Proof that all viruses are written by Apple cultists
Posted by Ron Coleman on March 21, 2007
Likelihood of Success
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Likelihood of Exposure
FIAR said
If mac is like linux then it is impossible, by default settings anyway, to change system files or directories without starting a “root” session and approving the changes.
Windows is an easy target. Why should malware writers waste time figuring out how to override root authorizations when they can create self-installing windows apps?
FIAR said
In other words, the criminals simply follow the path of least resistance, just like everything else in the universe does.
zach. said
FIAR,
is it path of least resistance or maximum damage? if you’re a terrorist are you going to go after the WTC or the Hello Deli?
FIAR said
Both.
Ron Coleman said
Especially if it’s the kind of terrorism you don’t even have to get out of your chair to commit!
jaymaster said
Maybe they figure there’s nothing inside a Mac worth stealing or looking at.
Probably just a hard drive full of pretty pictures and iTunes songs.
Most hackers aren’t artists, and vice versa….
Ron Coleman said
Are you saying they aren’t sensitive types like Mac users?
Bob Miller said
My theory is that the existence of exploitable flaws is a revenue-enhancer for the Windows software biz. As actual viruses materialize, the potential for selling “protection” escalates. Today’s e-protection racket! So, while the software companies may not be creating the viruses themselves or through subcontractors (who knows?), they sure do benefit! Therefore, they do not exercize themselves unduly to make their handiwork virus resistant.
double-plus-ungood said
Or it may be that individuals who are writing viruses, whose aim it is to spread to as many computers as possible, may decide that creating a virus that could only effect about four percent of desktop computers may just be a waste of time.
Ron Coleman said
Yeah, but you know what DPU? Everyone likes a niche — especially one, like Mac users, with a juicy and influential demographic.
Dean Esmay said
If you know much about programming and operating system design, your realize that it’s a simple matter of the Mac OS–which is really a variant of Unix underneath–is much more secure against this sort of thing. It just is.
Listen: if you know how Windows works under the hood, you realize that it’s about as secure as your average house. Whereas the Macs–along with the rest of the Unix-based systems–are about as secure as Fort Knox.
I can only speak in analogies so long, but that’s the basic gist of it. There are literally hundreds of thousands of working viruses and such for Windows. There are literally dozens of them for Unix-based systems even though there are millions of Unix-based systems all over the planet and they are especially popular with college-aged computer science geeks, the very people most likely to do juvenile things like write malicious software code. Yet viruses for those platforms are so rare that the few that have been documented have mostly been done as “proof of concept” by academics.
The reason is that these systems are more secure, period.
Blaming Microsoft for being the biggest target is like this:
Every week, Fort Knox gets raided by bandits who are rarely caught and make off with large boats of gold. And those in charge of Fort Knox say, “Well what do you expect, when we have all this GOLD lying around?”
Microsoft simply has never taken security seriously enough. That’s its real problem. No amount of excuse-making will get around that basic fact.
They lose on this argument of the marketing wars because Apple’s right and they’re wrong. Simple as that.
By the way, I do not currently own or use any Apple products, personally or professionally.