Lemme guess, you have an ATI graphics card?


It took me 10 minutes to install Diablo 2 on Linux yesterday.

Syphon, learn what an exaggeration is.

The point is, it's a pain in the ass to install stuff. Windows can install DII in literally a minute.
(I only know about DII and LoD, I never installed D1 on my comp, but then again, I assume it's shorter, seeing as it's a much more basic game.)

Yes, that is correct, I do have an ATI graphics card in that system. I actually had it working with an earlier Ubuntu release (the number was something like 6.02), but when I upgraded it to a newer release sometime (I think so I could install newer software), I couldn't get the 3d features consistently working anymore.

Extremely critical Mac OS X zero-day exploit released
Root Exploit for Mac OS X
'Secure' Mac cracked in 10 seconds
Questions for Pwn2Own hacker Charlie Miller
Nobody can say shit about Windows being less secure than OSX.

Vista and later even more so.

Listen: Macs can be hacked. It is possible. However, if your comp is hacked, it can't modify any systm files. All those are protected, and take an admin password to change. If you're surfing the web in root... you deserve to be hacked. If you hack into XP on a guest account, you can change system files. Also, XP does not come with a firewall, only the Professional version does. I'm not arguing that OS X is invulnerable, I'm just saying that with no protection (even a firewall, but you should run one), and you have a litttle common sense, you will be fine. If you run a PC without virus protection, it is very easy to be infected. By the way, the same file protections also make it impossible to modify or read a system file without an admin password. By the way, iWork is much easier to use. If you haven't used it, you wouldn't know, but it just is.
By the way, you can find an IP adress online.
The bottom line: OS X is made out by the media to be much less secure than it is. Every OS X security problem is called out by the media, every OS X virus is instantly famous. Apple disclosed more security fixes than M$ last year, even though they had less reported security problems. OS X has fewer vulnerabilities, they are less minor, and they are fixed faster. There are hundreds of thousands of Windows viruses, but maybe five (very, very minor ones), for OS X. Isn't that a little too disproportionally small?
EDIT: Plus, in OS X, you can't read data from other accounts. And, if you have secure data you need stored, label it as a system file. Then, the only way to access it is with a password. Also, if you do download a virus, you can restore with Time Machine. It is much easier to use than Window's backup system. Besides, the article does not say what he did to the computer. It might have been something like deleting a document, which is very simple and easy. Another thing to bear in mind: It takes a gullible Mac user to be infected. If you see a suspicious site, don't go to it. If you run a PC, there are ways for a hacker to disguise a virus as a .psd. Also, if you read your article, it was the app that caused the problem, not the OS.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 20 2009, 4:08 pm by Zxblqcktptyjsplkn.

If you only had one account and all of your important data was on it and got deleted, who cares if the OS is still working fine? Plenty of damage can be done without being an admin. On the flip side, if it destroys the OS but leaves your files alone, it is only an annoyance and not so much a major problem; just reload the OS and your computer (and data) are usable again.

A guest account is not an admin account and can't change system files.

XP has come with a firewall since the initial release, though it has only been enabled by default since service pack 2. This wasn't just pre-installs, however. By updating to service pack 2, it would automatically enable the firewall, regardless of whether it had or had not been enabled previously.

Non-admins in Windows 2000, XP, or later can't modify system files either. They can read files that need to be used by the programs they run, but there are also files they can't read.

Non-admins by default can't read data from other passworded accounts in Windows 2000, XP, or later either.

Even if it would require being an admin to outright delete the Time Machine data, I wouldn't be surprised if it was possible to flood it with data to get all of the user's files removed from it.

The fact of the matter is, if you take the easy step of marking something as a sytem file (or require the pass of the file creator), it cannot be modified without the pass.
Windows has no file protections. A virus can modify system files. The protections in OS X make this impossible. The guest can't change system files, but a virus on a guest account can. Also, you can't change the files via the control panel, but if you can find where the data is stored, even a guest can change it. Fine, maybe XP comes with a firewall. In XP, it is possible for programs to have access to system files without an admin account. Also, if you can find where the file is on the dick, you can change it. In Windows, the user can't read restricted data, but many apps can. You don't get what Time Machine is. You can't delete the data, or flood it. Time Machine sends hourly updates, and it is impossible to send more. The Time Capsule won't accept them. It only records changes every hour. If you lose all your data, you can do a complete restore, including the OS, via Time Machine. Plus, automatic disk defrag. Another thing: Macs have a "BTree," or balanced file tree. This means that files are spread evenly throughout the tree. The heirarchy is the same to the user, but it is different for the OS. It is set up in such a way as to be much faster. In Windows, the OS file system is the same one the user uses, and is very ineffecient, making for inefficient searches, copying, etc. for the OS.
Right now, all anyone is arguing is that Windows doesn't suck. Let's hear something that makes it good.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 20 2009, 5:57 pm by Zxblqcktptyjsplkn. Reason: Windows sucks.

