain of. If anyone will regret Gate's comments, Ballmer will.
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27"Vista isn't that big of a change..."
Are you serious!? It's gotta be at least 60% shinier! - quoigonfishin, on 10/12/2007, -10/+35@7of7
First of all, the article you refer to is a year old. Secondly, the chart shows that Apple patched every vulnerability in a timely manner. The only unpatched vulnerability on the chart was one that was announced the same month the article was written. XP on the other hand had three unpatched security threats with one dating all the way back to February of 2004.
So, what's your point? - actorboy, on 10/12/2007, -6/+30@ jimv
Great stuff, I'm sure. But I can say that, as a Mac user since 1995, pointing to all the opposing articles that you want will not negate my 12 years of trouble-free usage. - jimmypetro, on 10/12/2007, -89/+112I don't doubt that Vista has better security features than Mac, but unfortunately for Bill Gates, nobody is going to waste their time hacking an OS that less than 10% of people use.
- GrimRage, on 10/12/2007, -4/+26This story reminded me of the Mac vs. PC commercial ("Security") where everything PC, which is now running Vista, does has to be "Canceled" or "Allowed" by some secret-agent-looking guy in a suit. Hilarious.
http://images.apple.com/movies/us/apple/getamac/apple-getamac-security_480x376.mov - baxtermaddux, on 10/12/2007, -6/+28isnt this kinda like Bush telling Al Qaeda to "Bring it on!"...that turned out real well didnt it
- geometry, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23I've see this argument all the time and I used to believe it. But that isn't the truth. OS X isn't virus free because nobody cares to, that may be a small part, but it is a much tighter system. Mac's are now about 10% of the computer market. What percentage of those run virus protection? Adware protection? 0% is the answer. If somebody could write code to attack that 10% there would be nothing stopping them beyond the OS. Any hacker would jump at that chance if it were easy, but it's not.
- TJunkers, on 10/12/2007, -17/+37I doubt it is as good as a mac, and if it is: Give it a year and it'll be as bad as XP.For me - No viruses, no crashes, no bugs... I'll stick with my mac.
- COMCON4US, on 10/12/2007, -7/+26I wonder if Microsoft has an exit strategy :)
- drlha, on 10/12/2007, -4/+21"Ax" or "Axe": both spellings are valid.
- JavertHolmes, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21I'm waiting for an OS that does the following at the kernel level:
1) Does not ever touch system files/directories unless it's a driver, with proper OS warnings that the system space is about to be modified.
2) Disallows all programs from accessing the internet until the user allows it to. (Yes, there are firewalls that do this.)
3) All applications installed by the user can only write to their install directory, meaning that all applications run in a sandbox where the installation folder is the only area that can be messed around with. If a file is executed in /x/y/z, then /x/y/z/a can be written to, /x/y/b can't. What games and productivity software need to write elsewhere and why? Why do games need to be installed in admin mode if all I want is one user to be able to access them? - Dhalsim007, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18BILL! Ixnay on the ackerhay! I'm running Vista Bill ... SHhhhhhhh!
- nhassan, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19billy pushes some random buttons, and error comes up
- imnojezus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17@lilshieste
Your analogy, which states that correlation doesn't equal causation, doesn't support your argument which states the exact opposite.
And in any case, it's a bad argument. What hacker in the world wouldn't want to make themselves famous for being the first to come up with a real exploit for the Mac? It'd be all over the news, and the "smug Mac fanbois" would be crying into their keyboards. Small market share or not, no one would pass up that much fame in favor of coming up with yet another Windows exploit. - ddunkin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+19MOAB lost its of credibility with me when on day 2 the vulnerability they released was for a 3rd party app. In fact, 6 of the 30 vulnerabilities are 3rd party apps.
- Guitarsenal, on 10/12/2007, -7/+22I remember the last time a world leader said, "Bring it on!"...
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -4/+19"Macs currently account for about 2-6% (depending on your source) of home PCs worldwide. It would be just as stupid to conclude that this has nothing to do with the number of viruses targeting Macs today."
Great. How about some deduction? If Macs are actually less secure than Windows and they comprise of 2-6% of the market, there should be more than 2% of the total malware (viruses and spyware)? Would you agree? Yet, there is absolutely none. No spyware and no viruses. There haven't been any since OS X was released. So far it's just a handful of proofs of concept. OS 9 was plagued by more than 50 viruses and it's market share was even lower. I really really would love a rational explanation for this that involves the Mac being less secure than Windows and nobody caring to hack the Mac.
