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Mac has a trojan botnet
By Dave Winer on Thursday, April 05, 2012 at 8:57 AM.
I saw Microsoft making the mistake that Apple is making now. This isn't one of those mistakes where there's any "maybe" to it. It's an absolute 100 percent thing they're doing that they will regret. It will force their users to look for alternatives to the Mac unless they nip this one now. permalink
When there is an outbreak of a virus on the Mac, and they have a fix, that fix must go out immediately. If there is no fix, then resources must be devoted to finding it. As soon as there's a fix, the press must be notified. A press release must be issued, that clearly gives users a way of determinining without installing any new software, whether their machine is infected. The communication must come from Apple, so there's no confusion among users and press. It would be smart to have a press event around security the same way they have press events to launch new products. permalink
A picture named indianGirl.gifThey appear to have broken most of these practices in the response to today's steamy infected mess.  permalink
There is now a fix, it's installed by the new system update that came out yesterday. But there has been no communication from Apple to users about this issue, or the press, and the only test for infection has come from independent analysts.  permalink
Microsoft made the mistake of seeing themselves as merely a supplier of software, not a guarantor of good user experience. When Windows was inundated with malware, in the early-mid 2000's, users were left to fend for themselves. Apple was the beneficiary of this, as smart Windows users bailed on MS and switched to the Mac. Where the vendor boasted that they didn't have malware, as if there were some technical reason they didn't. There is so such technical reason. Macs are just as susceptible to malware as any other kind of computer. They just hadn't been targeted yet. Why it's taken so long is anyone's guess, but the honeymoon is now over. It's time for Apple to take this seriously. The way they do this is every bit as important as they way they operate their stores, do user testing, or industrial design. permalink
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