On Dec 4, 2004, at 23:02, Harry Jacobson-Beyer wrote: > I've heard hackers don't attack Mac machines because there are so few > of > them (relative to the pcs). If the roles were reversed, ie Macs having > the major share of the market, wouldn't the hackers be writing code to > get to them? >
I think this is only a little bit true. It is very much MS spin to keep corporate types buying their insecure systems. For one, before the Mac moved over to Unix, it was very hard to crack, so I suspect that crackers spent their time on DOS and MS Windows because it was so much easier to crack. For two, now that the Mac is Unix, it is using an operating system which has been in existence for quite a bit longer than any MS operating system, so there has been a huge amount of time to build exploits, and hence to secure the OS. [When I was an undergrad, and Unix was relatively new, there were all sorts of ways to take over whole networks.] For three, I don't believe that MS really cares all that much about security, because they never really designed their OS for security. They also patch rather slowly, often leaving known holes open until they are force to close them by some exploit. Look at it from MS' standpoint. They put together something hard to administer and in need of a bevy of experts to keep it going. Then they sell all sorts of MS Certified 'Engineer' titles and sell all sorts of seminars and products which teach people how to get security working on their machines. Then they talk the talk about security, and people believe that they are really working on security. Shoot. They have zero incentive to have a truly secure system. Bill | The next meeting of the Louisville Computer Society will | be January 25. The LCS Web page is <http://www.kymac.org>. | List posting address: <mailto:macgroup at erdos.math.louisville.edu> | List Web page: <http://erdos.math.louisville.edu/macgroup>
