Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

I think I’m from Pluto

I think I’m from Pluto — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:37:25 GMT

PingBack from http://internet.ezineaerticles.com/i-think-im-from-pluto/

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

JamesNT — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 18:03:00 GMT

Wow, I asked for more posts and here we go!

Excellent work dealing with the zealot. Those guys drive me nuts.

JamesNT

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Michael Janke — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 01:41:21 GMT

And Mac's don't have annoying security prompts when you run as non-admin?

Mine does, and at about the same frequency too.

--Mike

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Jeff — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:33:42 GMT

These people are disconnected from reality. Even when it seems I'm *about* to jump to Microsoft's defense (by asking for *cough* proof of what they say) they immediately write me off as an "M$ Fan Boy" (as if liking Microsoft automatically invalidates my position!) The hard core anti-MS crowd remind me of Intelligent Design supporters - no matter how much evidence you show them, their mind is already made up and won't change no matter what.

Security is an industry wide problem. Sadly, I think it'll take a few very high profile non-Microsoft catastrophes for some people to get it, especially the general public. I'm too responsible to instigate though :)

Microsoft Security guys have fun at Mac loyalist’s expense

SuperSite Blog — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:08:07 GMT

Thanks to Joe R. for this link: This one kind of speaks for itself , but it’s funny and I’m guessing

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

RC — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 13:19:34 GMT

I followed Vista's development when it was in Beta and read a lot of the UAC prompt criticisms. I understand that it was adjusted somewhat by the time it was released, but the criticism continued. I always read them as hyperbole but at least expected it to be something notable when I installed Vista and began to load software. Thing was, when I did that, it was such a complete non-issue for me that any kind of talk like this has lost all credibility. I respect even less the opinions of those that just parrot these lines and don't have actual experience with the OS to begin with.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Jim McDosh — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 18:40:43 GMT

Wow dude that is like WAY cool man. Very nice.

www.FireMe.to/udi

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Rafael Ruivo — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:05:15 GMT

Certain people just have to be zealots, and they feed on moments like these. But they can only do so if you lost your temper. Doing exactly what you did is the best way, let's starve them a little...

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 01:31:34 GMT

Less than 1% of machines have malware? Yeah, that seems really believable. Every darn Windows machine I sit down in front of has some of that crap. But hey, I guess a "Security Intelligence Report" by Microsoft itself must be accurate. I mean, it's not like they would try to play down the malware problem or anything. Jesus christ.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

The Fool — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 05:06:47 GMT

T said: "Every darn Windows machine I sit down in front of has some of that crap. But hey, I guess a "Security Intelligence Report" by Microsoft itself must be accurate"

More accurate than your sampling of the userbase of Windows. Unless of course you are claiming that you have 'sat down in front of' a significant portion of the Windows PC's in use around the world. Yes, what was I thinking, of course your personal experience must reflect exactly the situation over the greater population of Windows users.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

joe blogs — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 07:18:55 GMT

T said: "Every darn Windows machine I sit down in front of has some of that crap. " Maybe its just those computers you use? Most buisnesses and even a fair amount of personal computers are secure enough.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Chris — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:55:32 GMT

Funny and good story..

Though it must be a pretty intelligent widows guy you work with to come up with that concise answers.

And a pretty stupid mac guy that visited you.

Always that way around I guess..

Windows guys are so clever..

Mac guys are so stupid..

Fun..

I get it..

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Chuck — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 14:19:35 GMT

I have some postulecide for them when their rotten apples start getting worms and bugs and bots and their systems start misbehaving, and a spanking just won't do it any more. It's only a matter of time when things start getting loaded into their precious Mac's and ipods and they all start flocking away from them because their machines are no longer bootable, or their hard drives become rubber duck anchors because of it. I'll save myself though or the last laugh, thank you.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Mike — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 22:54:25 GMT

Reading the list of credentials you have Jeff, I'm sure this guy probably doesn't hold a candle.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Reader — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 18:13:01 GMT

MSFT guy says there are "less than 1% of machines" infected by malware, it's like saying there are almost no malware active.

But, when you read the report, the 100% isn't the total number of Windows based computers.

It's even not the total of machines... neither online, nor offline.

The 100% is the total number of criminal actions targetting computers (theft, destruction, spam, hacking...)

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Grant Andre — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:59:44 GMT

This article is great! I have 100's of hours on all three (Linux, MAC, Vista) OS's and most often find that while I pine for some of the MAC eye candy or distro-specific features, Vista is the OS I use most when I need to be truly productive.

Security (and vulnerability) are real issues in all three OS families, but my experience is that ultimately, the health of a machine is directly related to the habits and expertise of the user.

From this narrow perspective, MAC and Linux may be better OS's because regular folks are less likely to contract malware and clutter their machines with problematic installs. However, they are certainly no more secure than Vista when it comes to defending data.

In the general audience, I'd estimate that most folks associate high CPU utilization (my PC is slow!) with "viruses" or a "lack of security". The barrage of software that suck down more CPU on XP and Vista machines often includes numerous free anti-virus or anti-spyware offerings downloaded by home users... which were probably not included in Microsoft's 1% number, but are real contributors to the symptoms that armchair critics lump in when they say that their PC has viruses.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Patrik — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 20:48:49 GMT

I, too, find that statistic of only 1% Windows boxes being infected a bit... questionable. The problem here of course is that statistics can be skewed to fit whatever point one is trying to make.

