Apple: Open-source pedigree will protect Tiger
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The Mac OS X update will be spared the security woes that have hit Microsoft because it's based on Unix, executives say.
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On Tuesday, Novell Inc. announced that it will use its patent portfolio to protect its open-source software offerings. In a policy statement, Novell said it will utilize its patent portfolio to defend against
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p2pnet.net News:- Apple Computer has issued a patch for 15 Mac OS X security flaws. But, &quot;It ain&#39;t us - it&#39;s them!&quot; - it&#39;s saying of some of the problems, &#39;them&#39; being certain open source components.
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First, thanks for the great comments on yesterday's post about Apple and the hard disk of my MacBook. People were universally positive and helpful, and I can say I really learned some really important things as a result of the discussion. First, the cost of the data on the hard disk swamps the value of the value of the disk and even the value of the computer. There was source code on the computer, and other information, which if it fell into the wrong hands, could cause some serious problems for me. I have no agreement with Apple that covers the security or privacy of the data. As far as I know they think they own the contents of the disk as well as the disk itself. The experience I had with them actually makes me think they probably do feel its theirs. This from a company that takes the security of its own private information very seriously, they seem to have almost no regard for the security of its customers' information. You have no control over when a hard disk will crash, or any foreknowledge of when it's even likely to crash. So there's no way to protect against this kind of security issue. And that's what it is. What kind of sense does it make to invest in firewalls, and of what value is Apple's claim that Macs are inherently more secure, when all the data on one of my computers is now completely out of my control forever? I'm not so concerned about the privacy issues, but I could imagine that other people might be. And if identity thieves are not aware of this backdoor way to get access to private information, how long before they are? Security experts always warn us that obscurity is not a good strategy for security. So what to do?  Basically I've given up on trying to get Apple to do the right thing and give me my disk back. Some people at the Emeryville store are well-itentioned, and are just naive about the problems that can come when you trust people with all your data. Others just don't care. Either way it seems unlikely that I'm going to get it back, and even if I do, it's been out of my control for too long.  I'm going to go through the tedious job of changing the passwords on all my sensitive online accounts. That was overdue anyway. And next time a laptop blows its hard disk, I'm either going to replace it myself and shred the old disk, the same way I'd shred any sensitive documents before throwing them out, or just throw away the whole computer. I know this isn't green, but there seems to be no other course that's anything close to secure. And always be aware that you could lose a laptop, or it could be stolen. So far it seems that this is not yet an identity theft concern, but you can't be sure, and it won't be long before it is.  Thanks again for all the good info, advice and vibe.
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Blog: Open source and your Mac.  What a combo!  Here's a great open source program for keeping your MacBook Pro cool.
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Blog: Sun says that Apple's forthcoming Leopard operating system will use the next-generation file system called ZFS.
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Apple Inc. has released an updated Java for Mac OS X 10.4, aka Tiger, to patch 18 different flaws.
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Blog: The open-source packaged application company, which is releasing the beta of a major product upgrade, is on track to go public, CEO says.
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Derrick Story writes for the O&#146;Reilly MacDevCenter, summarizing a Mac OS X Tiger preview recently presented to the O&#146;Reilly Mac OS X Conference by Apple product manager Chris Bourdon. [Nov 17]
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The security features introduced in Apple&#39;s Leopard operating system need work. That&#39;s according to security experts who have been putting the new version of Mac OS X through its paces since&#160;the upgrade was introduced&#160;last Friday.Leopard introduces a number of important security features to the Mac, but they are often implemented incompletely, leaving users vulnerable to attack, said Thomas Ptacek, a researcher at Matasano Security, who Monday wrote a detailed assessment of Leopard&#39;s security.&quot;They&#39;ve done a really good job of robbing Microsoft advocates of their talking points,&quot; he said. But, &quot;I don&#39;t see anything that they&#39;ve done out of the box, where it&#39;s really any more resistant to attack than Tiger was,&quot; he added, referring to the previous update to Apple&#39;s operating system.According to Ptacek, two of Apple&#39;s key security enhancements -- Sandboxing and Library Randomization -- are great ideas that are imperfectly applied within Leopard.Take Library Randomization. It&#39;s a new feature that&#39;s supposed to make it hard for some of the most commonly used computer attacks like buffer overflows, where the attacker takes advantage of a software bug to place code somewhere in the computer&#39;s memory where he knows it will be run. Microsoft developed a similar technology for Vista, called Address Space Load Randomization. Library Randomization makes it much harder, if not impossible, for the attacker to know where to place this code, reducing the risk of attack.The problem is that Apple did not randomize all of the parts of the operating system that it should have, according to