Comments on: Road to Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 64-bit security

By: The Mac Malware Myth — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

The Mac Malware Myth — RoughlyDrafted Magazine — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:48:22 +0000

[...] Road to Mac OS X Snow Leopard: 64-bit security New QuickTime 7.6 addresses quality, security iPhone 2.0 SDK: How Signing Certificates Work 10 FAS: 10 – Apple’s Mac and iPhone Security Crisis [...]

By: Joel

Joel — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 10:40:46 +0000

Nice analysis, though it misses out that OS X in based on BSD Unix and has the same basic secure under-pinning from there. Unix was developed to be accessed by multiple users concurrently. Windows however is originally based on a single user system, with support for multiple users tacked on. Who remembers Windows 95/98 which had a password prompt which could be safely ignored…? Its why real user security was only really added in Windows Xp, and only (optionally) enforced in Vista.

You can have all the secure virtual memory features you want, but if you have to run everything as the super-user, even your web-browser, it won’t matter one whit.

Oh, and Daniel, don’t be down about security in Windows 7, all the usual anti-virus vendors are working on it : http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10143466-56.html

By: jfatz

jfatz — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 21:05:54 +0000

There is still _effect_ from a lower installed base, qka. But that’s not what the folks who trot out “SECURITY THROUGH OBSCURITY LOL” are doing. They use it in the same way that they use “APPLE IS JUST MARKETING LOL,” and pretend that’s all the explanation that’s needed, which is asinine.

By: qka

qka — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:41:27 +0000

The two paragraphs after the heading “Apple’s Security Efforts” could be read as giving credence to the “Security through Obscurity” myth. I doubt that was your intent.

By: Michael

Michael — Sat, 17 Jan 2009 05:44:20 +0000

truly awesome article daniel :) although you never really explained what security features microsoft had that was “better” than apple’s implementation..

you are quite right about the future security being sandboxed apps and random memory addresses, but then again microsoft is also trying to develop these, no doubt five years (or more) after apple implements it… and MAY make it into windows 7, only to break backwards compatibility with many legacy programs that weren’t designed to run specifically on vista ;) you know, at one point microsoft is going to think it might as well break backwards compatibility to move the OS forward to fix all these gaping security holes, namely the POS that is the Windows Registry. of course, who knows whether 7 can really deliver on its promises of being faster and more secure than previous windows… so far it looks actually decently fast despite the overly glam-and-glitz of the transparencies and fades and highlightings and alphas… we’ll see whether apple’s clean utilitarian look wins out over microsoft’s showy eye-candy look.

the problem isn’t so much about security anymore for anyone who updates their pc… by now, a large percentage of windows PC’s are not owned by consumers, they’re owned by corporations and businesses. which is why you see the battle of the features and now apple’s take on how to improve performance (more use of GPU and CPU), compared to windows 7’s take (more optimizations)

By: KA

KA — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 23:27:02 +0000

Thanks for mirroring this. I really like AppleInsider’s posts but I hate their website.