"As a long serving citizen of the Internet I have, in my time, accumulated membership to a number of email groups. It was in one of these groups that I first heard reports of a virus (Leap.A) that had started to infect Apple's Mac OS X operating system. I was not surprised that this had happened; in fact I was quite taken aback that it had not happened before! But I was flabbergasted by the response of the Mac Mafia to this news. The assumption that something is infallible is at best naive and at worst stupid; it can only invite trouble."
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Member since:2005-07-06
You're telling me ...
I used to hate Macs simply because of the zealous Mac users, frothing at the mouth with Apple marketing propaganda. Then I switched to a Mac, but I have yet to be afflicted with this illness. I look at things realistically.
Mac users have *many* inbred and fallacious beliefs that they spew repeatedly. There is, of course, the whole thing about viruses and malware. There are the ones about security and UNIX. There is (recently talked about here) the su vs. sudo debate. Oh, there's a good one about HFS+ and fragmentation/defragmentation as well.
All in all, it can be summarized as "Mac Mafia bullshit". It's good to ignore it. :-)
Member since:2005-06-29
You keep talking about HFS+ and fragmentation, can you show some evidence of degraded performance due to fragmentation on an HFS+ volume? Please do.
Anyway, the "article" was pretty pathetic. The third category is really right. It's a so what virus like most Windows virii. It preys on the weak minded (much like lotteries and most other forms of gambling) by getting them to do something stupid and then using that against them.
The virii which aren't ho-hum are the ones like Sasser and Blaster. Oh, and there were some really nasty telnet and smtp virii (actually worms) back in the early 90's and late 80's I believe.
A virus becomes a big deal when it becomes a big problem, for users (the majority of the vocal Mac group). It's a big deal for administrators immediately. And it's a big deal for programmers, often, before anyone else ever hears of it (if they work on the affected project).
I think that as an administrator he misses the point: The people who think it's no big deal think so because they don't manage other people's computers. They know how to prevent it for themselves, do, and don't care beyond that until it becomes worthy of talking about on NBC Nightly News.
Member since:2005-11-23
Member since:2005-07-06
...truth is that your XP box is more likely to be harmed by Norton/McAfee than you Mac is to be harmed by a virus.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6048709.html
Member since:
2006-01-31
Mac users are really doing themselves a disservice by refusing to confront the problem. Is it possible to keep an OS virus free forever? Probably not, but I'd hate to see the Mac community get to the point where they have to aknowledge the problem because more and more malware infects their machines.