"It is not known if Apple would use Intel processors together with the Power PC processor, made by IBM, or if the deal with be a dramatic shift entirely to Intel chips."

We don't even know if this rumor is true. How could we possibly know what the details of the alleged talks are?

Check the dictionary.

This is the third story with this quote:

"Talks between Apple and Intel could founder, as they have before, or Apple could be engaging in negotiations with Intel to gain leverage over IBM,"

The word should be "flounder" as in to slowly die, not "founder" as in someone who is an originator. If the report actually said "founder" then it would be appropriate to put [SIC] after it.

From <dictionary.com>

foun·der

1 P Pronunciation Key (foundr)
v. foun·dered, foun·der·ing, foun·ders
v. intr.
To sink below the surface of the water: The ship struck a reef and foundered.
To cave in; sink: The platform swayed and then foundered.
To fail utterly; collapse: a marriage that soon foundered.
To stumble, especially to stumble and go lame. Used of horses.
To become ill from overeating. Used of livestock.
To be afflicted with laminitis. Used of horses.

floun·der2 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (floundr)
n. pl. flounder or floun·ders
Any of various marine flatfishes of the families Bothidae and Pleuronectidae, which include important food fishes.

floun·der1 ( P ) Pronunciation Key (floundr)
intr.v. floun·dered, floun·der·ing, floun·ders
To make clumsy attempts to move or regain one's balance.
To move or act clumsily and in confusion. See Synonyms at blunder. See Usage Note at founder1.

n.
The act of floundering.

All I know is I'm going to wait until after WWDC before I lay down money for the 2 gHz iMac I've been dreaming of.

Think of it this way. A flat fish flounders on the sand--that is flops and struggles.

A ship founders on the rocks--that is crashes and sinks.

English lesson over.

I hope that if Apple ever uses Intel chips for anything, that the hardware won't double as a stcker album...it's just tacky.

to buy Intel.

What better way to crush your competition than to buy their main source of chips and hmmm SHUT THEM DOWN!

"Mr. Otellini described ways to help address the problems with new chip technology that helps in three ways: isolating parts of computer from infection, making them more resistant to attacks that do reach a machine, and remotely fixing problems that do occur."

Or, a much easier solution. Just remove Windows, the root of the problem.

Windows is not the root of the virus problem.
I love my Mac and the Mac OS, but obscurity helps it evade attack more than any other single factor.

The root of the virus problem is bored teenagers wasting their considerable talent on a power trip. (Or adults who act like bored teenagers.)

Both Microsoft and Apple have made mistakes leading to security holes. You might say that Windows has made more serious and goofy ones than Apple but until Mac OS X becomes the target of hackers everywhere, like Windows is, one can't really make a fair judgement one way or the other. At least not quickly and easily.

My money is that Apple is after the WiMax chipset, and as with USB, WiFi and Bluetooth will be setting the trends for the market.

And aaronsulllivan, the "security through obscurity" is more myth than fact. Google the phrase and you will find many sources debunking it.

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edtekker wrote:
And aaronsulllivan, the "security through obscurity" is more myth than fact. Google the phrase and you will find many sources debunking it.

Quote

aaronsullivan wrote:
That doesn't mean it's any more secure in actuality, just that there are less exploited holes in the security. My whole point was that if there were more people using macs, there would likely be more viruses, etc.

Good grief, we're polite today. No flames around here!

aaronsullivan, if you are saying we'd have more problems today if there were substantially more Macs, as Small White Car understood, then I would agree and apologize for casting aspersions on your comment, mild as they were. Macs aren't bullet proof. They are, however, inherently more secure in their design. The technical reports on OS security that I have read would lead me to understand that, regardless of the population of evildoers focusing attacks on the platform, Mac OSX simply has far fewer possible security openings to exploit. Given that reputation, I have to believe there are crackers out there trying to be the first one to develop a serious virus or other attack for Macs, just to take us fanboys down a notch. Haven't seen one yet.

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edtekker wrote:
Good grief, we're polite today. No flames around here!

