Mac Users Of Mtc (apple: Go Ahead, Take A Bite!)

[hondacity]

@artvader!!! i was reading the same thing..ehehehehe naunahan mo ako...thanks for thepost

[boomouse]

Edited June 25, 2008 by boomouse

[hondacity]

Macbook Air first to be hacked in contest

Filed in Security

By Mark Raby

Friday, March 28, 2008 15:28

Vancouver (WA) - During a contest in Vancouver where competitors tried to hack Windows, Linux and Apple computers, the Macbook Air was the first to be compromised, taking the winner just two minutes to break into Apple's new thin notebook.

 

Security researcher Charlie Miller pointed a browser to a website with malicious code, and the computer did not even put up a fight. The Macbook Air was installed with nothing more than the programs that come out-of-box.

 

 

 

Miller's code won him $10,000, the grand prize set by organizers of the CanSecWest conference where the event was held.

 

Additionally, all entrants had to sign a non-disclosure agreement meaning they could not share the exploitative code used. Apple will be informed first so it has a chance to combat the discovered hack.

 

Miller also broke into Apple's iPhone last year. As of Friday afternoon, the Windows and Linux notebook computers had not yet been hacked.

[artvader]

You call that a hack? Success depended on the end user being stupid!!!! Under those terms, even the most secure computer of the US NSA can be hacked.

 

Rather than hacking that is more 'social engineering'. Which is why a general in the Pentagon would click on an email from the pretty secretary accross the hall… an email with "I Love You" in the subject header.

 

Put it in perspective guys. And in this context, incidents like this exploit happen zillions of times more to users of Windows. More than proportionately more.

 

But in this context we're not talking about Windows, are we?

 

So the hackers have indeed proven a point: even Macs are not impervious to security risks.

[artvader]

Vista, MacBook Out--Only Linux Left in Hacking Contest

With Vista hacked Friday, a Linux laptop remained uncompromised at the CanSecWest PWN 2 OWN hacking contest.

Robert McMillan, IDG News Service

Saturday, March 29, 2008 5:00 AM PDT

 

The MacBook Air went first; a tiny Fujitsu laptop running Vista was hacked on the last day of the contest; but it was Linux, running on a Sony Vaio, that remained undefeated as conference organizers ended a three-way computer hacking challenge Friday at the CanSecWest conference.

 

Earlier this week, contest sponsors had put three laptops up for grabs to anyone who could hack into one of the systems and run their own software. A US$20,000 cash prize sweetened the deal, but the payout was halved each day as contest rules were relaxed and it became easier to penetrate the computers.

 

On day two, Independent Security Evaluators' Charlie Miller took the Mac after hitting it with a still-undisclosed exploit that targeted the Safari Web browser. After about two minutes work, Thursday, Miller took home $10,000, courtesy of 3Com's TippingPoint division, in addition to his new laptop.

 

It took two days of work, but Shane Macaulay, finally cracked the Vista box on Friday, with a little help from his friends.

 

Macaulay, who was a co-winner of last year's hacking contest, needed a few hacking tricks courtesy of VMware researcher Alexander Sotirov to make his bug work. That's because Macaulay hadn't been expecting to attack the Service Pack 1 version of Vista, which comes with additional security measures. He also got a little help from co-worker Derek Callaway.

 

Under contest rules, Macaulay and Miller aren't allowed to divulge specific details about their bugs until they are patched, but Macaulay said the flaw that he exploited was a cross-platform bug that took advantage of Java to circumvent Vista's security.

 

"The flaw is in something else, but the inherent nature of Java allowed us to get around the protections that Microsoft had in place," he said in an interview shortly after he claimed his prize Friday. "This could affect Linux or Mac OS X."

 

Macaulay said he chose to work on Vista because he had done contract work for Microsoft in the past and was more familiar with its products.

 

Although several attendees tried to crack the Linux box, nobody could pull it off, said Terri Forslof, a manager of security response with TippingPoint. "I was surprised that it didn't go," she said.

 

Some of the show's 400 attendees had found bugs in the Linux operating system, she said, but many of them didn't want to put the work into developing the exploit code that would be required to win the contest.

 

Earlier, Miller said that he chose to hack the Mac because he thought it would be easiest target. Vista hacker Macaulay didn't dispute that assertion: "I think it might be," he said.

Edited March 29, 2008 by artvader

[artvader]

Who Patches Bugs Faster, Apple or Microsoft?

Apple's ads imply its software is safer than Microsoft's, but the facts show it's worse at patching zero-day flaws, study says.

