Any of You Get One of These?

[zanthor]

@ Tynk:
Another benefit for OS X users is that there are a lot less virusses/trojans/keyloggers made for that OS.

Yup, and as the userbase of the OS grows (and it is) so will the virus/trojan/keylogger base. The larger the userbase, the bigger the profits by exploiting it, the more exploits you will find.

Just as Mozilla is a secure browser compared to IE, this will (actually has) change drastically as Mozilla gains market share.

[Svpernova09]

The idea that Macs are "safer" than PCs because virii / hacks / whatever are not often directly targeted to the Mac OS is a basic example of Security through Obscurity / Minority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

It is often regarded as a very bad and very dangerous method of security. Time to get your head out of the sand and realize just because you're running ______ OS you're safe and don't have to worry about threats.

[Tehtsuo]

This is probably off-topic by now cause this thread has derailed, but I just ordered mine today. The only reason I didn't order earlier was I thought they were still out of stock. Looking forward to trying it out.

[Vyndree]

Time to get your head out of the sand and realize just because you're running ______ OS you're safe and don't have to worry about threats.

Add "Browser" to that statement and you'll hit the nail on the head.

As for macs having less viruses -- check my previous posts if you want my opinion. (which is basically the same as supernova)



And, perhaps, Macs are the minority for the exact reason that Tynk explained -- Windows was (is?) more focused on user-friendliness. But even if we threw users at the Mac OS, I still feel that they wouldn't learn just because Macs ALWAYS had a admin-account elevation.

I mean, I told my friends time and time again about spam mails and phishing and chainmail junk... and yet I STILL get emails like... "If you forward this message to 10 people, a little leprechaun will appear on your monitor! But only after you click 'send'" or "Bill Gates is giving away free money to those who forward this email!" and whatnot. Even with my warnings and it being, oh... 2008, they still fall for that crap.

If Macs were the OS of choice, you can't just pick and choose the "smart" users and I'm not convinced that users will BECOME smart via usage. If that were true, all Vista users would be smarter as long as they USED UAC. But since pretty much all admin-elevation security methods are as simple as a single click to make the "nag window" go away, they're not learning anything. In fact, MOST of the time they're learning this: "If I click this box, it goes away and nothing bad happens." And that later develops to "If nothing bad happens, why do I have to click a stupid box all the time?" Not until they get a virus do they understand WHY they have to THINK before clicking "ok".




In any case, I'm done with my OT-ness, though the derail was still in the realm of account security.

[Bovidae]

Back on topic, I love the feeling of additional security. I have used mine for two months now, and have no complaints, not even about having extra keystrokes in my login regimen.

I will actually be giving these away as Christmas presents to a number of my friends.

[Farleito]

[quote='Kromtor',index.php?page=Thread&postID=15312 2#post153122]i just make my password my zip code and then never let anyone know my address. that way i know both me and my account are always safe.[/quote]

I lol'd... I hope you're kidding. Bad idea. I would recommend that you read [url='http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/create.mspx']this[/url]site for some password selection advice. Your IP address is recorded each time you log in, or post on a forum (including this one)....and whatever you do.. don't go here. 8o

http://www.carrierroutes.com/ZIPCodes.html

How many ZIP Codes are there in the United States?
There are approximately 43,000 ZIP Codes in the United States. This number can fluctuate by a few thousand ZIP Codes annually, depending on the number of changes made.

What is a three digit ZIP Code?
This refers to the first three digits of any ZIP Code. The first digit, 0-9 designates the general area of the country with numbers starting lower in the east and increasing as you move west. For example 0 covers Maine while 9 refers to California. The next two digits referred to one of the 455 Sectional Center Facilities (SCFs) in the US.

0 = Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA), Maine (ME), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), Puerto Rico (PR), Rhode Island (RI), Vermont (VT), Virgin Islands (VI)
1 = Delaware (DE), New York (NY), Pennsylvania (PA)
2 = District of Columbia (DC), Maryland (MD), North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Virginia (VA), West Virginia (WV)
3 = Alabama (AL), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Mississippi (MS), Tennessee (TN)
4 = Indiana (IN), Kentucky (KY), Michigan (MI), Ohio (OH)
5 = Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN), Montana (MT), North Dakota (ND), South Dakota (SD), Wisconsin (WI)
6 = Illinois (IL), Kansas (KS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE)
7 = Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), Oklahoma (OK), Texas (TX)
8 = Arizona (AZ), Colorado (CO), Idaho (ID), New Mexico (NM), Nevada (NV), Utah (UT), Wyoming (WY)
9 = Alaska (AK), American Samoa (AS), California (CA), Guam (GU), Hawaii (HI), Oregon (OR), Washington (WA)

[Ken]

@ Tynk:
Another benefit for OS X users is that there are a lot less virusses/trojans/keyloggers made for that OS.