Way, way, way too many problems with making this transition. It's just not going to happen. The meetings are about different Intel chipsets entirely - hell, they already use some Intel chips for non-core processor functions.

Aren't there many more successful attacks on IIS web servers than Apache servers even though the latter outnumbers the former?

I happen to agree with the notion that OS X is inherently more safe from design but I also appreciated Jobs comment about Apple not having a cavalier attitude. Even a Kevlar jacket shouldn't have a bulls-eye painted on the back (re: "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal" - Gary Larson)

Aren't there many more successful attacks on IIS web servers than Apache servers even though the latter outnumbers the former?

I happen to agree with the notion that OS X is inherently more safe from design but I also appreciated Jobs comment about Apple not having a cavalier attitude. Even a Kevlar jacket shouldn't have a bulls-eye painted on the back (re: "Bummer of a birthmark, Hal" - Gary Larson)

Quote

Anonymous wrote:
Even a Kevlar jacket shouldn't have a bulls-eye painted on the back

I don't think I could do any more clarifying about the security issue, except that I'm talking more about client security than server security of which I'm pretty ignorant.

As far as the whole Intel chip thing, I'd love to see something big happen with Macs and their processors (particularly on the high end), but I'm guessing that's not what this is about. I'm thinking this is for a specific device with different needs than a general purpose Mac. On the other hand, if Apple is planning on switching Macs to Intel chips (again, highly unlikely) the WWDC would be the time to bring it up with developers.

there was a time when m$, to promote their proprietary software, for example activeX or outlook feature, would by default let the machine vulnerable to exploit. the user had to deliberately disable the feature. this was a severe design fault that never happened on the mac afaik. Now it may be over, since security was decided n°1 focus in windows world, though i would not bet a cent on it

... this did happen we could actually have a meaningful analysis of the relative efficiencies of the two platforms. Mac OS X on Intel may eat Windows XP alive, wouldn't that be nice.

" Windows is not the root of the virus problem. "?

Are you insane? Of course Windows is the root of virus problem. Infact, Windows is the only operating system even EFFECTED by the virus problem.

If you take a PC and remove Windows, then suddenly it doesn't face any virus, trojan, or spyware problems. I think that does indeed make it the root, yes?

"Maybe a better word choice for what has helped Macs evade attack is rarity. The fact that fewer people USE macs, means there are less people interested in macs, means there are less viruses and less perception that they are vulnerable."

Platforms that claim to be immune to viruses are the most desirable ones to attack. I don't know where people get the idea that serious virus authors are interested in Windows. There's no challenge or noteriety in writting Windows virus #71,038. There's loads of challenge and noteriety in writting Mac OS X virus #1, however.

The fact that fewer people use Macs means that a virus author can lay waste to and panic and spread chaos among an ENTIRE USER BASE. The user base for Windows is so enormous and sprawling that doing that to them is a pipedream.

And what do you mean, less viruses? There are zero viruses for OS X.

"That doesn't mean it's any more secure in actuality, just that there are less exploited holes in the security. My whole point was that if there were more people using macs, there would likely be more viruses, etc. "

Again, there are no OS X viruses. It's about out for about four years, and there are zero viruses. Windows picked up thousands of viruses in that same span of time. And it wasn't because they're the market leader.

The truth is, it was because its very easy to create a Windows virus, because the operating system is stuffed to the brim with security holes. That's the simple fact as to why there are over 70,000 Windows viruses.

OS X, on the other hand, DOES NOT have the security holes that Windows does. And that's the simple fact as to why there are zero OS X viruses.

It isn't because Windows has a big market share, it isn't because OS X has a small market share. It's because OS X is many times more secure, period. Let's stop spreading the myth that malware problems have anything to do with market share.

I'm aware of the fact that there are zero viruses on Mac OS X and yes that IS less viruses than Windows has.

Your point sounds good until you factor in that Mac OS X has had numerous security patches that fix security holes that allow for malware to be written.

Are you saying that if there were millions more mac users that the chance that one of these holes being exploited would not be increased?

People write viruses for Windows computers partly because they use windows. That's part of my point.