Jeremy Kirk, IDG News Service

Saturday, March 29, 2008 3:00 PM PDT

 

Apple's teasing commercials that imply its software is safer than Microsoft's may not quite match the facts, according to new research revealed at the Black Hat conference on Thursday.

 

Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology looked at how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the zero-day patch rate.

 

They analyzed 658 vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple. They looked at only high- and medium-risk bugs, according to the classification used by the National Vulnerability Database, said Stefan Frei, one of the researchers involved in the study.

 

What they found is that, contrary to popular belief that Apple makes more secure products, Apple lags behind in patching.

 

"Apple was below 20 [unpatched vulnerabilities at disclosure] consistently before 2005," Frei said. "Since then, they are very often above. So if you have Apple and compare it to Microsoft, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple."

 

It's generally good for vendors to have a software fix available when a vulnerability is disclosed, since hackers often try to find out where the problem is in order to write malicious software to hack a machine.

 

For a vendor to have a patch ready when the bug is detailed in public, it needs to get prior information from either its security analysts or external ones. Otherwise the vendor has to hurry to create a patch, but that process can be lengthy, given the rigorous testing needed to test the patch to ensure it does not conflict with other software.

 

Apple only started patching zero-day vulnerabilities in late 2003, Frei said.

 

"We think that Apple had fewer vulnerabilities early on, and they were just surprised or not as ready or not as attentive," Frei said. "It looks like Microsoft had good relationships earlier with the security community."

 

Over the past few years, Microsoft has tried to cultivate a closer relationship with the security community in order to encourage researchers to give it a heads-up about software problems. Apple, however, doesn't appear to have that same sort of engagement yet, and, "based on our findings, this is hurting them," Frei said.

 

Curiously, both vendors' abilities to have zero-day patches ready at disclosure seemed to dip in the six months before a major product release. That trend was most pronounced in 2004 and 2005. Frei theorized that the buildup to big software releases took away software engineering resources.

 

Andrew Cushman, director of Microsoft's Security and Research, said he couldn't pinpoint what might cause that trend. But in 2004 and 2005, Microsoft had a rash of vulnerabilities pop up in its Office products that it did not get advance notice of, which may have contributed to a higher percentage of unpatched publicly disclosed bugs.

 

However, the study proved to be such a glowing affirmation of Microsoft's increased focus on security in the past few years that it prompted Cushman to ask Frei, "Did Microsoft fund this research?"

 

"This is independent academic research," Frei replied.

[boomouse]

Edited June 25, 2008 by boomouse

[artvader]

My point is: no machine is if the guy using it is stupid. If someones tells you to go to a site you don't know, would you?

 

But what if that mac exploit code was embedded in a legitimate website (maybe the server got compromised with another trojan bearing this mac exploit code)? But at least you're starting to realize that mac users, as well as the rest of the computer users should be cautious and not just laugh off these security threats...

[boomouse]

Edited June 25, 2008 by boomouse

[roxysnonie]

guys, im in town and i wanna check out Yznal? i read somewhere in kamuning? Directions naman dyan coming from edsa?

 

atsaka how much kaya 1gb ram for a mbp? mas mura kung yung 2gb? pwede ba sya sa ver 1.1 na mbp?

Edited April 2, 2008 by roxysnonie

[hondacity]

5 reasons to ditch the Mac and return to PCs

 

http://www.computerworld.com/action/articl...ticleId=9074178

[Guest airmax]

I plan to buy a mac computer in the future. aside from surfing and chatting. ano pa bang magagawa sa mac alam ko ung desktop publishing at photoshop maganda sa mac. Pero hindi pang gaming.

 

BTW, May nakita ako sa bestbuy na apple computer na windows vista ang naka install na software hehehe.

Edited April 2, 2008 by airmax

[Guest lustfortravel]

I plan to buy a mac computer in the future. aside from surfing and chatting. ano pa bang magagawa sa mac alam ko ung desktop publishing at photoshop maganda sa mac. Pero hindi pang gaming.

 

BTW, May nakita ako sa bestbuy na apple computer na windows vista ang naka install na software hehehe.

 

why would you want to use windows vista on a mac? the leopard is a great o/s. i'm not sure about the gaming abilities of the mac but the photo and video editing capabilities are really awesome.

 

just my two cents.

[djrs]

Photoshop sheds 32-bit husk

 

Advantage: Windows

 

By Paul Taylor: Thursday, 03 April 2008, 5:18 PM

 

FOR ALL ITS professional pedigree, Photoshop hasn’t overcome one of its main limitations: the 32-bit RAM limit. Current Photoshop (and any 32-bit applications in general) can only address 4GB of RAM in Windows (and it doesn’t matter if you’ve got 64-bit Vista/XP), and amazingly, a lowly 2GB in OS X.

