NewsWeek interviewed Bill Gates about Vista, its reception, and Apple, among other things. On the complaint that some of the features in Vista appear to come from the Mac: “You can go through and look at who showed any of these things first, if you care about the facts. If you just want to say, “Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,” that’s fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. I mean, it’s fascinating, maybe we shouldn’t have showed so publicly the stuff we were doing, because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done. Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally. I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.”
Bill Gates on Vista, Apple’s ‘Lying’ Ads
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wannabe geek
“If you just want to say, “Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,” that’s fine.”
No, the world was invented in places like the Bell labs and the Xerox PARC … But the Mac guys copyed from those places before Microsoft 
“I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.”
Smart move: Now he’ll have an excuse when it happens.
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Darkelve
Bahaha! What a comedian! 
I’m not even an Apple user, but even *I* can tell these comments are so WAY off that it’s almost not funny.
“Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is”
No thanks., we’ve already seen your take on the “truth”.
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Looks like Billy boy is off his meds again…
I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.
uh-oh … did he just say that? oh god.
That’s a typo, he meant once an hour
Ouch. Vista users will have a hard time then… there’s plenty of script kiddies out there…
I do believe he did just issue a challenge… I wonder if he’ll sue people when they do it?
Yeah, that was a pretty stupid comment for him to make. He should have had the sense to realize that Microsoft looked a lot more mature by just ignoring Apple’s marketing hyperbole (not that their own is much better – the “gee whiz, XP is the awesomest” spam during installation is especially grating when you’re reinstalling to fix a Windows problem). But that sort of comment just gives easy ammo to people who will be quite enthusiastic to make the obvious “He’s feeling threatened/he doth protest too much” assumptions.
“I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine.”
uh-oh … did he just say that? oh god.
I know…this is reminescent of George Bush’s infamous “Bring it on!”
I’m also a bit skeptical about a new “system takeover” exploit being found every day for OS X…it seems to me that Bill Gates is stretching the truth a little bit here.
He pulled a Bush type statement out of his butt akin to “Bring it on.” If Microsoft wants hackers to “Bring it on.” I am sure they will gladdy do so with authority.
Yeah, he did. All I can say is: if that is true, why upgrade to Vista over security?
Hard to believe someone in his position with his track record would be throwing stones like that. Pity one so gifted could go so senile so early.
Bill Gates accusing Steve Jobs (or anyone else, for that matter) of lying! Hahahah. Pot, kettle and so on.
If you just want to say, “Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along,” that’s fine.
As crazy as Bill sounds talking about security I hate to admit this part seems right on the money, at least in my experiences with Mac users.
As I have said before just recently, in my (albeit limited) switcher experience, Mac users are more skeptical than I had imagined; there’s more facile fawning over Mr Jobs ‘guru’ status than you’d get from Windows users regarding Mr Gates supposed genius but about the company, the product and the OS – if it’s broke, they’ll not pull any punches.
As crazy as Bill sounds talking about security I hate to admit this part seems right on the money, at least in my experiences with Mac users.
The point I have trouble with is where he comes out and says “go to Microsoft for the truth”. If it weren’t such a steady pattern of behaviour, and if I didn’t know that Bill Gates should by rights have enough money to employ several of the best psychologist in the world, several times over, I might be inclined to think the guy was just honestly delusional.
As it is you know he’s just – what was that word? – oh, yeah:
LYING.
The point I have trouble with is where he comes out and says “go to Microsoft for the truth”.
Yeah thats one of the more disturbing aspects of his rants.
As crazy as Bill sounds talking about security I hate to admit this part seems right on the money, at least in my experiences with Mac users.
Bill’s rant would be a lot more effective if he included examples; pointing out Amiga and Atari which had features before Apple did, for example – heck, Bill should remember Amiga, they provided AmigaBASIC 🙂
As much as i like apple and as much as i think vista is medicore, i don’t blame bill for this outburst.
I personally don’t like the type of advertisements which use attack to convey a point, for example a lot of the current mac adverts attack vista about this and that, instead of just advertising what the mac can do, which are the kind of advertisments i prefer, adverts which just say “look our product can do xy and z like this”
There has been plenty of Vista bashing from apple and this has, in my opinion made apple look a bit childish.
This is Microsoft’s biggest release in a long while, no matter how good or bad we think it is, this is still bill gates biggest product release, anyone part of a company is going to defend their product when it has to endure so much flak.
As for the whole copying thing, as ive said before on OS News, copying is not the same on the computing platform, i think of the computing platform the same as the car platform. When a rivial releases a killer feature the others look, watch if it’s a success and then adopts, i think of this as more of an evolution. Volvo gave us seat belts and i think it was merc’s that gave us ABS braking. Do i think anyless of my car’s brand for copying and implementing this feature into my car, of course not.
All OS’s copy of a little bit from each other, it’s evolution.
The Mac adverts do not seem overly popular with UK Mac folks either, if my local group is anything to go by, for some of the reasons you give
Did you see the UK version of the Ads yet? With the two guys from Peepshow? Mitchel and Webb I think their names are… far, far better than the US ones.
Well, I’ve watched them, and I think It’s also because the two UK guys are way less funny than the ‘original’ ones. At least IMhO.
The Mac adverts do not seem overly popular with UK Mac folks either, if my local group is anything to go by, for some of the reasons you give
That’s rich. As if the Brits didn’t create an empire out of “embellishments.”
I like ads with a sense of humor which are not loud or obnoxious. Apple has succeeded with this…
Microsoft should get a hard time about some of the copying in Vista. It’s not that it’s wrong to copy (it was all right, they should be copying what they are), but the first to market, in my opinion, gets the privilege of making fun of those catching up.