I never personally made a determination about which os was more secure. In fact I said that was very difficult to assertain.

Your assertion that Mac is more secure is based on pure speculation unless you somehow have knowledge of every possible exploit on both OS's.

Here's an analogy. Let's say you own a mobile home and you buy a very expensive security system. Apparently, no one has every broken in to a mobile home armed with this system. Of course it's only been used in a town that contains only 10 known mobile home burglers. Sure enough, you live there for 4 years and no one breaks in! Confident of your security, you gas up the mobile home and travel your way to the center of a giant metropolis. It's filled with 2 million known mobile home burglers. Are you going to be surprised when your mobile home is broken into?

I love the fact that Apple puts out these security patches regularly even though the threat level is so low. They seem to be staying on top of the game and the UNIX community seems to be keeping them honest in this regard.

Apple has, however, shown itself to be capable of something close to activeX level mistakes with the release of Dashboard and the demonstration of auto installing auto executing and difficult to remove programs. Why didn't anyone exploit that? Must be there aren't enough hackers interested or knowledgable about the mac yet.

Just to stop this falsity from spreading. The Dashboard/Safari design flaw that was patched in 10.4.1 never allowed code to be executed automatically.

User-intervention (lauching the widget) was required, just like user intervention would be required for any trojan applications (lauching the app). The bug was that Safari didn't warn you about the fact that widgets are applications. In 10.3 anyway, Safari didn't even warn you about applications being downloaded...

Thanks, Small White Car! I was hoping that made sense.

The dashboard thing was a little more serious than that. Just by visiting a page a widget was able to automatically download and with the default settings in Safari automatically install into your dashboard collection (without a single indication that you were downloading anything, unless you happened to be looking at your download window.) It was also demonstrated that a duplicate of a default dashboard widget could be easily made.

So, yes, someone would have to activate a widget, but they could simply be clicking on what looked like the regular address book widget and then any type of malware a hacker would have wanted to run could be executed.

That's pretty serious... and it's no longer possible.

"Your point sounds good until you factor in that Mac OS X has had numerous security patches that fix security holes that allow for malware to be written. "

Okay. So where's the malware?

Not too long ago, a security company said that they'd found a huge security hole in Mac OS X that could be exploited for the purpose of writting malware. After six months of trying, however, they hadn't managed to actually exploit it. They still haven't, although by now it's probably patched.

The point is, as is the case with most operating systems, even if a person is shown a technically exploitable security hole in OS X, that doesn't mean that the security in other areas is so inept that they can actually do something with it.

"Are you saying that if there were millions more mac users that the chance that one of these holes being exploited would not be increased?"

Yes, I am. OS X has genuinely good security. The operating system won't suddenly drop its defenses or let anybody access the root when it reaches a certain number of users.

"Your assertion that Mac is more secure is based on pure speculation unless you somehow have knowledge of every possible exploit on both OS's. "

I have the knowledge that there are over seventy thousand viruses for Windows, compared to zero viruses for OS X. That's not speculation. That's raw fact.

To say that doesn't imply that OS X is more secure than Windows is either clueless, insane, or an apologist ruitine on Microsoft's behalf. Either way, it's a load of $#!%.

OS X's been out for four years. It's a ripe target. But nobody's been able to hit it.

Windows, on the other hand, can't go one week without new viruses for it popping up.

Are you saying that based on that, you can't possibly figure out that one might be more secure than the other?


"Apple has, however, shown itself to be capable of something close to activeX level mistakes with the release of Dashboard and the demonstration of auto installing auto executing and difficult to remove programs. Why didn't anyone exploit that? Must be there aren't enough hackers interested or knowledgable about the mac yet. "

Or maybe it's because there was ackwardness involved in making a widget that actually did damage, and the fact that Apple was going to promptly patch it, rendering any exploit of it totally pointless.

Hmm... maybe there are so many viruses on Windows because there are so many more users to make them. I don't understand why that is so hard to accept.

Saying there are several new viruses written per week is just helping to make my point.