Windows DOES have file protections, provided you are using NTFS and not the old FAT32. By default, Windows 2000, XP, or newer will be installed with NTFS -- in fact, Vista or newer won't let you install to FAT32 (though through some manual steps you can get it on there if you really have a need for it).

Again, can't be done while Windows is running if you don't have the permissions to do it. Apps run at the same permission level as the user they run as, not higher. In Vista and later, apps can also request to run with less permissions than the user. Also, just knowing where a file is located does not mean you can change it. By the way, NTFS has the capability to encrypt files in a way that only the owner can even read the files (not even if you try to access it from another OS). Of course, this is more for files you'd rather destroy than let someone see them, because if you reinstall Windows or even do a password reset on your user, the files can no longer be decrypted.

While it is probably a good feature, Time Machine is not a replacement for a backup (though if it has the capability to copy your data to another drive, it could probably be used for making backups). If your drive fails, your data is gone anyway if you didn't make a backup to another drive. As far as flooding it with data, it probably could be done. If some malware filled the entire drive and then overwrote your data every hour, it would probably lose your data if you didn't catch it soon enough. So you still need backups in case you get malware, too.

Vista has this, too.

Don't try to comment on the intricacies of file systems if you're not a file system designer.

You don't understand what Time Machine is. It' s backup program. No, many Windows apps break if you try to run them at anything but an admin level. In XP, almost all programs run at administrator level. If they don't, they don't work. Actually, I think Vista has so many incopatibilities because it forced programs to run at a non-admin level. Yes, you can edit system files with a buffer overflow. System files are protected in OS X so this can't happen. Also, if a Time Machine drive is full, it will not allow data to be overwritten. It will just tell you to get a new drive. No, I'm not a file system designer, but I have done my research an a BTree is much more effecient.

EDIT: Just to be clear, we aren't discussing hardware here. That means no might mice, keyboards, magnetic plugs, etc.

I have a PC with Windows XP that I use for gaming and such. I have a Mac that I use solely as an editing suite with Final Cut Pro and various Adobe products.

My Mac has a two-button third-party mouse. I've always used two-button mice with my OS X Macs, so screw that argument.

I'm not saying it isn't useful, only that unless it is backing up to a different drive, it isn't a true backup solution, because it wouldn't protect your data from a drive failure.

Programmers had a bad habit of assuming everyone ran as an admin back then, because the default user was an admin and you didn't have any non-admin users if you didn't have a multi-user system set up. Having Vista run programs without admin privileges has a dual purpose, actually. One is to protect the system, but it is also to make programmers start doing what they were supposed to all along, as far as making their programs function without having to run as an admin. They did, however, add some features to help reduce the compatibility issues this would cause, including redirecting some file or registry writes to a different location when not running a program as admin.

It will not allow full system access for every buffer overflow, though. It depends on where the buffer overflow happens (like whether it is in the kernel or not) and whether the buffer overflow is exploitable (in some cases the OS protections will prevent the buffer overflow from causing any code to be run from it). Any OS could potentially have buffer overflows that could be exploited to gain full system access; no system is inherently immune to it.

As far as the type of attack I mentioned, it all just comes down to how they implemented it and if they put any protections in place to keep it from trying to keep too many versions of the files in a short time period. If it never deletes an old copy of a file ever, no matter how many times the file has been modified, even at the expense of completely running out of disk space, then it wouldn't be vulnerable to the type of attack I mentioned; otherwise there is a chance it could be.

All Mac users are all gullible. Why else would they buy such overpriced hardware?

If you had read the article, you'd know that the OS was the root cause of the app being exploited.
Firefox + Windows is harder to break than Firefox + OSX. Since you only changed one thing (the operating system), doesn't that mean that one thing is to blame for the change?
Now, what do you think a virus is?

Time machine does back up to am external drive. It is just a backup program. Also, in the pwn2own comp, that was one glitch. With time machine running, it would be very minor to fix. OS X does not allow reading of system files without a system pass. That is still only one problem, which only works if you click on a link running a specific version of Safari. There are many similar attacks for PCs, but you simply don't hear of them. The only reason you hear about this attack is because it is on a mac. Also, if you look at the link, they were able to assume the user is a complete idiot by clicking that link without a firewall. If you google "why windows is more secure, you'll get hundreds of articles about this one hacker. Look up the same thing about why os x is more secure, and you'll get many different studies with better researched information saying why. The whole reason this one small-time hacker is famous is because he hacked a Mac. I'm not a hacker, but if I hacked a mainframe and said it was easy, I'd be instantly famous and the mainframe os would be laughed at, even if it was anything but easy. The main thing to think about is hat since this one hacker is so famous for hacking os x, anyone that wrote an os x virus would be more famous. That would be motivation enough for me to write a Mac virus. However, there is essensially only this one incident.