It’s all seemed to be in good taste so far. I haven’t heard anything nasty about anyone’s significant others or children in those commercials…
In a big way making fun of Vista for playing catch up is an admission that Vista has caught up. And a plead to remember who was there first.
“And a plead to remember who was there first.”
Xerox?
I think you mean Doug Engelbart.
What he did was about as well connected to GUI’s as composited desktops with 3d effects is to Xerox Parc’s original bitmap GUI.
Composited desktops with 3D effects may look pretty, and even add some useful features, but overall their functionality is little different to that of the Xerox Star 25 years ago.
In my opinion, the difference between the GUI Xerox produced, and the earlier work by Doug Engelbart, is much greater than the difference between a typical mid 80s GUI and Windows Vista. The improvement and evolution is obvious, but Vista still uses the desktop metaphor and the familiar windows, icons and menus that existed back then.
“but Vista still uses the desktop metaphor ”
I remember my atari had a UI that abstracted a desktop, it had a desktop, some drawers and in the drawers were folders.
On my windows machine on the desktop sits “my computer” the very thing I was trying to abstract away – sheesh, how goofy is that? Not only that, the “desktop” is covered in “wallpaper” and its operated from a big button called “start” there is also a “system tray” where ongoing programs live. Last I looked my desk didn’t have a big start button on it, in fact the only commonality between my desk and MS’ abstraction of a desk is the ammount of shite that accumulates there after a week.
I agree. I think the Mac ads are very good, if only because of John Hodgman. Do they make me want to buy a Mac? No, they don’t. Do they sometimes exaggerate to make their point? Yes, they do. Even then, they’re still great ads, and very effective in capturing mindshare.
Agree on all points and why are they so effective in capturing mindshare? Because the points that they so humorously exaggerate are things that everyone accepts as facts about windoze and microsoft. Everyone except the flaming windoze zealots that troll this site, that is.
Literate computer users may not like these ads, but I find for non-literate computer end users they hit the mark. They make 1 simple statement in each: hardware upgrades, malware, etc.
Additionally, “bashing” ads as you call them, are typical for most industries when one company has a dominant position, its often the best strategy. (You never see Coke or McDonalds mention competitors in their ads, but you do for the “smaller” competitors, aka Pepsi, Burger King.)
There’s certainly more clever ways to get the point across without resorting to lampooning your opponents. Besides, Apple is essentially running a FUD campaign with a little humor thrown in for good measure. Isn’t spreading FUD what the anti-microsoft crowd criticized Microsoft for in the past?
With the price of Vista Ultimate in Europe I can buy a MacBook with OS X on it… Why bother who stole what first?
That’s a little tough to believe. How much are those two things there in Europe?
I just checked (UK, France, Spain and a few other EU stores) and a Mac mini (they’re the cheapest and lack a screen) is considerably more expensive than even Vista Ultimate Full Retail.
Of course, if you’re willing to buy the mac second-hand…
Edit: It’s worth mentioning that I lost my text (which had more details) because Firefox crashed. 🙂
Edited 2007-02-03 13:07
That is very hard to beleive, and if it is true you only have the EU to thank for that.
I don’t think it’s just the Euro effect and we can’t leave out a 20% VAT. However, I remember Windows NT 4 wks was 400’000 Lire with us back in 1996, which was a real small fortune. XP Pro SP2 full is 396€. Considered what’s there in the box, Windows is absurdly expensive. With 367€, the price of Vista Ultimate upg, you could get a new CPU and mobo and run Linux.
“With 367€, the price of Vista Ultimate upg, you could get a new CPU and mobo and run Linux.”
Then get a new CPU and mobo and run Linux.
Nobody is stopping you.
Nobody.
when it’s running in kvm.
However, Windows app are dangerous when run under Wine. I used to run Half-life under Wine, but it kept locking up. Usually I just ssh-ed from another box and killed wine, but eventually the lockup got “harder” and eventually I had to use the power button. The last time killed my hard-drive (Half-life was stuck in some drive-intensive operation). Lesson learned, I keep a windows partition around for Half-life.
I play half-life and half-life 2 in wine and have no issues. I have been doing this for years. I think you had a hardware problem and now you are blaming it on the app.
Who would’ve thought the chairman of the board of the largest and most influential software company on earth had such a huge chip on his shoulder? It’s almost funny how he comes off really whiny when talking about features that were ‘copied’ by Apple and about their commercials. Poor little feller. I was half expecting him to hit us with “Every time you buy a copy of vista ultimate, an angel gets its wings. And for every mac you buy, I’ll kill a puppy.”
Let’s sum things up.
1. He’s the richest man in the world.
2. He runs/owns the most powerful software company, probably.
3. He runs a huge charity.
1. He dedicated a lot of his money to that charity.
2. His software company is behind. In 2004 they threw away a lot of code because it just wasn’t going to work, and now they’ve finally released what they were working on waaaay past schedule.
3. One of the most reputable news papers in the country called his bluff: He’s not doing any more good than he is bad with all of his money.
Then you add on the little things.
1. He’s losing some control of the WWW by losing browser market share. Stuff like ActiveX isn’t going to go over well today with an 80% market share, that’s just too many people to throw out for public web sites (internal web sites are different, of course).
2. The Mac, which he’d beat 10 years ago, is coming back to its former glory (not exactly taking huge market share, but it’s profitable and growing again).
3. Zune has gotten nothing but jokes about it. Possibly because it’s a clear sign that Microsoft doesn’t understand music or P2P, or they’ve completely sold out to the media companies.
4. XBox360 is doing well, but the spotlight is not on Wii (a game system that doesn’t have many good games yet).
5. Office 2007 poses the risk to send users running to OpenOffice because of the different interface, and it also could help them to work better with it. But which will happen to how many people is anyones guess and that’s got to scare you when it’s one of your major money makers! BTW, the ribbon looks awesome guys, nice idea.
