iVirus - For your Macintosh, part deux
Friday, August 31st, 2007I have split this part of the series into its own post, because the “article” I found was really a poorly made opinion piece on some guys website. Understand that I know I am not blameless here. I inject my opinion into everything I do. I at least try to make sure I know wtf I am talking about before I get ass deep in a conversational vortex of love. (conversational vortex of love? what?) Here’s what I found:
Article 6:
Mac OS X computers don’t need antivirus software - Ok, I was excited because this seemed like a legitimate person talking about viruses on a Mac. Then he forgot formatting on his website, so he is obviously not the industry leader (even if he is, he isn’t presenting himself well, so I wouldn’t consider him one if it was freakin’ Steve Jobs writing the article). Then he goes on to show his bigotry and outright self-centered “I am better than ANYONE on a windows box” attitude.
I will give him credit before I tear his argument a new one. He states that it would be kind to look for emails that you may inadvertently forward to a friend on a windows machine that could contain a virus. That was very nice of him. You will see a quote from his “article” (if thats what we call it), then comment from me about what this person is saying. Now onto the ripping of new ones:
“But those of us who use Mac OS X computers should not get too smug about this, especially since we might be able to help our less fortunate brethren — sorry, I mean our friends and neighbors who use Windows — in ways that we might not have imagined before”
He is clearly saying, “Your poor poor bastards who use Windows, we who have ’seen the light’ are better than you and look down upon you, and now we will do what we can to help protect you from yourselves.” My opinion, join a cult and drink the cool-aide, it’s tasty!
“The morons who write viruses don’t bother aiming them at Mac OS X computers; they create them for Windows PCs almost exclusively.”
Are they morons because they write viruses? Or are they morons because they are stupider than you? Do you know what moron means? Definition of moron as found by Google. I think what you mean to say, friend or should I say “brethren”, is that you despise the people who are smart enough to write viruses and do not help to prevent the problem but continue to perpetuate it. The viruses that I have heard of, buffer overflows, process hijacking, root kits, etc. can require some advanced programming skills, some don’t but they don’t really even show up as a blip on the radar. I would venture to say that if you write a successful virus, you are fairly intelligent and in fact not a moron. (to the virus authors: I just complimented you, please help a guy out and avoid infecting my PC?).
“Your Mac OS X computer is immune to Windows viruses by its very design. It doesn’t run Windows software and therefore can ‘t react to Windows viruses.”
Correction, you can run windows software, and probably do. I wonder if anyone told this guy that the version of “Office” software he uses was written by Windows?
“In nearly every case..They hijack the computer’s e-mail function“
A good virus will need a way to spread itself, and this is the EASIEST way, and more than likely the virus is guaranteed actual working addresses to send itself to. But there are others, such as NETBIOS communication, IRC, Instant Messaging applications, installing on software, attaching to removable media…Wait! That means that he was completely wrong about “In nearly every case”
“Such messages, usually created by non-English-speaking computer outlaws in Eastern Europe or the Far East, … You should be able to spot them immediately. (Don’t ask me why most Windows users can’t spot such pidgin-language messages … Millions of Windows users open whatever comes their way.) …They fake the “From” address, replacing the actual address with one from a person in the Windows address book.”
Ok, this is one of the most bigote and rascist, GO USA statements I have heard from someone trying to sound like they know what they are talking about. Iignoring politicians and religious leaders, yeah I went there. Beyond that, viruses are created by people all over the world, including here in the US of A. They have been of various age groups, genders, and colors. Just because you personally don’t like someone for being different otherwise known as xenophobia, doesn’t mean that you can blame them for everything that happens that doesn’t fit in your little happy bunny-rabbits and puppy dogs bubble.
Also, I kept the part about “Don’t as me why most Windows users can’t…” because I wanted to make a point here. First, most people don’t have a clue about what is going on inside their computer. It is complete magic to them. Some people more than others. Some can comprehend, some just can’t and others just don’t want to. My best example is, try to talk to your friends about math. Ask them to divide something. Laugh when their eyes glaze over and they say, “I don’t know.” It’s not that they don’t know, its that they are unwilling to try. They have calculators and “smart math nerds” who do that for them. It is the same way with computers, some people just don’t want to know. What they want is for a machine that works, and doesn’t cause them problems.
The second point is that computers are expensive, which means that supporting them is expensive and learning about them is “hard”. This creates a mental block for people when they are purchasing machines. They often choose the one that has the best marketing strategy, that looks and works just like the ones their friends have, that is easy to use out of the box, and that is familiar. I am sorry to say, but alot of people who use computers at home or in business are using Windows machines because it is what they have always known. Microsoft has had the lion’s share++ of the market on home and work based PCs for too long. This means that most people are using them.
The third point is that a lot of people see an email from someone they know and just open it. It doesn’t matter what the subject is, its from Aunt Lottie or whoever so it must be important. I bet that if I sent you a letter in the mail with your favorite relative’s name and address on the return address part of the letter you would open it to find a big nasty goatse inside that envelope. It is human nature to be trusting. We have to LEARN to mistrust, and watch out for nasties all the time.
If you put these things together, you get the left-left-right combination that creates a hotbed for breeding viruses between machines. This is something that you learn quickly when you do computer support. People see something wrong, and they deal with it till it completely stops them from doing what they want to do. Its just how it goes. Put these same people on a Mac with the same market share, and people will find weaknesses, they will only know as much as gets them by, and they will have all the same problems.
I think that the reason I pulled away from the intent of this blog post when i got to this article was the fact that this person had this “better than you” attitude about himself. He really did think that he was speaking to fellow members of an elite club like the pope talking to his people. It turned his elite club into an elitist club, and the author into more of an asshole than he already seemed to be.
More Macs and Viruses to come…
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