Apple Orders Technicians to Feign Ignorance About Mac Malware

[stealthify]

apple's "great customer support" is still a myth.

Lie.
Apple Tops PC Customer Service Rankings - NYTimes.com

it's not great customer support. it's, "pay us the $$$ we tell you to, and we'll make the problem go away for you."

Lie.
Walk into an Apple Store in need of technical support, walk out with the answers you were looking for. It's common knowledge that you can bring your busted machine to the 'Genius' bar and they'll do what they can, within reason, to help you right on the spot. No hourly charge, no major hassle. Easy.

Apple users have bricked their own phone by using buggy jailbreaking methods and/or shoddy apps from Cydia, etc.

great. so apple isn't malicious, just bloody incompetant.

Huh?
What does jailbreaking have anything to do with Apple's competency level? This is a problem birthed from half-baked quick releases of jailbreaking tools. A third-party programmer makes a faulty patch, and you blame Apple for this? I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

not to mention that the consumer STILL has to track down drivers, patches and any other quirky problems which the program may have natively.

False.
On the Mac side of things they only need one driver (again as mentioned, here), and that one is included on the CD that came with your computer. All other drivers are in Windows' hands, and are no different than the ones you'd need to download on any other machine.

has ANYONE ever seriously tried gaming on a mac? no? well...i guess that really says something, now doesn't it?

You'd be surprised. I mentioned it before but its worth mentioning again:

(and those who do find that they're out of $$$ that they spent on itunes, istore, etc).

False.
How are they out of the money? The stuff you buy on iTunes, the App Store, etc are yours for life. Transfer it as many times as you want between devices, convert your music to whatever format you please. iTunes, case in point, went DRM-free long ago.

If you are about to say (when it comes to the apps), that you'll then be locked into iOS in order to use them. Well man, I hate to break it to you, but this also applies to Android and Windows as well.

about equal amounts of malware, actually.

False.
How can you even say that? Please, provide your sources. iOS hasn't seen squat in terms of malware attacks, and yes, you're right, a lot of this is accredited to the App Store being the key provider of content on iOS devices.

do you REALLY want to be forced to sacrifice your user liberty just so that you can "be protected"?

I don't feel as though I'm sacrificing any liberties. My personal iPhone is jailbroken and has been for the last three years, despite the decreasing reasons for me to keep it jailbroken as Apple incorporated most of the features I desired but couldn't wait for (ie: copy/paste, tethering, multitasking, notifications, etc). Now all of this stuff is built-in, and I've found Apple's solutions to be far more reliable than their jailbroken alternatives. At this point I jailbreak only because I can, and because its really actually ridiculously simple.

Apple hasn't done a thing to tell me what I can and can't do with my phone. They've only made recommendations and put up these 'soft-walls' (or as you guys like to call it, the walled garden), that are just as easy to climb over as they've ever been. Four years of offering the iPhone, you'd think that if Apple wanted to make it more difficult to jailbreak, they would have. And they almost did, but ultimately reverted that decision.

No harm, no foul.

apple's solution has nothing to do with safeguards; it just wants to throttle everything to the point it can monitor everything.

There is no throttling on Mac OS X. I can install what I want, when I want, how I want, while even posting on an anti-mac blog if I wanted to. Freedom is within reach.

android, like it or not, will be exposed to much more--because of its nature. this gives it a HUGE leg up on anti-virus efforts.

I won't particularly like it, if you'd really care to know. It sucks that Android has positioned itself to be such an easy target, and clearly some people are getting pretty fed up with that (ie: Motorola's CEO), but gaining anti-virus expertise by being an easy target is nothing to brag about, really.

yet mac viruses are much more likely to cause MASSIVE damage...

False until proven otherwise.

You understand the concept of sandboxing, right?

Also, we don't have a registry like you do. For example.

That's not to say we're bulletproof as I must keep reinforcing, but we are certainly more bulletproof now than we've ever been (especially compared to the OS 9 days). Something tells me Cupertino is not shaking in their boots thinking that, despite the fact their operating system marketshare is growing, their brand will be more susceptible to an overnight massive-level attack. Though, who knows, we could be living in a house of cards and just not know it yet - but until we see otherwise, making statements like that are pretty unwarranted.

[IPD]

well, shaun, congratulations. i now feel like i'm arguing with AO. i don't feel like expending further energy. fools and their money are soon parted. the evidence is out there. those who seek it will find it. those who don't seek it are apple's target market.

/thread.

p.s.

you can find redeeming qualities about hitler if you look hard enough. doesn't change anything about who he was or what he did.

[i3igpete]

well, you know, he didn't invent antisemitism. he was a product of the society he lived in: post war austria that was, in fact, bankrupted by western jews. and whether you like it or not, germany is better off because of him. incredibly clean, modern, and germans work hard and play hard. we should all be so lucky.

[stealthify]

well, shaun, congratulations. i now feel like i'm arguing with AO. i don't feel like expending further energy. fools and their money are soon parted. the evidence is out there. those who seek it will find it. those who don't seek it are apple's target market.

Just playing with you man, all in good fun. Plus I know how your nights @ work can be rather boring (I think you might have mentioned before).

I know I can't change your mind, just as you likely know you can't change mine. But all this typing was getting pretty tiresome.