6. His OS “requires” anti-virus and anti-spyware. Anyone with any sense of design has to hate that idea. There’s just no way to resolve it in my mind: Wasting countless clock cycles and doing wasted disk reads to check for things which shouldn’t have ever gotten there in the first place. It’s like curing an infection by holding the fever down (sort of). You’re just fighting a symptom.
Oh yes, and the number one for Bill Gates to be a bit annoyed: He’s 51 years old. Not that this is necessarily bad, but everyone goes through a time where they realize they’re not young anymore and it’s upsetting.
And the number two is: I don’t think he gives a crap about technology anymore. He seems like he’s sick of it and wants out as fast as possible without destroying the credibility of his company. When Gates talks about Vista there’s no passion… He had passion about plug and pray, or at least pretended, but I don’t see it about Aero.
3. One of the most reputable news papers in the country called his bluff: He’s not doing any more good than he is bad with all of his money.
I have to call you out on this one. The LA Times isn’t considered reputable by anyone. I live in Los Angeles, and no one buys this paper anymore. They’ve had to replace most of their editorial staff in the last two years,and they’ve lost more then 50% of their readership because no one likes or trust them here. The owners (who also run the Chicago Tribune) are trying to dump the paper as fast as possible.
Also, while the Gates foundation may invest in some questionable markets, to say they are doing as much or more harm then good is ridiculous and a gross exageration. Billions of dollars are being given to non-profit organizations that never see a penny otherwise. They fund AIDs and malaria research more then anyone else, and yet still give to the little organizations like the non-profit my wife works for that helps persons with disabilities get jobs. The impact they make is astounding, just hard to notice from our point of view because most of us will never need the benefits of a charity organization like that.
Everything else you said is 100% true.
I read the article. It was well researched, unless they were just plain lying. And they’re giving the minimum funding to causes and investing the other 95% into questionable foreign plants which in some areas are doing more harm than anyone can clean up right now.
More harm than good would be very hard to measure, but I know I’m not alone in believing they are doing so.
You’re right about the paper though. For some reason I was thinking it was the NY Times. Oops!
With a challenge issued like that, I expect to see more exploits of Windows Vista in a month than all the exploits found in MacOS X in a YEAR!
No hacker, worth his salt, is gonna turn down a challenge like THAT!
Billy boi just turned around and pulled his pants down… it’s BOHICA time! Yee-haw!
“when it’s running in kvm.”
That’s like saying, “That murder is a really nice person when he’s in solitary”. Duh! There’s no one to murder in solitary (besides oneself).
That’d make a good sig.
“I dare anybody to do that once a month on the Windows machine”
Now he said that, you just know that someone is going to accept the challenge, just to annoy him. ‘Month of Vista Bugs’, coming soon!
Edited 2007-02-02 15:56
Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally.
Hey Bill, is this what you mean by “WOW”?
Wow all my files are gone
No, what is even funnier is that Vista users do not need to wait for exploits to come out, Vista will hose itself up for them….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6320865.stm
because we knew how long the new security base was going to take us to get done.
Is this the security base that still allows people to do things like this?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=416
Sorry Bill, I keep missing this new security base, right from the hype surrounding Windows 2000.
Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally.
I think you mean Windows there Bill. An awful lot of Windows exploits allow you to do an awful lot of insane things to a computer. Although Apple aren’t perfect, the notion that they are having to patch up various things because of exploits that take over most of the OS is just ludicrous.
It seems as though Bill has spat his dummy out because Vista just isn’t the secure benchmark that Microsoft were hyping it to be – yet again.
Is this the security base that still allows people to do things like this?
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Ou/?p=416
Speaking of blowing things out of proportion. This is NOT a security issue as a hacker cannot actually gain access to your system with the Speech Recognition feature. Even if you run as admin in Vista, anything that requires admin privileges has to be confirmed via UAC– and guess what, these audio files (whether played in a browser or in WMP or any other application) has NO ACCESS whatsoever to the UAC prompt.
All you can do with this is play funny games like shutting down your computer, or closing windows; making this a BUG, NOT a security issue.
Speaking of blowing things out of proportion. This is NOT a security issue as a hacker cannot actually gain access to your system with the Speech Recognition feature. Even if you run as admin in Vista, anything that requires admin privileges has to be confirmed via UAC– and guess what, these audio files (whether played in a browser or in WMP or any other application) has NO ACCESS whatsoever to the UAC prompt.
All you can do with this is play funny games like shutting down your computer, or closing windows; making this a BUG, NOT a security issue.
Yes, exactly. The REAL security issue is that, once the UAC prompt is up, anyone walking by can just click “yes” to pwn your machine.
Really? How come?
Erm, because of the “yes” button there?
So you don’t need to type in a password?
Now are you absolutely sure about that?
The “Yes/No” dialogues never ask for a password.
.. but how did you get to the ‘yes/no’ dialogues?
I’m a tad confused.
If you’re logged on with restricted privileges, and you try to install something; it gives you a box with no password request for admin privileges??
What’s the point of that?!
I’m a tad confused.
If you’re logged on with restricted privileges, and you try to install something; it gives you a box with no password request for admin privileges??
What’s the point of that?!
If you are an Administrator, there is a mode called Admin Approval Mode, where instead of needing to enter a password to elevate, you can instead choose option buttons, usually “Allow” or “Cancel”. This UI runs on a seperate secure desktop that restricts access from applications, so physical access is required to confirm/deny the elevation request.
Non-Admin users do receive a password challenge dialog. This also appears on the secure desktop.
