[X4U] FW: What's the reason for your misleading CNN piece on Mac vulnerabilities?

[Jim Robertson]

It's sad that Mac users need to devote valuable time and energy to
correcting these pieces. At best, we should take comfort in the realization
that fear-mongering is some journalists' route to bigger paychecks and
understand that it may be more profitable to make attacks such as this on
the Mac OS than on Windows (no long-term Windows user needs to read that
he/she might be at risk - no doubt that reality has already made itself
known) 

------ Forwarded Message
From: Jim Robertson <jamesrob at sonic.net>
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2006 07:36:04 -0700
To: <steve.hargreaves at turner.com>
Conversation: What's the reason for your misleading CNN piece on Mac
vulnerabilities?
Subject: What's the reason for your misleading CNN piece on Mac
vulnerabilities?

Please don't dismiss this as "another rant by a Mac zealot." However, as a
Mac user, I have never understood why those who dismiss the Mac as
unimportant take such special delight in attempting to malign it. Some
examples in your piece "Security analysts: Mac attacks rare but may rise",
posted at <http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/10/20/apple.virus/index.html>:

> The threat [to Mac OS computers] was highlighted earlier this week after a
> handful of the company's iPods were shipped with the RavMonE.exe virus, which
> targeted iPods used with Microsoft Windows-based computers.

Of course, that's entirely incorrect. What it highlights is the ability of
Windows viruses to propagate onto any device that is compatible with the
Windows file system. I know, and you SHOULD know, that the infected iPods
constitute NO risk to a Macintosh host. When Apple released the first beta
of Boot Camp, it warned potential users of the product that if they had not
used Windows previously they needed to prepare themselves for the onslought
of malware that exists in the Windows universe. The company was caught
ignoring its own advice, and it reacted a bit petulantly by "apologizing for
the Windows OS", but technically Apple were correct in summarizing the
episode in that fashion.

Or this:

> Experts say these low [marketshare] numbers, and the unlikelihood that Apple's
> share will ever account for much higher than the low double digits, is one
> reason why the Mac will remain relatively safe. These days, they say, viruses
> are written more for money than fame.
> 
> Taking over a Windows-based computer and using it to send millions of pieces
> of spam, often with advertising or scams attached, to other Window's [sic]
> machines can generate big money . Writing a Mac-based virus, which could only
> target other Macs, isn't nearly as profitable.

Your own piece alludes to Apple's near doubling of its marketshare in just
two years (They're poised to pass Gateway to move into 3rd place).

The second paragraph I've quoted just above IS interesting if correct. Do
you have examples of people or companies conducting financially rewarding
e-commerce as virus merchants? I googled this assertion and retrieved some
doomsayer predictions from CNN online, several rants by paranoid bloggers
suggesting that Symantec and its brethren were "selling protection" in the
fashion of Cosa Nostra families, and some interesting concerns about the
SOBIG worm. However, nothing I read led me to the conclusion that spreading
malware would be supported by a carefully wrought business plan of a
legitimate company. Wikipedia's entry on computers viruses also mentions the
possibility of financial gain as a motive for writing viruses, but primarily
as a form of extortion or a means to execute identity theft - each of which,
in my view seems to justify a computer purchaser's considering a more secure
platform; e.g., the Mac OS.

Apple IS subject to attack, but unfortunately those attacks too often come
from uninformed or intentionally disingenuous journalists. May I ask where
you would place yourself in that group?

Jim Robertson
-- 


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