Apple's security may be a bit overrated

Remember when everyone seemed to think Apple's computers were secure? I said that there weren't as many exploits against Apple's OS X because it is inherently more secure than Windows because OS X is based on Unix, which had security built in from the beginning, and Windows is based on DOS, which had security added on. That's the part of my comment that Apple users like to hear. What they didn't like was the part when I continued to say that another reason for the lack of exploits was a smaller user base. And, I said, any operating system has some vulnerabilities. OS X is still more secure than Windows, but the severity and the number of "issues" is increasing.

Last week, my Powerbook downloaded and installed patches for 25 security vulnerabilities, including a serious flaw in the AirPort wireless device. If you have an eMac, iBook, iMac, Powerbook G3 or G4, or a Power Mac G4, you may have an AirPort. Computers with an AirPort Extreme wireless card are not affected. Early in April, Apple released a software update to fix a vulnerability in the AirPort Extreme Base Station, a wireless router.

This is not intended to be an I told you so message; it's just a reminder that a computer is a computer is a computer, that an operating system is an operating system is an operating system, and that vulnerabilities exist for every computer and every operating system.

Apple has a feature that's similar to the Windows automatic update feature. Mac OS X automatically checks weekly for software updates provided you have an Internet connection. You can choose a different schedule, or check manually if you don’t have a continuous Internet connection. If Software Update finds an item to download, it appears in a list and you can click on an item to get a description before downloading it. If you see updates that you will never use, such as a language you don’t speak or drivers for a printer you don’t own, you can inactivate that update (Windows users know this as "ignore"). You can view the hidden updates and later install them if conditions change.

	Apple's Mac OS X can check each week for software updates or you can run the Software Update tool manually whenever you want. • CLICK THE IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW.
	All updates require that the user provide a user ID and the password of someone who has authority to administer the machine. This is a good security precaution.

If you're not sure whether the latest updates have been installed:

• Choose System Preferences from the Apple Menu.
• Choose Software Update from the View menu.
• Click Update Now.
• Select the items you want to install, then click Install.
• Enter an Admin user name and password.
• After the update is complete, restart the computer if necessary.

To learn more about Apple's security updates, visit Apple's security center.

And, if your Mac has an Airport installed, be sure that you've taken the steps Apple describes here.

Vista wins?

Not exactly.

This week, Softpedia said "while Mac OS X users are busy bees updating and patching their operating system, Windows Vista users can kick back, even if it is just for this month. This is an argument that should put a sock in a lot of mouths that applaud the security of Mac OS X over Windows. But that won't happen. Not even with this month's Apple patches. There is simply too much arrogance in Mac users, a behavior condoned and shared by Apple as a company."

That's exactly the kind of absurd Windows vs Mac nonsense that provides precious little light and a fair amount of heat.

Windows, the Mac OS, Unix, Linux, DOS, and every other operating system ever created are works of human programmers. Human programmers make mistakes in coding. They overlook things. They underestimate thieves. They share with each other the inability to see around corners. So every operating system ever written—and probably every operating system that ever will be written—is flawed. And that's true whether it's written in Redmond, Washington; Cupertino, California; or Bangalore, India.

A little less chauvinism on everyone's part would be most welcome.

Would you open these spams?

“There’s a sucker born every minute.” Phineas Taylor (P.T.) Barnum is reputed to have said that. Irving Wallace, in his book about Barnum, The Fabulous Showman The Life and Times of P.T.Barnum, recounted how Barnum manipulated a gullible public:
“One day a plump beggar came by for a handout. Instead, Barnum offered him a job at a dollar and a half a day. He handed the puzzled beggar five ordinary bricks. ‘Now,’ said Barnum, ‘go and lay a brick on the sidewalk at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street; another close by the Museum; a third diagonally across the way… put down the fourth on the sidewalk in front of St. Paul’s Church, opposite; then, with the fifth brick in hand, take up a rapid march from one point to the other, making the circuit, exchanging your brick at every point, and say nothing to anyone.… [A]t the end of every hour by St. Paul’s clock show this ticket at the Museum door; enter, walking solemnly through every hall in the building; pass out, and resume your work.’
The beggar moved off with his five bricks, and began his idiot’s play. Within half an hour, more than five hundred curious people were following him. In an hour, the crowd had doubled. When the brick-toting pied piper entered the museum, dozens bought tickets to follow him. This continued throughout the day for several days, and Barnum’s business showed a satisfying increase.”
To a great extent, spam works that way.

One spam arrived at the office this week with a subject line of Read me! I was hard to avoid reading it because we use Outlook with the preview pane. The message consisted of the message Click me! Needless to say, I didn't click. Given the URL, which you can see below, the target was almost certainly something that would create a problem. Because I keep all security updates up to date, I probably could have followed the link; but only a fool would even consider that.