Both of the above behaviors are the defaults. There are several ways that the elevation bevavior may be configured via the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). For instance, the system can also be configured so administrative users automatically elevate without prompting, or so all users, including Admins, must enter a password to elevate.
In the context of how UAC works, there is little gain in requiring Admins to keep entering a password (though, as stated above, this can be done). Someone mentioned a few days ago that they kept an elevated terminal window open in n*x to run everything from there without requiring elevation. The potential for exploit in this scenario for someone with physical access is the same as Admin Approval Mode in Vista.
The issue is not that the OS doesn’t protect itself from malicious users with physical access. It’s that the Admin doesn’t protect their environment/computer from physical access by untrusted users. Mitigations include locking/logging out when away, turning off Admin approval mode/not leaving elevated command windows open, using smartcards for access, running as a standard user, limiting who has physical access to the computer in the first place. It’s pretty universally understood that if you give physical access to your computer to untrusted users, it’s no longer your computer.
Originally, they wanted people to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete (to make sure that you weren’t entering your password into a trojan horse) and then type their password and press accept. (This is from the Vista Team Blog.)
People were confused about C-A-D because they normally think of it as being pressed to get the Task Manager, not a “Windows GUI interrupt” keystroke (and no surprises there 🙂 ).
People were also bothered by repeatedly having to type in their password.
So they removed both requirements.
(If you’re a standard user and a program starts UAC, you select an administrator from the list and type /their/ password.)
If you’re running OpenBSD and someone walks up to your machine, they can hit the power button and root it in about 20 seconds.
This is a design feature.
No one bothers to protect a computer too much from people who have physical access to the box. Ultimately, you have to trust your employees/kids not to do unauthorized things with their physical access to the machine.
If you’re running OpenBSD and someone walks up to your machine, they can hit the power button and root it in about 20 seconds.
Is it just me, or are the number of people who can hit “yes” in a dialogue box a LOT more than the number of people who would know how to root an OpenBSD box?
I think the point is that, from a security perspective, when a malicious user has screwdriver-level access to a machine, consider it rooted. At some point you just have to be able to trust the people who have access to your hardware.
Good point.
Then why bother with the dialogue box at all.
1 thing: encryption – try to root an encrypted partition …
Speaking of blowing things out of proportion. This is NOT a security issue as a hacker cannot actually gain access to your system with the Speech Recognition feature.
This is a big issue, and it simply can’t be anything else. The fact is that a web site can play a sound that interacts with the desktop and deleting documents, with no uder interaction no less, is a serious issue. It’s not a system level attack, but it’s a serious issue for the user in question and is just so stupid, it should not occur. No remote application like a browser should be able to initiate things within a desktop environment in an uncontrolled manner. I think Microsoft have taken the view that they’re actually running things under ordinary users now, so things are OK. They’re not.
This is going to be a truly wonderful adware tool. Imagine the possibilities.
All you can do with this is play funny games like shutting down your computer, or closing windows; making this a BUG
Holy s*** Thom. I really hope that you’re not serious.
This, by any stretch of the imagination, is a security issue, and would be treated as such by any Linux distributor or open source project, even if it is sandboxed under a single user. Covering your ears as Microsoft does and saying “Oh, you wouldn’t be able to do this because of UAC, yadda, yadda, yadda” simply isn’t good enough.
I call anything that is able to shut down your computer, delete your user files, close Windows or do anything of that nature a security problem, and every other sane person would as well.
All you can do with this is play funny games like shutting down your computer, or closing windows; making this a BUG, NOT a security issue.
Or delete the user’s documents folder and empty the trash.
Aren’t you one of those who is always telling people running with a LUA in Linux isn’t really a panacea, since malware could still delete all your personal files and your data is what really matters etc etc?
It’s somewhat amusing to see you now blow off a working example of exactly that (except on Windows). I would think your valid observation would apply to Windows too no?
Thom’s a f–king idiot.
Is this the security base that still allows people to do things like this?
I think he is confusing what they shipped with what they orginally were designing, which was a virtual registry mechanism so that legacy applications would have their own ‘registry’ that was independant of the OS.
Yes it showed great promise for stability and security and yes it was pulled and thrown into /dev/null with the majority of great vista features.
I haven’t spent much time looking through the vista registry, but I can tell you that file system virtualization is alive and well. I got myself quite confused by this, actually, when trying to use eMule on Vista. This program writes downloads to Program Files, but it is redirected to a per-user folder on Vista.
According to this the virtual registry system is intact in the shipping product.
I’ll be damned.
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965884.aspx
a virtual registry mechanism so that legacy applications would have their own ‘registry’ that was independant of the OS … was pulled and thrown into /dev/null with the majority of great vista features.
If it really is gone (it seems to be) it is a big loss. I was looking forward to being able to do such things as running an old version of Word Perfect as a limited user.
I think it was WP Office 98 (not sure, it’s the one my mother uses) that needs root privileges for large chunks of the registry. Giving it a virtual registry and letting it believe it was root, thus letting lusers use it, was a really neat idea (even if some would call it polishing a turd^h^h the registry).
That, in fact, was the only reason I personally had to get Vista, and that only for my mother’s machine. Might as well just stick with where I am now, with a shortcut to WP that runs it as an admin (asking for a password) so she can at least be a limited user for everything else.
FUD alert, FUD alert…
That was my impression also. On Mac forums, Mac users regularly toast Apple for all sorts of things. If you believed MacNN, the MacBook was a deeply flawed product. Meanwhile, on CNet, it’s the highest rated “thin and light” laptop they’ve reviewed since 2003.
http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/9170/53/
It appears that Microsoft’s new operating system Windows Vista is too smart for its own good. A blogger has found that Vista’s speech recognition system is good enough for hackers to issue security breaching commands using malicious sound files on rogue websites.
