Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 20th Mar 2009 13:51 UTC, submitted by google_ninja
Fresh from winning the PWN2OWN contest yesterday, Charlie Miller has been interviewed by ZDNet. He talks about how Mac OS X is a very simple operating system to exploit due to the lack of any form of anti-exploit features. He also explains that the underlying operating system is much more important in creating a successful exploit than the bowser, why Chrome is so hard to hack, and many other things.
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RE[4]: Comment by sadyc
by Soulbender on Fri 20th Mar 2009 17:50
in reply to "RE[3]: Comment by sadyc"
Member since:2005-08-18
Why not blame FORD executives for refusing to buy the information about defective cars, thereby exposing their customers to the risk?
Except that, for one reason or other, they don't know? And even if they did, who cares who's to blame? Wouldn't it be more important to save lives than play petty blame games? I presume you would gladly let people suffer and die just to point the finger at the execs?
The blame can be assessed at a later time, it won't go away just because you expose the problem. If you keep the problem secret and sell it to them silently there sure as hell won't be any blame dished out.
but I don't think anyone should work for free for closed-source, IP-paranoid company who boasts making a highly secure and usable operating system
Good job missing the point again. It's not about who is closed source and evil or has brown pants or whatever. It's about behaving responsibly and not leaving the general public exposed to danger.
He sat on the bug for a year. FOR A YEAR. Two wrongs does not make a right.
In fact, I'd say it would be extremely shortsighted to help these companies for free instead of contributing to improve FOSS alternatives.
Yes, because all software must be FOSS. It magically makes everything ok. Blah blah blah.
The whole OS matters for the exploit, and OSX is not open source.
Who cares if it's not open source? That's not the point. The point is to not expose the unknowing consumer to risks.
RE[5]: Comment by sadyc
by wannabe geek on Fri 20th Mar 2009 20:14
in reply to "RE[4]: Comment by sadyc"
Member since:2006-09-27
Except that, for one reason or other, they don't know? And even if they did, who cares who's to blame? Wouldn't it be more important to save lives than play petty blame games? I presume you would gladly let people suffer and die just to point the finger at the execs?
In the example they do know someone claims there's a problem, and they refuse to buy the details. It's easy to go like "would you let people suffer and die...?". You might as well claim that doctors should work for free, and not just doctors, but (more to the point) engineers and anyone whose work may somehow save lives or reduce human suffering.
Who cares if it's not open source? That's not the point. The point is to not expose the unknowing consumer to risks.
Look, the bottom line here is that desktop operating systems nowadays are extremely vulnerable to malware, and should never be relied upon for any kind of life-sensitive use, unless complete isolation is guaranteed. If a cobalt-60 unit is hooked to a Mac where medical students surf through porn sites, and something bad happens because of that, the last person I would blame is the guy who failed to disclose a Mac vulnerability for free.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/25/13 0:45 UTC
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 23:59 UTC
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 22:33 UTC
Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Linked by Howard Fosdick on 05/24/13 21:41 UTC
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 14:44 UTC
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 23:22 UTC
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:04 UTC
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. Weâll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that itâs usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.More News »
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Member since:
2006-09-27
Why not blame FORD executives for refusing to buy the information about defective cars, thereby exposing their customers to the risk?
I'm with Miller on this one, to some extent. Selling the information to criminals would be wrong, but I don't think anyone should work for free for closed-source, IP-paranoid company who boasts making a highly secure and usable operating system. In fact, I'd say it would be extremely shortsighted to help these companies for free instead of contributing to improve FOSS alternatives. Remember the exploit is not just about Webkit, not even about Safari. The whole OS matters for the exploit, and OSX is not open source.