macs keep on truckin'
"As the latest Microsoft Windows infection spread across the Internet last
week, knocking out thousands of PCs in homes and businesses, Macintosh
users did what they usually do during a computer virus outbreak -- they
continued working."
-- David Zeiler writing for The Baltimore Sun in his regular column
"
href="http://www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/pluggedin/bal-columnist-mac,0,6316092.columnist">The
Mac Experience". Aug. 21, 2003.
This is a great quote... taken out of context. Zeiler argues in this
column (and rebutted by readers in his
href="http://www.sunspot.net/technology/custom/pluggedin/bal-mac082803,0,1353478.column">next)
that just because there have been few (about 50 for the Classic Mac OS
versus about 70,000 for Windows) recent viruses or worms that target Macs
doesn't mean that there can't or won't be any at all.
With help from some experts, he argues that Macs are likely just as
suspetible to attack as Windows.
As his readers note in the Aug. 28 column, Mac OS X installs with all of
its incoming services (web server, SSH/remote log in, FTP, etc.) turned
off. A user has to explicitly give the Mac permission to run one of these
service. However, that does not preclude a malicious coder from writing
software which gets sent in an e-mail attachment and starts enabling these
services, sending more viruses and reigning havoc down on Mac users
everywhere.
The simple truth of it is, with only something like four or five percent
of the worldwide computer users running Mac OS, no one bothers writing
viruses and worms for the platform. It's not worth the time for someone
looking to cause real disrruptions. You can't shut down whole governmental
agencies or major airlines by targeting Macs. A Mac virus or worm simply
wouldn't have the same impact as one Windows.
Of course, with Mac OS X's Unix roots, it might be easy to create a virus
or worm that exploits many different flavors of Unix (Mac OS X, BSD
variations, Linux, Solaris, AIX, and so on) and create some real
nastiness. Fortunately, the overall security of all the Unix variations
seems to be higher than that of Microsoft's efforts.
For now, I'll just go on with the smug satisfaction that my personal
computers are not the basis of security and bug jokes across the globe.
Sure, the jokes are instead about the former fruity colors and lack of
applications (both now very false accusations) and the higher cost for
"slower" computers (megahertz myth -- blah blah blah) but I can still use
my Mac through the Windows storms that blow through the Internet every few
weeks.
And I recommend you do the same.
;)
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