[sdiy] Re: OT: important PC spying / hacking

[KA4HJH]

>> OS X was just blessed with it's first trojan a few weeks ago.
>
>Yeah, I remember hearing about that.  I think it's some vulnerability
>in iTunes or something; I don't know if it's been patched yet.  I ran a
>security check at the Symantec site and everything seems okay so far.

It was a proof-of-concept trojan, not actual malware. Very similar in
concept to the old Desktop file viruses we had in System 6.

>>> I don't think the Macintosh platform is nearly as susceptible to this
>>> kind of thing as the Windows world--that is, if you're using OS X, and
>>> not an earlier OS like 9.x.  For the same reason, other Unix-based
>>> OSes
>>> such as Linux and FreeBSD should have better immunity.
>>
>> OS 9 hasn't had any known problems with this kind of thing _ever_. No
>> viruses, no trojans, no scripts, NOTHING.
>
>Sorry, my mistake.  I remember some of my friends having problems with
>worms, etc.  That must have been further back than the OS 9 days.

I haven't seen a single new Mac *virus* in quite a few years. I doubt that
any of the old ones even run in OS 8/9. Macro viruses running in something
like Excel don't count--they're platform independent and generally less
malicious. If like me you don't use Excel then it's a non-issue.

>That's a real dog of an OS, though, compared with X.  I found it
>incredibly unstable.  X is a joy to work on--uptimes of weeks, or
>longer.

Heh, I agree but I can't help laughing. Half the guys on the DAW-MAC list
do nothing but bitch about OS X. This is because they're all using ProTools
and upgrading to OS X has been something of a nightmare. Since they're
using these systems for a living any delay is intolerable, and it wasn't
cheap, either. They're all longing for the good ole OS 9 days...and I can
understand why. Eventually it'll get sorted out but not soon enough for
some.

By the same token I never experienced that much instability in 7.6.1,
8.5.1, or 9.2.2 myself, but OS X will probably be better once I take the
final plunge.

-- 

Terry Bowman, KA4HJH
"The Mac Doctor"