While it is true that there are a great many Windows systems operating in a corporate environment (and thus probably under some security policy or another, which most likely makes them as secure as needed to avoid infection) there are still a huge number of systems in peoples homes, and frankly, most people who owns a computer uses it as a tool, and expects it to "just work" without any special care from the user. "Just have it tuned up once a year or so." But I can of course not prove any of this, it is just a gut feeling I get from observing my "non-technical" friends, parents and other people in my proximity. Oh and of course, if not for vulnerable Windows boxes, how come bot-nets like Storm exist?

(No, placing the blame on the users (i.e. customers) for not updating their systems won't cut it, unless the user is socially engineered to install a malware I can't see any reason why a box should ever run the risk of being infected.)

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Ben — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:01:29 GMT

I can't believe that people ever complain about UAC!

From my perspective having more options is always better and while I find UAC annoying other people may like having it turned on, all of that is moot however because there is an option to turn it off.

effectively reducing any complaints about it into "vista asking for authorization is annoying! better not turn it off though because then I would have to stop bitching!"

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

UKBlaza — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:26:07 GMT

I really don't understand all of this OS elitism that carries on??? I am a Linux user of 5 years + but if it wasn't for MS and the boys and girls at Redmond, I wouldn't be surfing. I chose my OS to suit the ancient notebook I have. I can't afford a new box and this OS gives me the best performance. If Vista was free and my notebook ran as quickly with it installed as the OS I run now, I would be stupid not to try it out eh?? Happy days will come and I will be able to afford a new notebook. I will not be buying a Mac purely because I feel they are a rip off. LOL, I expect that I would be looking to get an elitist attitude too after I realised how much Apple had just ripped me off for when I got the box home! I am not going to buy an Ubuntu pre-loaded box either because I can get a similar machine with Vista for a few quid more. Why pass up the chance of trying an OS from the biggest OS company on the planet? Surely people can see, regardless of the OS they use, that MS is leading the way in some fields of IT?

What makes me laugh the most is that virtually all of these elitist Mac users (and let's not forget- they only have that attitude because they know they have been well and truly ripped off! Any Linux or XP/Vista OS can be customized and made to look like Mac, and hardware is hardware is hardware) started out with MS just like the rest of us! Why on earth they deem themselves to be superior for getting their pants ripped out of their trousers is beyond me?? Perhaps they secretly wish they hadn't switched??

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Jimbo — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:37:12 GMT

Having been a Windows user for a pretty long time (cut my teeth on 3.1), I recently was provided a 2.2 GHz Macbook Pro to replace an aging Dell laptop. Naturally, being a "Windows guy", I cut off a partition and installed a fresh Action Pack (read: no silly OEM software installed) Vista Ultimate install. I've got to say, I'm pretty disappointed in the entire experience. Vista is terribly bloated and slow, and this is running on a fairly fast machine with 2G of RAM. While I appreciate the security features that you guys have obviously put a lot of work into, they don't really matter to me that much (I never got malware with previous versions of Windows, which I chalk up mostly to user habits). However, the "user experience" of Vista has really suffered compared to previous versions (no, I don't mean UAC).

Here is just one example where it's clear that an idea could have promise in principle, but was fatally flawed in execution: Boot times. For those of us who work on our computers all day every day, boot time is not a big issue, as it's usually a "once a day" thing, and I can always let my machine boot while I get caffeinated. However, for a dual-booting user, long boot times are annoying when you only need to open Firefox (arghh... don't get me started on IE) to do a quick web dev test. So, I "drank the kool-aid" on this one when I actually believed that Vista would have greatly improved boot times, which it does... occasionally (at the expense of long shut down times, but I digress). The problem, as anyone who uses Vista much knows, is Windows Update. If you haven't booted the machine for (what feels like) a day or so, every d**n time you boot the thing up it spends a couple of minutes installing the critical security update of the week, totally negating the "improved boot time" optimizations. It's a simple flaw, but really causes annoyance for the user. Which basically sums up the entire operating system for me. Good ideas, poor execution.

Oh well, maybe some of these things will be fixed in Windows 7, eh (and maybe we'll even get a real filesystem to go along with it, happy happy joy joy)?

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

whoever — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:02:22 GMT

Recent data shows that Mac OS X has quite a higher incidence of security vulnerabilities that other comparable systems.

and the source of this was?.. :-)

but, i still think most of the "argumenters" do not accept the huge factor of user familiarity.

windows still suffers overly open settings "OOB". because new/newb users have certain marketing expectations of immediate convenience, it seems unlikely that "user friendly" mac osx doesn't suffer similarly (eg: does safari startup 1st time with java enabled? accept cookies by default? even blocking "3rd party" but accepting "1st party" cookies is a defect, imo.)

as along time windos user, i spend some time adding convenience, defending privacy, etc. after every fresh install.

my standards have become so high, that i'm put off of linux, because i can't "see" what's happening. i'm trying some old powermacs now with goal of learning how to "see" on posix/Unix-like oses.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Jurdan — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 18:32:59 GMT

MS Guy is right, hackers are beginning to target against Mac.

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

skelly — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:46:43 GMT

I liked the 1% bit.

Bit like the reverse of 'all our students got a grade A in Art History this year'.. uh.. how many students took the exam? One!

I've lost many hours fixing Windows computers for people because unfortunately 'you know computers, why is my machine running slow?'

Anyway.... my MAC is running slow at the moment hence the search that brought me here! :) :) :)

re: Black Hat : Got2 Luv the H8ers

Brian — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 17:54:59 GMT

Hackers have been targeting against Mac for just as long as they have been hacking pc's they just can't do it.