Gates must be rather Bush-like, just never pulls his head out of his ass to read the news.
“Gates must be rather Bush-like, just never pulls his head out of his ass to read the news.”
Stay the course McSoft!
Month of Apple bugs kicked some serious Apple Butt. You know people have been saying that for a long time, now even articles online say that:
But now that MoAB is over, there is no reason to expect specially prepared websites to be popping up everywhere or for e-mails to be sent more often with viruses for Mac OS X. The number of Apple systems being used is probably just too small for authors of viruses to be interested in writing trojans and spyware for them. Nonetheless, MoAB managed to demonstrate impressively that well targeted attacks can be quite successful, if need be. Apple now has its work cut out for it if it wants to work off this list of flaws and provide updates both for the holes and the design errors. And if Apple does not do so, MoAB will not have served its purpose of increasing the security of MacOS X in the long term — but then Apple is to blame
Source: http://www.heise-security.co.uk/articles/84692
The number of Apple systems being used is probably just too small for authors of viruses to be interested in writing trojans and spyware for them.
I seriously doubt that. In the old days, when you actually had to use SneakerNet to carry software from machine to machine on a little blue square, Amigas were /plagued/ by viruses. Not only that, but they probably never reached more than 3 million machines sold. If the figures are right, then assuming MacOS has all five percent of the desktop marketshare not owned by Windows, then there are roughly 15 million Macs out there that can be easy reached over the ‘Net.
I mean, come on, people say this about Linux too, but Linux/UNIX runs the web. What spotty little crackerboi, faced with the choice of pwning Windows machines or the web, is going to pass up the chance to cause havoc on the latter?
One correction: Apple owns half the desktop market-share not owned by Windows (Linux has the other half). That puts it at about 2-3%. Still, that’s millions of machines, and still an attractive target for hackers.
Yep, and still probably twice as many as AmigaOS ever ran on.
Lets be realistic. If you were going to try to make your money by finding ways to break systems would you
a) Pick an environment with 5 million machines
OR
b) Pick an environment with 95 million machines
Its the relative size that matters not the absolute size.
Another reason is that Apple machines are expensive and are usually not that well adopted in third world countries.
In India almost all the machines people use are either custom made by local vendors with pirated Microsoft software or DELL.
OSX is only used by a far less percentage of people. I bet AmigaOS was used more if you look in terms of percentage.
As for Linux, well Linux is mostly used on servers which are usually safe from exploit like hey download this file or click here and here etc. Secondly in general people who tend to use Linux are more geeky type than average joe so fooling them to get them in your trap is hard.
Linux should be compared with Windows Server 2003 and Windows server 2003 has been most acclaimed and rated as the best server OS by many websites and it has suffered very few security issues as compared to desktop editions.
There were supposedly 19 million Macs running Mac OS X as of WWDC 2006. Of course, you have to be able to exploit them.
MoAB was a good thing for all Mac users, though it seems to have just been done to silence the ever-so-smug Mac fanatics. That’s not a bad thing, either. No one truly needs fanatics.
However, even Secunia is noting that the bugs found in November and the new bugs found by the MoAB project (not those they re-iterated) were found to be not so harmful. Several need to be exploited locally, even.
Apple didn’t make the desktop computer what it is by itself. It took Atari, Amiga, PC-DOS, Windows, DesqView, BeOS, GEOS, OS/2, Borland and a lot of other influences.
To say that Apple didn’t have a lot of this technology already is a bit absurd. It’s even more absurd to think that people believe that Microsoft innovate. It’s not outright theft, but it’s hardly innovation, either.
All completely right, but I don’t see how any of it fits in with what I posted.
It has to do with the fact that there are 19 million Macs running Mac OS X vs. 15 million Macs reachable over the internet, as you mentioned. Sorry that you didn’t see that over all the other business in my post.
What you said was somewhat vague. Saying “Macs” could mean machines from 1984 and, even removing those reaching the internet only takes us to 1987 or so. However, those affected by the Month of Apple Bugs is a much more defined group because they’re running Mac OS X.
To say that Apple didn’t have a lot of this technology already is a bit absurd. It’s even more absurd to think that people believe that Microsoft innovate. It’s not outright theft, but it’s hardly innovation, either.
This quote from “SLC Punk” comes to mind (on who invented punk) :
“I don’t know who started it and I don’t give a f–k. The one thing I do know is that we did it harder, we did it faster, and we definitely did it with more love, baby. You can’t take that away from us.”
Edited 2007-02-02 20:44
The number of Apple systems being used is probably just too small for authors of viruses to be interested in writing trojans and spyware for them
That just sounds like a good theory, but it’s flawed. I’ve had an OpenBSD system rootkit’d for christ sakes (a little too slow in applying a patch for the last big ssh exploit). How many systems are running OpenBSD? Far less than are running OS X, that’s for sure.
It’s my suspicion that most OS X (and *nix) flaws are just much more difficult to exploit than windows flaws, due to the design (how programs are installed, etc).
There are a lot of *nix flaws too … my Ubuntu box seems to require system updates several times per week . Just today I installed a GTK patch for a potential denial of service attack.
I could be wring though. Were any of those MoAB bugs easily exploitable?
How many systems are running OpenBSD? Far less than are running OS X, that’s for sure.
You said it yourself already. How many systems are running SSH?
How many systems are running OpenBSD? Far less than are running OS X, that’s for sure.
You said it yourself already. How many systems are running SSH?
Ok, sure that was easy, but the other part was that a OpenBSD specific rootkit was installed (BSDs don’t use the GNU tools, so installing a ‘linux’ rootkit would be easily noticable).
If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is.
