[X4U] Implications of Boot Camp

[Stroller]

On 6 Apr 2006, at 04:51, Robert Ameeti wrote:

> At 8:26 PM -0500, 4/5/06, Robert Nicholson wrote:
>
>> What is protected about running Windows native on the same drive  
>> as OSX? Surely a virus on Windows is not restricted to writing to  
>> the windows partition.
>
> For the same reason that the Mac can not write to an NTFS partition  
> (the standard format of a Windows XP drive), the Windows OS will  
> not be able to write to the Mac partition (unless someone is going  
> beyond what Apple is providing.)

Actually, a Mac can write to an NTFS partition. It just can't write  
anything USEFUL.

If you put some data on an NTFS-formatted drive and connect it to  
your Mac (external USB / firewire drive, SATA or EIDE drive if you  
have a PowerMac) and type `dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/disk2` (you may  
need to change the "of=" bit to suit your configuration) you will see  
how easy it is to write destructively to NTFS-formatted partitions.

Viruses that overwrite the boot-partition and make the machine  
unbootable are old hat - there probably aren't many for Windows as it  
was a common action of DOS viruses, and it has gone out of fashion as  
an unbootable machine isn't a great vector for continued propagation  
of the virus. But such a hypothetical virus would probably be quite  
easy for an experienced virus-writer to create. The question is:  
would one really want to target the dual-booting fraction of the less  
than 1% of computer users running Macs.

> But more importantly, it must be recognised that just having a  
> Windows OS will very much make the user susceptible to every  
> Windows virus and spyware product that exists. Thus, that user will  
> likely have a virus on their computer within 10 minutes of having  
> installed the OS and connecting to the Internet unless they have  
> proper anti-virus software. This is just the reality of the Windows  
> world.

Yes, yes, you're a Mac zealot. Very nice.
I think we all prefer Macs around here so is it really necessary make  
this point?

Stroller.