Talking about one example of academics trying to exploit one potential hole on OS X has no relevance here. I imagine I could look up dozens of examples of the same situation involving Windows. That's because there are so many more people who are involved with Windows.

My point about the dashboard incident is that Apple is capable of making the same types of mistakes as Microsoft. Yes, it's commendable how quickly it was thwarted.

I'm not saying Mac OS X ISN'T more secure. I never did. I'm just saying that the lack of viruses and exploitations is partly due to the small number of people using it in the first place. I also said that it's probably that more than any other single factor. That implies that there are many other factors that make it more secure.

I'm not necessarily right on this, but it's the way I see it and you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone differently unless you have a level testing ground. A few people trying to exploit one potential security flaw in one OS is scientifically insignificant when you compare it to thousands of people using the past work of others to weekly bombard the only operating system they care about.

Whatever you think of Windows (I personally hate using it, and I use it daily) it WAS the pioneering operating system as far as mass usage. Microsoft ran into many, many problems that few people predicted and have been scrambling to fix those problems ever since.

Mac OS X has the advantage of being built on top of UNIX, a tried and tested OS in the networking space. I'm glad they have that foundation, and I prefer the OS for many other reasons, but Mac OS X has never had close to the trial by fire that Windows has had to go through. It probably never will, either. The time for naivete' about security has passed for everyone.

If you think that Steve Jobs and Co. are not nervous about keeping the security tight if and when they gain market share, I think you underestimate them.

Some people leave their houses unlocked all night and never have a break in. But they don't live where break-ins are common. Does that mean the house with no break-ins is more secure?

http://www.cio-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=12100002EAEW

Great article there.
I'll admit I hadn't considered the hardware aspect of security, either. Sure makes you feel good owning a 4 actively used macs after reading that article, too.

The whole lifespan of a mac thing is difficult to articulate because it doesn't seem to make logical sense. I think part of it comes from the whole game market on PC's. Most Mac users has given up on playing the latest games with a few bright spots like games from Blizzard. In the PC world, if your PC is 2 - 3 years old, you can't even play the cutting edge games.

On a mac, I'm focused on getting creative work done. There is nothing close to Garageband for whipping up compositions, or the iLife Suite for managing things like photos and movies quickly and easily (so I can focus on the content not the interface.) I've been using my dual G4 1Ghz for a few years now and it's doing more for me than it has ever done in the past. (And thanks to OS X updates, it's actually faster than ever.)

Our PC sits there unused most of the time because it can't play games like HL 2 or Doom and I might just have to upgrade it for Battlefield 2. But do real work on it? No, thanks. Nothing except the occaisonal porting of game code.

"Hmm... maybe there are so many viruses on Windows because there are so many more users to make them. I don't understand why that is so hard to accept. "

That's hard to accept because it's complete and total bunk. It doesn't even factor Windows' own security into the equation, which is the entire reason for viruses effecting it in the first place.

I don't understand why it's so hard to realize that maybe, just maybe, Windows is plagued with viruses because it's very easy to create viruses for it.

"My point about the dashboard incident is that Apple is capable of making the same types of mistakes as Microsoft. Yes, it's commendable how quickly it was thwarted. "

How can it be the same type of mistake Microsoft makes, when it was quickly patched? Microsoft's mistakes are anything but quickly patched.

"Talking about one example of academics trying to exploit one potential hole on OS X has no relevance here."

It's relevent because it's an example of OS X's security. You yourself said that there have been exploitable security holes found in OS X, but nobody has been able to successfuly exploit them to do anything malicious, because the operating system itself is too secure in other areas to let that happen.

"I'm not saying Mac OS X ISN'T more secure. I never did."

Yes, you did. You said OS X isn't more secure in actuality, it's only been exploited less than Windows. Look, here's exactly what you said:

"That doesn't mean it's any more secure in actuality, just that there are less exploited holes in the security."

See?


"I'm just saying that the lack of viruses and exploitations is partly due to the small number of people using it in the first place."

One of the big reasons that the security-through-obscurity myth is infact a myth, is that OS X isn't obscure. Do you actually know how many millions of people use OS X?