[IPD]

well, you know, he didn't invent antisemitism. he was a product of the society he lived in: post war austria that was, in fact, bankrupted by western jews. and whether you like it or not, germany is better off because of him. incredibly clean, modern, and germans work hard and play hard. we should all be so lucky.

not bad. now....can you convince the rest of the world that the 3/s has significant resale value?

[Mikes2nd]

oh sure, if you search, you can find 1 or 2 pc's selling for MORE than apple's crap--but you must REALLY be an idiot if you buy them. hell, i can get a 15.6" MSI gaming laptop for practically the same cost as that sony.

trust me, you can post up any apple PC/laptop/airbook/macpos & i can find an equivalent system for much less; and the contrast only gets worse the higher up the food chain you go.

I always love when the mac guy frantically searches for some insanely priced PC and uses that as an argument. It’s just a pathetic move and shows how much of a desperate Mac fan boi they are to post something so stupid.

Look I found a 5000$ PC! omg now you can see macs are cheap! See!!!



arguing with this much of a brain washed apple fan boi is pointless, he obviously worships at the church of Jobs...

This type will even swear android has no chance against the almight Iphone... even today after its taken over...

No one can ever write a virus for a mac... its just IMPOSSIBLE man! ...

[BigTyla]

False until proven otherwise.

You understand the concept of sandboxing, right?

Also, we don't have a registry like you do. For example.

That's not to say we're bulletproof as I must keep reinforcing, but we are certainly more bulletproof now than we've ever been (especially compared to the OS 9 days). Something tells me Cupertino is not shaking in their boots thinking that, despite the fact their operating system marketshare is growing, their brand will be more susceptible to an overnight massive-level attack. Though, who knows, we could be living in a house of cards and just not know it yet - but until we see otherwise, making statements like that are pretty unwarranted.

You aren't looking hard enough because you're afraid of what you'll find.

Apple's Safari will fall first at hacker contest, past winner predicts - Computerworld

PWN2OWN's sponsor, 3Com Inc.'s TippingPoint unit, will pay $5,000 for each new bug successfully exploited in Safari, Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer 8, Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox or Google Inc.'s Chrome. IE8, Firefox and Chrome will be running on a Sony notebook powered by Windows 7, Microsoft's still-under-construction operating system, while Safari and Firefox will be available on a MacBook.

"Apple's products are really friendly to users, and Safari is designed to handle anything, including all kinds of file formats," said Miller. "With a lot of functionality comes the increased chance of bugs. The more complex software is, the less secure it is."

Another factor making Safari easy pickings, said Miller, is Apple's Mac OS X, which lacks the workable defenses found in Windows Vista and Windows 7, including address space randomization -- which Microsoft calls "address space layout randomization," or ASLR.

And, contrary to your assertion that the Apple OSs are "more bulletproof now than they have ever been, I present:

Apple's Safari browser embarrassed at Pwn2Own, hacked in 5 seconds

But which browser faired the worst? That would be Apple’s Safari. A French security research firm named Vulpen managed to break into Safari running on a MacBook Air in a cool five seconds.

Furthermore, sandboxing is easily exploitable as well.

Safari, IE hacked first at Pwn2Own - Computerworld

To exploit IE8, Fewer bypassed Protected Mode, said Aaron Portnoy, manager of TippingPoint's security research team and the organizer of Pwn2Own for each of its five years. Protected Mode is Microsoft's name for the sandbox-like anti-exploit technology designed to isolate the browser from the operating system and the rest of the computer.

[stealthify]

I always love when the mac guy frantically searches for some insanely priced PC and uses that as an argument. It’s just a pathetic move and shows how much of a desperate Mac fan boi they are to post something so stupid.

Mike, if you're going to hate one brand for their prices, you might as well spread the hate to the other brands that charge the same. Not doing so makes you a hypocrite, just as blind as those fanboi's you hate on, and a waste of everyone's time to argue with.

Just so you know, but not that it matters, there was no frantic searches. In fact, I was reading an article just the other day while doing some research on videography that I ran across someone (just mentioning) that they bought a Sony Vaio S Series for north of what he could have gotten a MBP for. Then of course there was J-Groove's post in the other thread about Dell's all-in-one machines. These are huge and popular competing brands. This shit isn't hard to find.

No one can ever write a virus for a mac... its just IMPOSSIBLE man! ...

(safari vulnerabilities)

You guys could at least do us all a favor and read what I've written, even if it's not what you want to hear, before responding. Never once did I say Mac OS X is bulletproof, never once did I say the Android has no chance against the iPhone (and that in fact I would probably own one of each, if there were reason), never once did I say Jobs was the f'n Messiah.

[BigTyla]

You guys could at least do us all a favor and read what I've written, even if it's not what you want to hear, before responding. Never once did I say Mac OS X is bulletproof, never once did I say the Android has no chance against the iPhone (and that in fact I would probably own one of each, if there were reason), never once did I say Jobs was the f'n Messiah.

I read what you wrote. You stated

we are certainly more bulletproof now than we've ever been (especially compared to the OS 9 days).

and I posted evidence to the contrary. The OS and its associated browser are more vulnerable than ever.

[stealthify]

Tyler, have you ever used classic Mac OS? As in OS 7, 8 or 9?

I did. And when I tell you it was more vulnerable to MASSIVE, computer-disabling attacks, I wasn't making stuff up. Those days were annoying as hell.