	"Read me!" I don't think so. Look at that ugly URL. Click it at your own peril. • CLICK THE IMAGES FOR A LARGER VIEW.
	Here's one that's in Russian. I speak Russian as a (far distant and fading) second language. Schkola mezhdunaronoi telezhoralistiki is something about a school for international telejournalists. I stopped translating there. Sorry. Wrong number.
	Remont dlya vac would be repair (or help) for you. Hmmm. I don't think so.
	Cheap OEM software? Adobe doesn't sell Acrobat to even its best wholesale customers for $69 or After Effects for $49. But who is the flshey.com? The first rule of business is to know who you're dealing with. And, yes, OEM software exists, but not at an 80% discount.
	Flshey.com was registered just a few days ago via bizcn.com. CN is the top level domain for China, so I wonder ...
	... yes, it would seem that bizcn.com is a Chinese operation. We all know how well China's government respects intellectual property. I'm sure that Flshey.com is entirely above board and a good trading partner. Yeah, right.
	I thought it might be worthwhile to take a closer look, but first I opened the page with SamSpade so that I could examine the code to look for code that might try to do something to my computer. There's a session ID cookie, standard for a commercial site, but that's all. So I opened the page in a browser.
	If someone offered you a brand new Lexus GS 430 for $12,000, you might suspect that the car has been stolen. If someone offers you an application with a retail price of $1200 for just $150, might you not make the same assumption?
	So now here we are with another spam in Russian, but there's a bit of English. They're offering to be my public relations representative in Russia.
	But I don't speak, read, or write Chinese at all.

Useless error messages

Completely unrelated to anything else, here is an error message from a Toshiba website. It mentions an "unexpected error". I suppose that if it had been an expected error, they would have had a better error message to describe it. Why do companies, particularly large companies such as Toshiba, include such lame and useless error messages?

Nerdly News

Wal-Mart and the elusive HD DVD

For the past week or two, there have been rumors that Wal-Mart will have cheap HD DVD players in time for Christmas this year. If Wal-Mart goes for HD DVD, the rumor suggested, then Blu-ray is doomed. Maybe. If Wal-Mart does that, but the company says that's not happening.

Will the Fuh Yuan company in Taiwan work with TDK to produce under-$300 HD DVD players for Wal-Mart? Nope, says a company spokesman. Wal-Mart says the reports were totally inaccurate. Or were they? Some governments and some businesses say one thing and then do exactly the opposite. If Wal-Mart is planning a big HD DVD splash for the holidays, it would be in the company's best interests not to let competitors know.

Fuh Yuan is playing along. The company posted a notice on its website stating that its previous statement that Wal-Mart had 2,000,000 HD DVDs on order was inoperative. "The actuality is that we had not received yet. We are asked to provide the schedule to Wal-Mart and cost to determine the quantity even more than two million, if the cost is good enough and timing is correct. So the capacity is under consideration. Any qualified manufactured base group will be welcome."

Wal-Mart says it will sell both Blu-ray and HD-DVD players until a format winner emerges.

Microsoft Windows for $3?

No, this isn't one of those idiotic spams claiming "OEM software". It's more like what some drug companies do in providing drugs that are hundred of dollars per dose in developed countries for pennies in the developing world. Microsoft will offer a limited versions of Windows, Office, and other applications to those in developing countries.

Bill Gates announced the program this week in Beijing and this clearly illustrates just how frightened Microsoft is of the open source community. Some governments are recommending the open-source Linux, a free operating system, and applications such at OpenOffice, which is also free. A minimalist computer with all open-source applications could sell for just a few hundred dollars.

In fact, the nonprofit organization, One Laptop Per Child, plans to produce machines priced at about $150 this year, with hopes of reducing the cost to $100 soon. The machines would run a version of Linux and governments in Argentina, Brazil, and Nigeria have already committed to the plan.

Microsoft is now offering the Microsoft Unlimited Potential program, which would be available in developing countries and also in low-income communities in developed countries (yes, that includes the United States). Microsoft would sell discounted software to national, state, or local governments and those agencies would distribute the PCs to individuals.

Machines with the low-cost Microsoft applications would cost about $300, which is substantially more than what the One Laptop Per Child program foresees. Currently there are about a billion PC users worldwide. Most of those are in developed countries. Microsoft wants to add another billion users by 2015. One Laptop Per Child could add millions more.

Twenty years ago or more, Apple started putting its computers in classrooms and Microsoft now sees the value of attracting young users. Some of the children who are introduced to Windows will become adults who are responsible for buying businesses machines. Get them young and you can keep them for life.

Maybe. When my younger daughter started classes at the Columbus College of Art and Design, I told her that she had to have a Mac because commercial artists use Macs. She'd used Apple computers at school and didn't like them because we had PCs at home. She didn't want a Mac, but accepted one grudgingly when I gave her no choice. Within a few months, she was making fun of Windows PCs even as her Mac crashed several times a day.

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