Sick of Unsound Arguments
Comments
That’s not even what I’m talking about, though, Greg. I’m willing to listen to a debate on whether or not Macs are a more secure platform than other offerings, or a debate on whether or not their approach to security is even a good one, regardless of how well or poorly that plan is executed.
My beef is with the statement that the only reason we don’t have a prolific amount of Mac viruses or malware is because there aren’t enough people running Macs to make it worth hackers’ time and effort creating them.
There is more incentive for a hacker to “break the Macs” then there is for them to create the next Klez.
I agree with you, i was just stating my mind 
.
That is what i was getting at though, mac/pc arguments leave me flabbergasted at how bad the opposers information is on what they are arguing about.
Obviously, neither you nor MacDailyNews doesn’t understand marketshare. The marketshare argument cuts two ways. If a virus maker wants to make a Mac virus, they would have to buy a Macintosh computer, and learn how to program for the Mac. You can’t very well whip up a good Mac program on a Windows PC, and you’d still need a Mac to test it on. Now would the time and money investment in doing all of this now be worth hitting say the 5% of a computer brand with a 2% worldwide marketshare (or 5% of US marketshare, to give you a higher, happier number to use)?—And remember, those huge viral events rarely ever infect more than 5% of vulnerable machines.
Right now, malware writers are writing malware to spam and or phish you. The two percent marketshare that the Mac has means it is not worth it to even buy a mac or learn to program on one to make your virus, on a cost-benefit ratio.
How curious it is that the biggest factor in keeping the Mac malware free is Apple keeping the machines expensive.
I agree with your double negative, Wes: I neither don’t understand marketshare.
The viruses and programmers that live on in infamy created their viruses just for that purpose. To prove that they could do it, and enjoy the attention that they then garnered. To have a perception of control over the systems that they infect.
You’re talking about software designed to gain personal information with the end goal of financial gain by defrauding or identity theft. While those may be more serious threats in a practical sense, they hardly make up the majority of viruses, or the motivation of most virus authors. Viruses existed WAY before unscrupulous foreign companies realized that they could use them for their unethical business practices. Intelligent and bored individuals in the hacker underground have more noble (in their minds) goals than spam or phishing. They have a point to prove, and an ego to stroke.
Sure, marketshare may eliminate some specific virus authors from pursuing the platform, but dogmatically stating that it is the “only reason” hackers have not done it, is ridiculous on, in, and under its face.
In the 90’s, viruses were about destruction of data, making a computer really slow, etc…
Currently, it’s about getting zombies to aid in the spam effort. A virus writer doesn’t want the virus to go noticed at all. They want as many computers as they can get their hands on so that each computer only has to send out 5 emails and the spammer can send out millions a day.
Where do you find millions of open computers just waiting to be infected? Simple, Windows. Why not Macs? Your right, a good part of the reason Mac’s don’t get infected by these viruses are that they are protected by an OS that defaults to fairly protected settings. However a more accurate reason they are not infected is simply because there are no scripts written for them that “script kiddies” can get their hands on and modify 3 bytes and get a totally different variant that might very well be missed by scanners until the scanner companies come up with updates to their virus data files.
Spyware/Adware is more the market share argument. Why would anyone looking to get money for ads create an adware program for the Mac? How many hits would the adware program generate as opposed to the Windows version? Even if a Windows adware program added the Mac to it’s arsenal, they would only get about a 4%-5% gain in hits.
That said, I have been contemplating buying a Mac ever since the news that Apple switched to Intel hit the streets. At first I thought that was way underpowered for the price, but as I look at other systems with Core Duo chips, I’m beginning to see that they are fairly competitively priced. I’m curious to see what the current G5 will go for when it’s updated to Intel and what Apple will use for processor speeds.
My biggest wall so far is the lack of games. I’m a gamer. Sure, OS X has a few good titles now, like WoW, but I’m waiting to see if game developers will look closer at OS X after the machines switch to Intel. I hear stories that the process of porting a game to OS X will be easier after the switch, but I don’t really see that. It’s not really the processor that’s the issue with developers. All you have to do is compile the code for the new processor and that it. Any Linux person will tell you that. The main problem is the OS and it’s API.
I digress. The reason I went that path here is that I wanted to say that if the market share of Mac’s become higher, they will become more attractive to potential attacks. The question then will be how well protected the systems come out of the box and can the user (mothers and fathers everywhere) do something to make them less secure.
Microsoft made some really incredibly stupid decisions when it came to the default settings out of the box. I think they have made amends with XP SP2 and maybe Vista will start more secure out of the box. However, there are still millions and millions of Win95 systems out there that are totally insecure and being run by children (really, handed down to them by their parents as they buy more powerful systems) as well as computer neophytes that probably have hundreds of viruses on their systems and don’t even know it. With more coming on board every day by opening email attachments from family members that they haven’t talked to or emailed in years.
Time will tell…
It’s not really the processor that’s the issue with developers. All you have to do is compile the code for the new processor and that it. Any Linux person will tell you that.
That’s a very uninformed statement. Game developers will tell you that in order for today’s games to run the way they do, very large portions of their code are written and optimized for x086 architecture. Modifying the stack and controlling instruction flow is a major portion of today’s game engines, and recompiling your code on another processor does not leave you with the same product.
This has translated into headaches, nightmares, and lackluster performance of games ported over to the PowerPC architecture. Highly optimized code designed for a specific CISC processor, and making very heavy use of integers in processing, totally destroys a program’s performance on a RISC processor that is low on integer processing and focuses on floating point.
Derek, last time I talked to a game developer was just seconds ago, myself, and I don’t remember myself telling me that he used assembler for games these days. Mind you the last game I worked on was about 5 years ago, but not much has changed in those 5 years other than processors getting faster and faster.