 

Yes. OS X limits RAM use on a single application to 2GB.

 

Pixel-picking on hi-res images can become quite slow when you’re working gigapixel art and run out of physical RAM, and then Photoshop automatically starts pumping out data to the hard-drive virtual memory.

 

Now what is assuredly one of the most important hardware features in this particular line of business is set to arrive. Adobe has announced it’ll finally launch their 64-bit version of Photoshop. However, right now this will be solely for the Windows Vista platform, although the company confesses it should run on XP 64. The reason for letting Mac OS X fall behind is even more crow-flavoured: Apple hasn’t provided the 64-bit tools to allow Adobe to develop their Carbon-based app. By prioritising 64-bit development tools for Cocoa over Carbon, Apple must’ve been aware it would affect the Adobe crowd. Considering you can buy DDR2 RAM at the price of bubble gum, filling up Windoze machines with 8GB (or more, depending on the mobo) should be worth every cent on Photoshop.

 

This will send Mac-ite masses reeling as their dreams of a high-def world digitally retouched on Apple Macs goes down the drain. Not to mention the Adobe development team that’s waiting for Apple to pull their thumbs out of their artwork.

[sid23]

ROCK MTC-MUG!

 

I'm on MBP 15" 2.4 / 4g ram / 160g hd

 

works perfectly since linux-bsd user ako

[j.r.]

Im running Leopard on my Thinkpad T60. (Dual boot with Vista)

 

Except for the LAN, all the devices are working (WLAN, Firewire, USB, CDDrive)

 

I'm getting minor mouse tearing with CI/QE enabled. So I just disabled it.

 

This is a good start before getting the real one.

[withoutu]

Hello MTC!

 

Anyone having a problem with Macromedia Fireworks MX while on Leopard?

 

The problem is, after about 5 minutes or less of creating or editing a new file, Fireworks freezes (hangs) and I have to force quit in order to stop the program.

 

I have an iBook G4 1.33 / 512 Ram

OS X Leopard (10.5.2) (original version from Mac)

Fireworks MX (Ver 6.0.0.273) (original version but shared serial #)

 

Anyone else have this problem as well? ;-)

[djrs]

Hackintosh anyone?

Hackintosh

[roxysnonie]

Hello MTC!

 

Anyone having a problem with Macromedia Fireworks MX while on Leopard?

 

The problem is, after about 5 minutes or less of creating or editing a new file, Fireworks freezes (hangs) and I have to force quit in order to stop the program.

 

I have an iBook G4 1.33 / 512 Ram

OS X Leopard (10.5.2) (original version from Mac)

Fireworks MX (Ver 6.0.0.273) (original version but shared serial #)

 

Anyone else have this problem as well? ;-)

my guess is that you need to add more memory, leopard alone needs a minimum of 1gb, i noticed this on my mbp which used to run 1gb, but i added another 1gb and everything just flows like water...mga gurus on macs, tama ba?

[boomouse]

Edited June 25, 2008 by boomouse

[withoutu]

my guess is that you need to add more memory, leopard alone needs a minimum of 1gb, i noticed this on my mbp which used to run 1gb, but i added another 1gb and everything just flows like water...mga gurus on macs, tama ba?

 

Thanks for the advice guys!!

 

I have about 4.75 GB free at the moment hehe

[boomouse]

Edited June 25, 2008 by boomouse

[Kyle_Rayner]

Need some help here from the experts around here.

 

I'm using a MacBook with MAC OS 10.5. I'm unable to send a file from my Nokia 3650 to the notebook via bluetooth. However, I can send pics from the notebook to my phone. They can detect each other but when I try to send a pic from my phone, it says "unable to connect." I paired the devices and I'm unable to browse the contents of the phone, the "Get" button is grayed out. I went to system preferences and enabled file sharing but it's the same thing. I've read somewhere that MAC OS has some issues with Symbian, I don't know if that's true or if they already have a resolution for it. I'm new with this notebook and OS, hope someone can help me out. Thanks!

[koopahl]

not all BT-enabled cellphones can be synced with Mac machines (apparently older versions have issues on compatibility compared to newer models)

 

pairing through BT can be a hit-and-miss affair, but this does not seem to be a problem with the N-series nokias...

[Kyle_Rayner]

not all BT-enabled cellphones can be synced with Mac machines (apparently older versions have issues on compatibility compared to newer models)

 

pairing through BT can be a hit-and-miss affair, but this does not seem to be a problem with the N-series nokias...

 

yeah... I've been searching for some answers sa net but can't find any possible resolution. Thanks for the info bro!