What do you use: OS X, Vista or Linux?

For all users using shiny apple Macs, there is a little bit of nasty news. There was a contest organized, named PWN 2 OWN by the organizers of the CanSecWest security conference. It asked the attendees to show off their hacking skills against Vista SP1 (fujitsu laptop), Leopard 10.5.2 (Macbook Air, and Ubuntu 7.10 (VAIO). The first hacker to take down any of the three systems would get a cash prize of $20,000 along with the victimized laptop. Nobody managed to pull down any of the systems on the first day, as for the first day contestants were told to use only network based attacks. The second day, they were allowed to use web and email based attacks. And guess what, the Macbook Air was hacked down in 2 minutes flat. The attacker used a website holding malicious code and targeted Safari as its victim.

Ubuntu 7.10 was the only OS to remain unscathed. This proves a lot of things. First of all, Linux still rules in matter of security. Microsoft has been (shamefully) forced to make its OS secure. And while Apple may taunt about its OS being most secure, it is not the truth. The truth is, Mac OS X has a smaller user base. And so the hackers are not interested in attacking an OS having a smaller user base. And it is to be noted that OS X and Linux have the same roots. Now the question arises: why did Apple fiddle with an already stable base? Not only this, the attack was pulled off using Safari as its target. It’s the same Safari that Apple has been trying to install on our systems using Apple software update.

So, if you are a Mac user, beware. You are at a security risk. Avoid visiting suspicious sites. And windows users – DON’T USE SAFARI. Use Firefox or Opera instead (IE still has numerous security loopholes). Or do the best – switch to Linux. Linux users – rejoice. Time has again proved that you are using nothing but the damn best OS of this planet (I wonder what people on other planets use as their browsers, though).

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Apple: What are you doing?

If you have iTunes installed and you chose to use apple software update to update your copy of iTunes to the latest version, you are in for a nasty little surprise. Guess what? Apart from getting a updated version of iTunes, you find safari in the list of installed applications (even if you have not installed it yourself). Now this is really unfair. People use the update software to update the software they have installed themselves, apple. It’s not fair to shove unwanted software through a backdoor. No matter how good software is, no software company has the right to force it down to a user’s pc. This is unfair advertising.

If apple really wants people to use safari, it should make it good enough so that people go and download it themselves. Just like Mozilla Firefox. Your safari for windows is buggy, has multiple security loopholes, and uses its own font smoothing technique that makes the text look worse than original. And the worst of all: it misses a “add new tab button” – an absolute shame in my opinion. Improve safari first, and don’t even think of installing softwares on a system without its owner’s consent. You are a big company and have a cult following. You shouldn’t do acts like this that may cause your reputation to dive down. You are known as a innovative brand. So innovate. Don’t use cheap means.

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