"I'm not necessarily right on this, but it's the way I see it and you are going to have a hard time convincing anyone differently unless you have a level testing ground."

I would have a very hard time convincing anyone who buys into the clueless security-through-obscurity myth, yes.

"A few people trying to exploit one potential security flaw in one OS is scientifically insignificant when you compare it to thousands of people using the past work of others to weekly bombard the only operating system they care about"

If Windows was secure, nobody would be able to bombard it on a weekly basis because of the previous work of other people. There WOULDN'T be any previous work by other people if it was secure. Do you see how that works?

This is why people's failings to exploit OS X are significant. Without people successfully exploiting it, there won't be any people in the future using those exploits to write malware for it. Thus there won't be any malware for it.

In other words, if it weren't for Windows' gaping, unpatched security holes, there wouldn't be new viruses for it every week.

Because OS X doesn't HAVE any gaping, unpatched security holes, there ARE no viruses for it. Period. Even after four years.


"Whatever you think of Windows (I personally hate using it, and I use it daily) it WAS the pioneering operating system as far as mass usage. Microsoft ran into many, many problems that few people predicted and have been scrambling to fix those problems ever since."

Pioneering? Nothing about Windows is pioneering. It's one big patchwork of stolen ideas. Microsoft ran into problems because they're completely incompetent at security and software engineering in general, and they sure HAVEN'T been scrambling to fix them. They scrambled to publish ads saying that each new verson of Windows is a hundred times more secure than the previous version, but that's not the same as fixing. It's the same as lying.

And just about anybody familiar with the poor quality of MS-DOS should have easily expected Windows to be likewise poor quality.

"Mac OS X has never had close to the trial by fire that Windows has had to go through. It probably never will, either. "

Yes. That's because it's much more secure than Windows.

"The time for naivete' about security has passed for everyone. "

Except for the naive people who think Windows' has security problems because it's widely used, hence any operating will have security problems once it becomes widely used.


"Some people leave their houses unlocked all night and never have a break in. But they don't live where break-ins are common. Does that mean the house with no break-ins is more secure?"

Your analogies don't make any sense. OS X isn't unlocked, it's Windows that's unlocked. OS X is very, very locked. So locked infact that when people have been shown open doors in OS X, they still haven't been able to break in.

OS X does live where break-ins are common. So does every single operating system that's out there connected to the internet. But only Windows is PLAGUED by break-ins.

Some people leave their houses unlocked all night and never have a break in. But they don't live where break-ins are common. Does that mean the house with no break-ins is more secure?

No, but the way that this security through obscurity argument is being used is more like "They don't live where break-ins are common, that proves that they leave their houses unlocked all night."

Even if you buy this argument that Macs security advantage is only due to obscurity, you must still accept the logical consequence that Macs will always be more secure then windows until Apple outsells Microsoft.

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Anonymous wrote:
"Hmm... maybe there are so many viruses on Windows because there are so many more users to make them. I don't understand why that is so hard to accept. "

Accept security into the equation, which is the entire reason for viruses to realize that maybe, just maybe, Apple's mistakes are anything but quickly patched.

"Talking about one example of academics trying to exploit one potential hole on OS X has no relevance here."

It's relevent because it's an example of OS X's successfuly malicious areas.

"I'm not saying Mac OS X ISN'T more secure. I never did."

Yes OS X isn't more secure than Windows. Look, here's exactly what I said:

" Look at all the exploited holes in OS X."

See the big reason OS X is obscure. Do you actually know how many millions of dollars lost in productivity from using OS X?


I would have a very hard time convincing anyone OS X was secure, nobody would buy it because of the previous work of hackers. There WOULDN'T be any previous work by hackers if it was secure. Do you see how that works?

This is why people's failings exploit the future of malware.

In other words, if it weren't for Apple's gaping, unpatched security holes, Buqtraq emails wouldn't flood my inbox every week. Period.

Pioneering stolen ideas is what Apple does best. Apple not only copy the ideas but the problems too because they're completely incompetent software engineering in general.

It's security problems unlock the secret of OS X.

So where does OS X live? In a place where break-ins are common.