Apple Weathers A Minor Storm
Published March 12, 2006
Apple Computer hasn't had the best of times recently. Even after it downplayed the importance of a February 28 product announcement, bloggers and analysts alike speculated such wonder that the reality — iPod, Hi-Fi, and Intel-based Mac Mini — disappointed. That Apple later surprised users by shipping faster Mac Mini configurations than they had announced helped, at least for those that received them.
Apple has also come under heavy criticism over problems publicized by Secunia, a security company. It released a security update on Wednesday, March 8, but some experts claim that the patch doesn't entirely solve the problem, which should have been patched at a lower level than it was. Apple's patch updated its own applications so that they display a warning, but does not resolve the issue that malicious files can be made to look safe because of the way that Mac OS X chooses which icon to display for a file. The bit of code that decides what program will open the file is different from the bit of code that decides what icon to use, so a file might look like a safe picture, but actually run a dangerous script. The patch also does nothing for people who use web browsers, email clients, or instant-messaging software that comes from someone other than Apple.
In addition to the real security problems, a Swedish Mac user stirred up controversy by claiming that his Mac Mini was hacked within six hours of setting up a contest to challenge hackers. Apple supporters have pointed out that the Mac Mini was compromised severely before the "rm-my-mac" contest even began, as the computer had been configured to give anonymous users local access to the computer. That a non-privileged user can hack into a privileged account is bad, critics of the contest say, but it is extremely unusual to give even non-privileged access to anyone you don't know well, so the test doesn't relate well to the real world. An attempt to set up a more realistic test was called off when the University of Wisconsin-Madison found out about it and grew concerned about the security of other users on its network.
Not all of the news is bad. Apple has garnered both supporters and critics with Thursday's announcement that it is going to open a new call center in Bangalore, India. Some U.S. residents have worried that the quality of Apple support might diminish if the majority of calls are routed around the world to India, but Apple has said that their existing call centers in Austin, Texas, and Sacramento, California, are also growing, and that no U.S. jobs will be lost. Some computer companies that have moved their support centers to India, like Dell, have faced sharp criticism for the change.
There is some good news for Apple. The iTunes store introduced a new more flexible subscription model called a Multi-Pass, which allows users to buy certain TV shows one month at a time. For $9.99, users will get 16 episodes of either The Daily Show with Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report. Both shows air four days each week, so the Multi-Pass is for a complete month of shows. Individual shows are $1.99 each, while the Multi-Pass reduces the cost to roughly 62 cents each.
Also last week, Apple quietly began selling "Certified Refurbished" iPods, with 4GB iPod mini models available for $149, older "click-wheel" models beginning at $169 for 20GB, and the first iPod with a color display starting at $199 for 20GB. Two-year AppleCare plans are available on all models.
- Apple Weathers A Minor Storm
- Published: March 12, 2006
- Type: News
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Culture: Business and Economics, Sci/Tech: Computers, Sci/Tech: Personal Tech
- Writer: Phillip Winn
- Phillip Winn's BC Writer page
- Phillip Winn's personal site
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very nice Phillip, thanks!
Phillip, what's your opinion on how Jobs will handle Apple's 30 year anniversary on April 1st?
A lot of folks seem to think a full-screen Video iPod will be debuted, with the control wheel built in as part of the touch screen. I have my doubts though. Here's an amusing hoax pic that's been circulating of it, and a even better video short on how a fake one was made.
In general, I think that Apple has a lot to worry about security-wise, and if they don't resolve it, their 30th anniversary might just be met with a world full of hacked Macs.
Other than that, I stay out of the prediction business! :-)
"In addition to the real security problems"
Huh? What security problems? As far as I know, outside of the laboratory, no Mac OS X machine has yet been compromised by malware.
Wake me up when it happens...
There are several moments between when a gun is fired at a person's head and when that bullet shatters the person's skull. During that time, do we not bother to pay attention? Because after all, so far, no bullet has hit my skull yet!
Apple has long billed themselves as uncrackable, and prior to OS X, it was essentially true. Since the advent of OS X, they've been coasting by on the general perception that Macs were uncrackable, but have made several mistakes that are now coming to light.
I've seen the proofs of concept. All it takes is one -- ONE! -- bored teenager with access to a Mac, and the myth of OS X's uncrackability will be history.
In other words, the only reason Macs "in the wild" haven't been compromised yet is because nobody cares. It certainly has nothing to do with Apple's poor attention to security.
In my experience most Mac users just don't bother to use most of the security features the OS offers them. And I know teens who are happily hacking into OSX machines all the time, though not particularly maliciously. Because the Mac community is smaller there's less of a truly vicious element and a lot fewer people doing the hacking. Macs tend to attract a crowd with somewhat different interests, I think.
Dave
Yes, and basically I'm torn. I reported the facts as objectively as I could manage, trying to avoid either extreme: Yes, Don (#6) is correct: there isn't a widespread problem where hordes of Macs are requiring OS reinstalls. That remains the mein of Windows. The percentage of net-connected computers that run OS X is small enough that it seems too tedious to check random IP addresses looking for a Mac with services enabled (which they are not by default) and an un-passworded account.
That said, there are several tools out there that try all sorts of test on every IP, and it wouldn't take long to add a few tests to identify and attack Macs, and Apple hasn't responded well enough to that possibility.
So I guess my view is that Apple is screwing around, but they'll probably get away with it, because OS X just isn't as easy or valuable a target as Windows. Sigh.
P.S. I'm composing this comment on an iMac.
Great article, very informative and telling! I got one of those i-pods about two years ago, the ones were the battery was defect; I missed out on an exchange. Two years in that market is anchient!
I am still amazed how they work, but if I wait a bit longer, maybe it will also drive me around or automatically will answer all my blog comments for me? Who knows what the future has in store. At times it is also pretty scary...! The future I mean.
"All it takes is one bored teenager..." And in a world of what, 2 billion people, not a single bored, frustrated, angsty teenager has been able to summon the few hours necessary to compromise OS X? Not one? And the antivirus guys are just sitting on the sidelines, generating more light than heat? And Apple releases a product that can be hacked in six hours flat, knowing that it can be? Uhm, please spare me the hysterics. You can choose to live in a world where the sky is perpetually falling, but that isn't reality. Get off the FUD; stop drinking the Kool Aid; and for goodness' sake, stop buying into the "mean world" hypothesis that the media feeds you to keep you nervously lapping up their communiques!
Not one has; that doesn't mean not one has been able to.
It's funny, but I'm receiving emails from a nearly-incoherent name-caller who is claiming I haven't been hard enough on Apple, while in the comments here I'm reading someone who ignores reality in favor of inane sollipsism.
Sanity, I'm sure, lies somewhere in between.
While I agree that this post is very even-handed Phillip, your first comment simply wasn't. Rather, it IS a bit alarmist.
I mean, in a reply to a direct question about product announcements around April 1... you chose that exact moment to say:
"In general, I think that Apple has a lot to worry about security-wise, and if they don't resolve it, their 30th anniversary might just be met with a world full of hacked Macs"
Hmmmm... we're talking about 18 days here. And somehow the world will be full of hacked Macs.
Just a wee bit over-the-top, wouldn't you say?
Sure, security is a concern. But to blurt out a non-responsive answer like this really does take away from what was a very good post.
Fair enough. I hadn't realized the extent of the emailer's stupidity at that point, and was probably reacting to him/her. My subsequent comments more reflect my views.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/44840)
Finally an even-handed review of what's been going on in the world of Apple for the last couple of weeks. Bravo!