A game developer friend of mine stopped using assembler, kicking and screaming mind you, about 10 years ago. Compilers have become so good that it’s very rare when a game developer has to resort to assembler for games, even high frame rate 3D games.
To say that I am uninformed when you know nothing of my background is pretty stupid really. A little research will turn up (http://www.play.net/credits/oldcredits.asp) and (http://www.abby-cheat.com/shtml/pc/Cyberstrike_2.shtml, look at “tanj") and (http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,46410/).
Mind you, you probably didn’t know my last name. Also, I’m no 3D developer. I know very little about how to get 3D games up, but I do know that assembler is a thing of the past left for hardware driver developers, and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that even those folks use C/C++ these days. Maybe firmware is the only place where assembler is used. You know, to code to control a HD that is on the HD itself.
Also, heavy use of integers? You really don’t think that 3D game developers use integers in their math do you? Sheesh, that hasn’t been done for at least 15 years if not more. Pretty much past the 486 days.
Your admissions of where your experience falls short are key. The 3-D engines on which games run are highly optimized for the x086 processor. Even if you worked on a dozen high-end, large scale projects that utilized these 3-D engines (which you didn’t), your company would have licensed its use from the developer of the engine, and wouldn’t even attest to any intimate knowledge of the underpinnings. Instead of relying on your own limited experience, check with some of these sources and developers. In order to squeeze every extra frame per second that they can, developers constantly adjust to try to take advantage of integer speed where necessary, either by creating algorithms that would allow acceptable results with integer calculations where it seemed more straightforward to use floating point, or passing off floating point calculations to the video card. Either way, the instructions for the main pipe are kept to integers wherever possible. Motorola’s processor architecture drinks integer calculations about as swiftly as molasses pours.
Aspyr, probably the most prominent company that handles ports of Windows games to the Mac, has constantly talked about this struggle, and more importantly, has done so recently, with modern games and modern hardware. Or you could talk to the small team responsible for keeping the Mac version of World of Warcraft going, and the challenges that they have had. With full OpenGL support, the APIs haven’t been their thorn: it’s been the architectural difference in processors, even things as benign as the FSB speed or amount of cache. Even elminating those small architectural differences frees developers to more readily assume that they will have a successful port that won’t cost them more to undertake than they stand to make from it in return.
Does an intel at the core make it then become a compile-and-it’s-ready solution? No. The difference in APIs and supporting hardware is still significant. This isn’t an issue of either / or, with there being only one roadblock. I’m not arguing that APIs aren’t a problem. But if you think that the processor is meaningless, and that modern games don’t run on code tailored to and optimized for x086, you’re further out of the loop than you imagine. FWIW, 5 years is a century of game development, and your career in the industry is not something one would describe as either illustrious or seasoned, nor experienced in the specific area of development we’re talking about. Kudos for your past accomplishments, but they are irrelevant. I’m not a programmer, I freely admit that I’m not talking from personal experience. But I’ll take the word of those who are currently and regularly involved in this task over someone with a general association to the industry 5 years ago.
<blockquote>I’m not a programmer...</blockquote>
Good lord Derek, you sound just like the fanboys I see on Digg and other sites that seem to love to act as if they know more than they do.
First, just because I don’t write 3D code doesn’t mean I don’t know how 3D code is written. I have worked with plenty of 3D developers in my time at Simutronics and after. My friends there have developed a few titles since CyberStrike2, and I see and talk to them frequently. None of them use assembler anymore. They don’t use 3rd party engines. Even the latest product coming out of Simutronics is their own proprietary engine that is written in C++ and is not using integer math for the 3D calcs.
Look friend, you believe what you want to believe. It’s your right as a free citizen of this country. I would however, suggest that if you come across someone with a differing opinion, that you at least hear them out and not dismiss them as a hack when you don’t know all the facts.
I am personally going to stop this tread because it’s pointless and I have way more important things to do with my time than this.
So we agree that both of our knowledge in this specific area largely stems from what people we know and trust say. The gang at Blizzard during closed beta of WoW said repeatedly that much of the then-lackluster performance of WoW on Mac was due to “huge chunks of code in the engine optimized for x086” that they hadn’t yet had a chance to address.
Aspyr, a company whose every employee is devoted to porting games from Windows to Mac have echoed those comments on games that they have ported, and the same phrasing and discussions occured for UT and Doom 3, with regard to the optimization of their respective engines.
I think you can see why I have the conclusions that I do. People who are actually involved in this have said these things publicly. I suppose it’s possible that they are lying and simply looking for something to blame when pressured to comment, but I doubt it. I might be a parrot, but so be it. I’m at least repeating words from people who not only know what they’re talking about (such as yourself and your friends), but also have real world experience on a daily basis with this issue.
Wow, you actually know developers of the WoW engine? Tell them “Way to go!” for me will you? That game has sucked away so much of my time, it’s embarrassing. Those guys are gods.
My buddy, John Ratcliff, wrote the 3D engine used in PlanetSide for SOE. Your buddies are way better than mine. You must know exactly how to program a 3D engine with buddies like those.
You must be correct and 3D engines must then be written fully in assembly using intricate integer calculations. I’m sure this is the reason that PlanetSide hasn’t done that well in the game market. I’ll have to let John know where he is going wrong so that he can improve his coding style… He’ll get a kick out of this story to say the least.
/*Godwin’s Law, or rather whatever dogmatic expression
I can convince others of, to susbtitute the Hitler demonization with*/
#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
main(void)
{
cout <<"ttt***How to abuse Godwins Law***n” << endl;
return 0; //Your arguments return//
} //End of thread
I get a little sick of “Macs are teh suck” myself.
But, yeah, i am smug about it. I think it is a better experiance.
By Greg Ferrell on January 27, 2006 at 12:17pm link