Yup, and as the userbase of the OS grows (and it is) so will the virus/trojan/keylogger base. The larger the userbase, the bigger the profits by exploiting it, the more exploits you will find.

Just as Mozilla is a secure browser compared to IE, this will (actually has) change drastically as Mozilla gains market share.

I don't think you understood my statement. I was talking about the amount of virusses available for OS X right now, not about possible future developments.

The idea that Macs are "safer" than PCs because virii / hacks / whatever are not often directly targeted to the Mac OS is a basic example of Security through Obscurity / Minority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

It is often regarded as a very bad and very dangerous method of security. Time to get your head out of the sand and realize just because you're running ______ OS you're safe and don't have to worry about threats.

You can scrap the 'security through obscurity' because that's something quite different.
Nobody said that OS X was safe, it's just that momentarily it's safer than Windows [insert version].

And for what it's worth: I'm a Windows user by the way, not an Apple fanboy.

[emesis]

First off, assuming your machine is not infected with keyloggers, how can anyone hack your account if they don't even know your account name? Without some amazing social engineering, or breaking into your machine, how is anyone going to even know where to start hacking your account?

Assuming someone HAS your account name... You failed and now your password can be hacked. Perhaps it's time to get one of these devices.

The problem seems to be people having your account name to begin with. So don't go to any non-trusted WoW or MMO sites and play on a Mac if you have problems with keyloggers

Whoa. While keyloggers may represent the single largest security threat, getting a bunch of WoW account names would, in fact, be relatively simple.

Do you consider your incoming email to be secure? The internet SMTP and TCP/IP routing protocols 1. send email in plain-text over open networks, and 2. use whatever relay route they can through open servers to deliver a message from Blizzard to you.

Are you aware that Blizzard includes your account name right in the e-mail in a variety of standardized form letters regarding account activiation, etc? I.e., "Congratulations! You've successfully created your World of Warcraft account. Your account name is: "

All that is needed is access to one compromised relay server and you could easily grep out any account names that have routed through that server. The same thing applies at the level of a local area network/router compromise.

After that, it's just a matter of brute force password attacking. I don't know if Blizzard locks the account after a certain number of failures, which would mitigate brute force attempts. However, getting your account name is something that could easily happen regardless of how secure your personal PC/Mac and home network is.

[Vyndree]

You can scrap the 'security through obscurity' because that's something quite different.
Nobody said that OS X was safe, it's just that momentarily it's safer than Windows [insert version].

If your definition of "safety" is "likelihood of attack", I suppose that's accurate. What we're saying is that the "likelihood of attack" is directly related to the population size using that particular platform because of the quoted "security through obscurity" -- and that can change at any time so it shouldn't be considered reliable.

So I guess we're in accord: Macs are less likely to be attacked AT THE MOMENT, but that statement should be taken with a grain of salt since we cannot predict the future popularity of various OS'es.

I mean, by the very statement "Switch to Macs, Macs are (at the moment) safer" you're undermining your (well, not yours since you don't use it) own security by attempting to gather a large population base. Technically, it's in your best interests of security to prevent people from adopting the Mac OS. Amirite? hehe

[Svpernova09]

The idea that Macs are "safer" than PCs because virii / hacks / whatever are not often directly targeted to the Mac OS is a basic example of Security through Obscurity / Minority.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity

It is often regarded as a very bad and very dangerous method of security. Time to get your head out of the sand and realize just because you're running ______ OS you're safe and don't have to worry about threats.

You can scrap the 'security through obscurity' because that's something quite different.
Nobody said that OS X was safe, it's just that momentarily it's safer than Windows [insert version].

And for what it's worth: I'm a Windows user by the way, not an Apple fanboy.

I'm not a fanboy either. I'm very much a zealot of smart computing, rather than an OS. Every OS has its pros and cons, and it is simply a matter of being smart in what you do.