/The preceding Smug-free (TM) message brought to you by the letter Y. - Berkana, on 10/12/2007, -3/+18. . . and Billy busts out his ax, and starts hacking away.
- HunterTV, on 10/12/2007, -3/+16Did he wash down a bottle of stupid pills before going on the Vista press tour or what?
- milomilomilo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Yeah, great idea. Because we all know what happened when microsoft challenged people the hack the 360 and touted how it was "un-crackable".
It's never a good idea to challenge hackers and crackers to screw with your software. It's like challenging a gorilla to a wrestling match. - aeiou, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15So now we judge security by how many Pages a google search finds?
- DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13The last one we will see will likely be:
Gates dares anybody to exploit Vista"." - GruntboyX, on 10/12/2007, -40/+53i know i will get dugg down for saying this but... i disagree with zachlutz . I think Bill comments on Mac were correct. What Bill was trying to say is that Mac has not done anything to improve its security. And that the notion of Mac being secure is a farce. Bill was using this interview to make the point that Microsoft is committed to security.
Now in apples defense i am sure leapord will do something to improve security. But as usual they are being very secretive about there internals. However if they are just banking on the bsd core for its security then they are in a long battle. - Cheeseness, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14This [article] seems to have an [incredible] amount [of] editorial [additions].
Why don't people ever link to the full article?
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16934083/site/newsweek/ - jman8888, on 10/12/2007, -2/+15Linux? (Seems like linux to me)
- grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17"I thought they already have!
Voice Recognition Hack..."
That one is just as lame as MOAB counting a VLC flaw in its Apple bugs last month.
For the benefit of those living under a rock who have not heard, the Voice Recognition Hack works as follows:
Using the speech recognition built into Vista, someone could potentially record a task like 'Computer Delete C' as a mp3, trick the user into downloading and playing the file. If the instruction coming out of the speakers could be 'heard' by the microphone, Vista may just do what it has been told.
Problems with hack:
Speech recognition disabled by default, so straight away, you have to eliminate any Vista system which has not enabled speech recognition.
UAC enabled by default, so unless the user has actively switched it off, instructions like this would pop up the Allow Cancel box, which would require the user to accept, and should they hear Computer delete c, I am tipping they would hit cancel. UAC can not be controlled by speech.
Directional Mic can not be used, so if the user has a good mic or a headset (likely if they are using speech recognition), it would not work.
User would have to be convinced to download and play the mp3.
Hilarious in concept, yes
Likely to happen, nope.
That said, of course there will be security issues, forget Bill's challenge. Windows is by far the largest target of malware, because of its popularity and historically because its security model is more lax. Fortunately, this has improved a lot in the past 5 years, notably with XP SP2 and IIS 6. It is stupid to wish security problems on Windows, because even if you don't use it, chances are someone you know and care about does. Chances are that your personal details, email address, etc are being stored on someones Windows box. - Dayz, on 10/12/2007, -7/+19I'll stick with my free linux computer
- RiverBelow, on 10/12/2007, -24/+36Wow, that is absolutely classic. An operating system with 114,000 viruses written for it has better security than a system with about 3, 1 of them in circulation.
You don't even need a firewall on a Mac, don't tell me being able to surf the net without second thoughts with your firewall off is worse security than allowing & denying everything that happens.
If I turned my firewall off on my Windows Vista computer I'd probably be freaking out just browsing Digg.
Every day it seems Bill Gates continues to lose it. Well, I think the last drop of respect I had for him has been depleted... - MioTheGreat, on 10/12/2007, -5/+17"In Windows Vista, you still run as the Administrator(!), it just has this annoying User Account Control feature, which by the way can be suppressed as a compile option by executables."
The only way to do that is to tell Windows to run your application as a limited user with a manifest, or by tweaking the parameters with which a process is spawned, in which case it's a non-issue, since the app can't make any system-wide changes. I'm relatively certain there isn't a way to start a process as an Administrator without the UAC prompt (When UAC is enabled, of course). It wouldn't be much use if you could. - DaffyDuck, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16lilshieste,
Here's a little chart I made:
OS 9
Viruses~50 / market share - 1-5% > ratio - something
OS 10
Viruses=0 / market share - 2-6% > ratio - nothing
Difference between the two - Security? - mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -3/+15Well its a good shot for a PC operating system. Who knows?
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