No he can not, he leaves …
Anyway, I don’t know why I should trust Microsoft more than Apple …
It’s interesting to see that Apple is following the same way as Linux. At the beginning Microsoft did not care, and now they are fighting against it.
They seems to feel in danger now.
Just seeing how Vista is received around the world we can already say that its practically a failure.
Edited 2007-02-02 16:47
Just seeing how Vista is received around the world we can already say that its practically a failure.
Interesting OS stats for January here.
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=2
After three days on general release, Vista has acquired half as much market share as Linux has in about ten years (I say ‘ten years’ because that is the first year I remember someone telling me that ‘this is the year that Linux will take over the desktop’.
Now you may disagree, but from this rather modest start, I reckon Vista will overtaken Linux in a few months.
Practically a failure? Ten years, less than 1% share and falling?
Now that’s what I call a failure.
If I’m not mistaken (please correct me if that is the case, thank you), then the data you linked/refered to was generated using web statistics.
(that’s at least the impression I got from this snipplet
We use a unique methodology for collecting this data. We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on demand network of small to medium enterprise live stats customers. The sample size for these sites is more than 40,000 urls and growing. The information published is an aggregate of the data from this network of hosted website statistics. The site unique visitor and referral information is summarized on a monthly basis. – emphasis mine, c.f.[1])
For the sake of the FSM:
Please, stop using web statistics to gauge installation base percentages. That simply doesn’t work due to a multitude of reasons (site bias, chaching, masquerading, multuser systems, virtualization, dual/multiboot systems, live cd’s, …. etc. ).
Thank you very much.
[1]http://marketshare.hitslink.com/
Sorry mate, but web stats are about the best indicator going. Market share based on sales doesn’t really count.
Please, stop using web statistics to gauge installation base percentages. That simply doesn’t work due to a multitude of reasons (site bias, chaching, masquerading, multuser systems, virtualization, dual/multiboot systems, live cd’s, …. etc. ).
None of which makes any real difference. They’re just small abborations that still mean it is a Windows machine in use.
Site bias? Depends if you’re interested in general usage, or sites that are frequented by geeks. I’m interested in the former, because geeks are actually a very small percentage of the web using public.
The problem is that instead of doing something about the problem (and it is fixable) folk like yourself think the best way to fight is by just trying to deny the obvious. And that is why this is happening too:
Microsoft-IIS gain 935K sites, continuing an advance that has seen Microsoft steadily chip away at what once seemed an insurmountable lead for Apache. In our Feb. 2006 survey, Apache held 68% market share, giving it lead of 47.5% over Windows (20.5% share). In this month’s survey, Microsoft’s share has improved to 31.0%, narrowing Apache’s advantage to 27.7%.
From the current Netcraft page.
It’s your obsession with MS; that is why the Mac is going to wipe you off the desktop. Stop the circle-jerk, get out of your parents’ basements and start talking to real people.
Ask them.
“You’re not installing Linux? Why not?”
A few short answers and you can turn all this around.
You won’t though; will you …
That would be an interesting test- even if to just find out how many people have heard of Linux or know what it is.
Sorry mate, but web stats are about the best indicator going. Market share based on sales doesn’t really count.
First of all, let’s differentiate between:
– installation base (percentage of installed OSes, including probably pirated ones)
– sold units (which excludes free/gratis OSes)
– web statistics
These are three different metrics, and all of them have their own flaws, agreed.
None of which makes any real difference. They’re just small abborations that still mean it is a Windows machine in use.
I’m not sure I understand your point. How does an IE instance running inside WINE/CrossOver Office/Cedega
is a correct indicator for an MS Windows installation?
How is an instance of IE running inside VMWare/XEN/kvm/ etc. a correctly identified OS/Browser tuple? How is it accurate to rely on user agents, when many sites force users of alternative browsers/OSes to manipulate the user agent, because otherwise they get pages like “This site does only work with IE 5.x or later”?
Site bias? Depends if you’re interested in general usage, or sites that are frequented by geeks. I’m interested in the former, because geeks are actually a very small percentage of the web using public.
If I understand you correclty, you completly neglect the site bias introduced by the buisness modell of the company behind your web statistics. Since their web counter is a pay-per-volume product, I would expect to see a strong bias towards counts of commercial web pages, that need (or are at least interested enought to pay for) this kind of information. I have no data available to estimate how typical this setup really is for the average web page (er, “general-usage-site”), but I doubt that this tells the complete truth.
A professor of mine has told me in my first-year lab course at universtiy, that when one measures the response of system A under the experiment B, what you get is the response of system A under experiment B including measurement errors. Nothing more, nothing less, so everything that comes afterwards is interpretation, not solid facts.
My problem is, that the presented numbers come from an experiment, that measures
– only computers that have (unrestricted, unlike in many corporations) access to the web
– hits for sites, with a more than average probability to have a commercial background
– hits for sites, that are run by a company that can’t or won’t collect the data themselv and have decided to use that specific vendor (do they have “typical customers”?)
– the number of browsers with a certain user agent.
Agreed, the large picture won’t change (e.g. Windows XP has a market share around 90%), but I am not confident enough to trust such statistics for results with magnitudes < 1-2% due to the limited (and probably biased) sample. Therefore, I would not recommend to use such web statistics for getting an overall picture of installation base.
I can only speculate that
– the (compareable) large account of Windows CE installations and the non-existence of compareable Symbian OS results
– the absence of OSes like the xBSD’s and Solaris (their share would have to be at least one and a half magnitude smaller than Linux based systems to completly drop out of the statistics)
in your statistics originates from the limited sample of web sites used.
