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Date:      Wed, 2 May 2001 10:47:49 -0700
From:      Alfred Perlstein <bright@wintelcom.net>
To:        Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org>
Cc:        security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: What do folks think of this article?
Message-ID:  <20010502104749.O18676@fw.wintelcom.net>
In-Reply-To: <200105021702.LAA24669@lariat.org>; from brett@lariat.org on Wed, May 02, 2001 at 11:02:20AM -0600
References:  <200105021702.LAA24669@lariat.org>

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* Brett Glass <brett@lariat.org> [010502 10:02] wrote:
> http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2001/nf2001051_727.htm

As usual someone is trying to raise an issue that's
already common knowledge.

I mean:

  So, where security was concerned, Apple users enjoyed a free
  ride. Same with virus attacks.  Mac users avoided the carnage of
  the I Love You virus in May, 2000. Nor did they have to worry
  about nasty Trojan-horse attacks, such as the SubSeven variety
  that could give hackers remote control of a computer. Mac users
  lived in a digital Garden of Eden, a simpler place free of
  serpents.

The "I Love You virus" ?  Because it's a Unix like OS?  Afaik 
"I Love You" was a Microsoft Outhouse^H^H^H^H^Hlook problem, not
a Unix one.

Sure making a Macintosh actually useful by having it run an Unix
like OS might make a more interesting _target_, it sure doesn't
mean that it has to run all the same services.

I imagine if Apple was smart, the default "desktop configuration"
wouldn't be running any services to expose it to this kind of risk.

I do agree that Apple should invest some resources into security
on OS X, but I doubt they aren't already in the process of procuring
those resources if they haven't done it already.

As far as getting the word out on bugs, I find it terribly annoying
that Bugtraq is now a vendor's forum to spam about security updates,
it's really irritating to hear about some vulnerability and then
recieve about 20 emails from different Linux and other Unix
distributors about the exact same bug.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein - [alfred@freebsd.org]
Daemon News Magazine in your snail-mail! http://magazine.daemonnews.org/

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