Learn to use sarcasm marks؟

No it's not. Actually, I prefer installing things in Linux than on Windows. Windows, you have to find installers, download, run them if you don't have a disc, and just pop them in and run them if you do. In Linux, installing things is as easy as sudo apt-get install n if you don't have a disc, and the program is at all common, and wine media\cdrom0\install.exe if you do have the disc. Pretty much anything you could ever want on Windows is supported by Wine, and those few programs you can't find in the reps, you download and install just like in Windows.

And no, you cannot install Diablo 2 in 1 minute on Windows. It is over a GB. It took me the same amount of time on Windows and Linux, my brother wanted to play with me.


You don't understand anything you're talking about.


No, they don't. Some old ones do, no new ones do. And this is the fault of programmers, not Microsoft. "I think" = I Actually have no idea, and want to pad my stupid post.


Yes, yes it can happen. You can do anything conceivable with a large enough buffer overflow, on any system, including corrupting an entire installation of OS X. Accourding to Wikipedia, "A buffer overflow occurs when data written to a buffer, due to insufficient bounds checking, corrupts data values in memory addresses adjacent to the allocated buffer. Most commonly this occurs when copying strings of characters from one buffer to another."

All that needs to be done is an overflow large enough within range. It's in the same physical memory = it can be overwritten.


It won't allow data to be overwritten, assuming that Time Machine is still in charge of that drive. If you're not a file system designer, then how do you know what's efficient and what isn't?

Honestly, just give up. Every single thing you've said has been debunked. We don't care if you use Macs. It doesn't threaten us, stop feeling threatened by us using Windows.

yeah, backup your credit card number and your passwords. Don't want to lose those. With time machine, if they get changed, you can just revert back to your old passwords.

Did you actually google it? I don't actually think you did. One of them links to charles miller's inquiry. The rest refer to how windows is more secure than linux and OSX, mainly because it has to be.

*Citation needed

10 seconds is easy. Also, all hackers are small time, except for zerocool. He's the man.

Perhaps this will shut you up. OSX is safer than windows. OSX is less secure than windows. Both of these statements can be true. Just accept it.

Syphon, what I was saying is that because Windows had allowed apps (in the past) to run at too-high access levels, and when Vista took this away, most apps broke. This has been fixed now, but we're mostly talking about XP since Vista is hardly used. Did I say system files are protected from a buffer overflow? They aren't. I think I meant to say system files aren't changeable or readable. Syphon, that was just what I was saying about Time Machine. I'm not a file system designer, but if other file system designers agree with me, it must be true. I have done research about this, and this is what file system designers say, too. Think about it this way: If I'm not a mathematician, but I say 1+1=2, can't that be true?

I still have yet to hear one actual advantage the Windows OS has over OS X.

I actually did google it. If you notice, almost all those talk about comparing different Windows versions. Another thing to notice: All articles about Mac security are followed by a question mark. OS X is still considered more secure, and most tests I have found say it is, too.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Aug 21 2009, 1:07 am by Zxblqcktptyjsplkn.

There are two things you can do to a file. Read it or write to it. Deleting it is writing it. Protection refers to the ability to prevent both of those. If a buffer overflow leaves system files unprotected, then you can read or write them. Your statements contradict each other, and illuminate your ignorance on simple concepts.

If your not a mathematician, but you say 1+1=3, can't that be true? No. It's only true if you can prove it. 1+1=2 is proveable. If holy mac filesystem is so great, prove it. And saying others agree with me is not proof. Consensus is a political tool, not a scientific or logical one.

I don't have to be a mindless zealot to use it. Does that count?

Fine. Here's a real advantage. It's not illegal for me to install Windows on non-Apple hardware.

Windows is compatible with more software and more hardware configurations.

In fact, I think all 3 of these things have been said before, and, again, you chose to remain willfully ignorant.

The file system is more efficient because it takes fewer step to access files. That is a fact. It takes fewer steps, meaning it is faster. Besides, consensus isn't proof, but it is damn near close. The General Theory of Relativity has never been proven, but it is still agreed to be correct.

What I was saying about system files being protected is that you can't edit them without an admin account. In Windows, you can make them password protected, but it isn't the same. In Windows, this was added over the top (there were no file protections originally), and aren't as well integrated. In UNIX, these have been around from the beginning.