The problem is that instead of doing something about the problem (and it is fixable) folk like yourself think the best way to fight is by just trying to deny the obvious. And that is why this is happening too:
I invite you to share your solutions for fixing this problem. I don’t think that I deny the obvious by simply stating, that web statistics are a bad metric when resolutions smaller than several % are needed. If you can provide statistically relevant data for more general (e.g. not pay-per-volume, not restricted to one local vendor, etc.) data, I would be happy to know about it.
Now onwards to the rest of your comment:
It’s your obsession with MS; that is why the Mac is going to wipe you off the desktop. Stop the circle-jerk, get out of your parents’ basements and start talking to real people.
I’m not obsessed with MS. I am a former MS customer (up until Windows 98) and I work now in an environment (academia, phyics) where MS and Apple are far from dominant players (the vast majority of computers in our department is powered by OSes with a strong UNIX heritage like GNU/Linux or the BSD’s). Due to their track record, I’m highly suspecious of their motives and I have little use for most of their products since my workflow and needs (aka “my desktop”) are not really adressed by their applications, but I neither “hate” them, nor do I attack users of MS operating systems / products.
For me, operating systems are successful, when they can compete long-term on their own merits without anti-competative manouvers needed. Therefore, I don’t share your obsession for market shares.
Just to clarify: non-existence of compareable Symbian OS results
System60 is a distinct multivendor plattform ontop of Symbian OS, and (according to my limited knowledge in this field) is dominant for Nokia phones (and some other vendors). I was only surprised by the abscence of UIQ in the statistics and the low Symbian share in general.
Sorry mate, but web stats are about the best indicator going. Market share based on sales doesn’t really count.
Not this old horse again…
Web statistics are *useless* to determine market share, for many good reasons. The most important one is that web stats do not count individual visitors, but individual hits. Just that is enough to invalidate any statistical relevance as far as market share goes.
This has been demonstrated time and time again, but hardcore pro-MS posters continue to ignore the facts in order to beat their chests and claim that Linux is irrelevant. The only thing they prove by doing that is that they have no understanding of how web stats work.
“Please, stop using web statistics to gauge installation base percentages. That simply doesn’t work due to a multitude of reasons (site bias, chaching, masquerading, multuser systems, virtualization, dual/multiboot systems, live cd’s, …. etc. ).”
None of which makes any real difference. They’re just small abborations that still mean it is a Windows machine in use.
No, actually, they *all* make a difference on a statistic that is *useless* in the first place. So the figures are doubly misleading.
Did you know, for example, that an AOL user will register a request of apparently distinct origin not only for each web page viewed, but for each image on the page as well? That means that, if visiting a page with ten images, AOL users (of which there are quite a few) will each register as eleven different requests, which would then be counted in web stats as elevent different visits.
Site bias? Depends if you’re interested in general usage, or sites that are frequented by geeks. I’m interested in the former, because geeks are actually a very small percentage of the web using public.
…but by doing, you’re introducing another sort of bias. “General usage” sites may have less appeal to geeks, and they might be underepresented.
From the current Netcraft page.
That is completely irrelevant – it’s not talking about OSes, but about Web servers. (And yes, *those* statistics are accurate, even if they in no way support your argument.)
It’s your obsession with MS; that is why the Mac is going to wipe you off the desktop. Stop the circle-jerk, get out of your parents’ basements and start talking to real people.
You should drop the ad hominem attacks and actually start learning about the subject at hand. Throwing insults around only underlines your own abysmal lack of knowledge on these issues.
Vista will be installed on millions of computers by fiat and default, just like all the other versions of WankOS.
Linux marketshare is only falling in the pathetically delusional dreams of those cretinous enough to believe that Microsoft create good products.
You, too, can stop lying now.
Ah, the truth hurts that bad does it?
Look, the solution is simple. You Linux people to stop foaming at the mouth at every little thing Bill Gates does, and look at the faults in your own strategy and platform, Linux is crashing out of the desktop race; quit whining and do something about it, or just quit.
Linux marketshare is only falling in the pathetically delusional dreams of those cretinous enough to believe that Microsoft create good products.
Of course! That old chestnut! Ninety-three percent of the computer buying public are wrong!
Linux is free. Linux can be preloaded by two of the biggest box shifters on the planet.
.. and still, consumers don’t want it.
Yep. That’s gotta hurt.
“Linux is free. Linux can be preloaded by two of the biggest box shifters on the planet. [Dell and HP?]
.. and still, consumers don’t want it.”
You can only buy their Linux machines for more money than buying a machine with Windows, a CD-R, and then burning your own CD.
All their advertised and in-store products come with Windows. You usually have to use the site search on their websites to reach their Linux products. Finally, Dell Recommends Windows Vista. (That’s odd, they were recommending Windows XP just a week ago…)
It may be true that consumers don’t want it, but “Linux can be preloaded…” is not really the whole truth.
It may be true that consumers don’t want it, but “Linux can be preloaded…” is not really the whole truth.
Don’t expect the truth from Rayz. I expect that he’s either part of the MS Shill Brigade, or that he’s really NotParker’s new incarnation (which would explain why he resurrected the canard about web stats being used for market share).
Cool, I was already starting to miss the guy.
Am I not allowed to like Linux now?
Linux has only ‘failed’ if its goal was to replace Windows by now, and not everyone agrees that that should be Linux’s goal.
As for your marketshare values, I’m not sure how you expect to draw large-scale conclusions on only three days of data.
After three days on general release, Vista has acquired half as much market share as Linux has in about ten years (I say ‘ten years’ because that is the first year I remember someone telling me that ‘this is the year that Linux will take over the desktop’.
So to be fair about it, you should compare like with like, the first time I heard about Vista (Longhorn) being ‘the Windows that will take over the world’ was around five years ago(02/03). (Remember, testers and early-adopters have been contributing Vista to the web-stats since Vista RC1 was released)
So what you’re saying is that the next generation of the ‘world’s most used OS’ took 5 years to match what a (largely) unfunded community project could do in 10 years.
I’m happy with that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QdGt3ix2CQ
“There is only the truth which annoys”
And Bill Gates seems really annoyed 🙂
I don’t see the big deal about the Apple ads. I just saw the newest “Vista Surgery” ad, and while it definitely makes some digs, it’s also quite funny, and completely true. Tiger runs just fine on late-model G4s, which are pushing five to six years old now. Leopard will probably run just fine on them as well, given adequate RAM. How is Vista going to run on a top-end machine from 2001? We’re talking ~1.5 GHz Athlon XP with a GeForce2. Will that support the full “Vista Experience”?
I’m running Tiger on this old G4 Silver. It speed and security beats the hell out of a pathetic `Dull` McSoft WinDuhs XP box I was working on today.
The `Dull` box had a bot that disabled its firewall and virus checker.
The commercials are funny as hell and Willy doesn’t like to be imitated. He needs to retire and move on.
Let’s be realistic, who came up with [the] file, edit, view, help [menu bar]?
Uhhh, that would be Lotus. In fact, for years the menu bar was referred to as a Lotus style menu bar. Way to go, Bill. After all the stupid crap he’s said, I can’t believe they still let him speak in public. He also thinks that 99 dollars is the same as 99 pounds sterling. What a maroon!
“Actually, if you look at Windows strength versus Linux, or versus anything, it’s done very well, because we have this big ecosystem.”
“Apple hasn’t done any of those things.”
“Nowadays, security guys break the Mac every single day. Every single day, they come out with a total exploit, your machine can be taken over totally.”
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.
Ghandi
Edited 2007-02-02 17:04
“Bill Gates on Vista, Apple’s ‘Lying’ Ads”
Just like those MS “Get the Facts” ads?
Hmmn, one-liners sound great and get modded up to 5 but …
There are some quite interesting things in here, especially when you take into account the target audience, i.e. Newsweek.
For example, Gates’ insistence that the concept of the “big OS” won’t go the way of the dinosaurs and that major updates to Vista will come every couple of years. Hostage to fortune there.
He mentions Linux – quite unprompted and in Newsweek, too. So, yes, a give-away that Gates has clearly accepted Linux as more of a player than Microsoft will publicly admit.
He then talks about users/identity and moving them (apps, identity, files, settings) between machines via the cloud. For a moment he starts to sound incisive rather than sluggish. He gets in a pitch for the MS Live! services while keeping quiet about Google. Hmmn, yes, that gives away where the hot new battles are going to be over the next five years, surely?
Newsweek gives Gates a free pass on viruses and malware and also on DRM – he gets off very, very lightly. But he falls straight into the Apple trap. A more savvy operator would have moved on swiftly while giving the impression that Apple was a computer lightweight, a small ecosystem with a control freak at the helm. Instead, Gates gets bogged down in details that will mean nothing to most Newsweek readers. This suggests to me that Gates has been rather poorly briefed and is getting rather ponderous and out of touch.
Ponderous, out of touch and, one might add, greedy. That’s the root of the problem with Microsoft for me. I mean, just look at Vista’s hardware requirements in the age of energy conservation. It is the equivalent of going out and buying a monster SUV that manages six miles to the gallon. Yes, it’s perfectly legal, etc, etc. But is it really all that cool?
It’s funny to watch the fanboys from both sides get into these huge pissing contests about who copied who and who came out with what first. But, I’ve got news for all of you, so brace yourself …… Are you sure you’re ready? Ok, here it comes …
NOBODY CARES!!!!!
That’s right. I don’t give a shit, and neither do the rest of the population who actually have lives. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference who came up with xyz first. It does not in any way influence my deicision of which OS I’m going to use. The only thing I ask myself is, what is the right tool for the job for my particular needs? The rest of this drivel is just irrelavent.
So, if you’re going to argue about something, why not argue about something that matters? For instance, what can I actually run on each OS?
If you don’t care, why are you reading this? Or maybe it’s that you just didn’t know. It’s called revisionism. And when you claim that you invented something that you did not, people who know better should call you on it. If we don’t, people like you who weren’t alive in the 80’s will not bother to check the facts. Understand?
It’s funny to watch the fanboys from both sides get into these huge pissing contests about who copied who and who came out with what first. But, I’ve got news for all of you, so brace yourself …… Are you sure you’re ready? Ok, here it comes …
NOBODY CARES!!!!!
That’s right. I don’t give a shit, and neither do the rest of the population who actually have lives. It doesn’t make a damn bit of difference who came up with xyz first. It does not in any way influence my deicision of which OS I’m going to use. The only thing I ask myself is, what is the right tool for the job for my particular needs? The rest of this drivel is just irrelavent.
So, if you’re going to argue about something, why not argue about something that matters? For instance, what can I actually run on each OS?
I have a life, which is why I refuse to spend it babysitting an OS which requires constant virus checking and god knows what else. I use my free time for other things, like watching a good film. And learning to spell. I may not be able to run 6,000,000 Windows applications on Linux, but, interestingly, I CAN run the applications I want and can afford.
That’s the first ‘relevant’ comment I’ve read all day.
Likewise I don’t give a shit who came up with xxxx feature first. The zealots on OSNews are just pathetic.
You know what’s funny? I didn’t express an opinion or preference about any operating system. I pointed out what some might call a factual error on Bill Gates’ part. I think I’m being generous in calling it that. Other people could and probably will call it a lie. If someone who can remember longer than 20 years is a zealot, then that’s me alright. And I don’t really care what you and your other little fanboize will or won’t give. If facts bother you so much, maybe you need to do your reading here.