Ptacek. In particular, Apple&#39;s Dynamic Link Library has not been randomized.Security researcher Dino Dai Zovi said he&#39;s used this library in several of the Mac exploits he&#39;s written over the past few years. He has taken advantage of the fact that this library is not randomized, he agreed with Ptacek&#39;s assessment that this feature, as it&#39;s implemented in Leopard, would simply make things a little more difficult for attackers.Sandboxing is another feature that could ultimately make Mac OS X more secure. Sandboxing restricts software running on Mac OS so that even if it&#39;s hacked, it can&#39;t do things that it shouldn&#39;t, such as add new software to the computer. The problem is that Apple hasn&#39;t sandboxed many of the most commonly attacked applications such as the browser, mail client, or instant messaging software, Ptacek said.And the programs that have been sandboxed have not been walled off as thoroughly as they should be, he added.For example, the Quick Look file viewer has been sandboxed, but only to restrict network access. The software can still be misused to write malicious files where they will be automatically launched, Dai Zovi said. &quot;Most of the things that were sandboxed were network services,&quot; he said. &quot;Increasingly these days IM, e-mail and Web surfing are where most of the attacks are coming from, not directly on your network.&quot;Independent consultant Rich Mogull said that his biggest problem was with the Leopard firewall, which he said suffered from a confusing interface that made it very difficult to control access to individual services on the Mac. &quot;It was very complicated and very hard to get the right settings,&quot; he said.Worse, when he installed Leopard, he found himself suddenly without a firewall. &quot;It turned off my firewall when I upgraded, despite that being a default setting.&quot; he said.Like Ptacek and Dai Zovi, Mogull said he had been expecting more from Apple with the Leopard release, but he agreed that the new security features were a step in the right direction. &quot;I think that Apple has started down the right path but they are not as far as they communicated that they would be,&quot; he said. &quot;The firewall is the big negative; they really messed that up.&quot;Apple declined to comment in detail on its new security features. Company spokesman Anuj Nayar said via e-mail that &quot;Apple takes security very seriously and has a great track record of addressing potential vulnerabilities before they can affect users.&quot;Ptacek said that it is great that Apple has begun adding these security features even when the Mac has not been the target of a widespread worm or virus outbreak. &quot;I&#39;m impressed that when they didn&#39;t have to do it, they went after low-level features that no one will understand,&quot; he said. &quot;I like the direction they&#39;re headed. I&#39;m just saying that they&#39;ve got a long way to go to catch up with Microsoft.&quot;&#160;
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The top US computer security watchdog issues a warning about a flaw in Apple's OS X software.
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Xcode 3.0 and the updated Objective-C  will result in high-performance, native-code applications for the Mac, and that will be a windfall for Mac users post-Leopard.
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Symanted has warned Mac OS X users to update the open source technology.
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Apple has pulled the beta of Boot Camp, the application that lets Mac users run Windows XP or Vista on their Intel-powered machines, from its servers in preparation for Friday's launch of Leopard.Although a Boot Camp 1.4 beta page remains live, clicking on the download link brings up an error message that reads: "The page you tried was not found." A graphic of the Mac OS X 10.5 packaging appears in the background.Earlier this month, Apple reminded users that the license to Boot Camp would expire when Leopard shipped. The application's beta has been available free of charge for Mac owners running Mac OS X 10.4, commonly known as Tiger.While licenses will expire when Leopard launches, Apple has confirmed that Windows partitions created with Boot Camp will continue to work. However, the Boot Camp Assistant, software that sets up and manages Windows partitions, will not. Apple also has said that it will stop delivering driver updates to beta users.Most analysts believe that Apple will not sell a separate Tiger-only version of Boot Camp but will instead use the dual-boot software to entice users to upgrade. Leopard, which is priced at $129 for a single-user license and $199 for a five-license family pack, goes on sale Friday.Computerworld is an InfoWorld affiliate
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Ziff Davis - Redmond execs say the company will provide IP protection for all current and past versions of its software, hoping to present yet another differentiator with open-source vendors.
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Apple (Nasdaq: AAPL) has filed lawsuits against three developers that allegedly posted a prerelease version of Mac OS X Tiger through file-sharing networks.
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(InfoWorld) - The beta build of Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" that Apple handed out to developers June 11 at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) has leaked to the Internet and is being downloaded by users of PirateBay, the Swedish torrent tracker. Last Monday, CEO Steve Jobs spent most of this 90-minute WWDC keynote address touting the upcoming OS, which is set for release in October. Eight days later, the beta labeled build "9A466" was uploaded to PirateBay. The first upload on Tuesday didn't take -- there was only one "seeder," the term for a computer that has a complete copy of the torrent file -- but the second yesterday is being downloaded and assembled, according to comments left by numerous users. As of late yesterday, only four seeders were available, with 181 "leechers," or computers that have downloaded only part of the complete torrent. By 3 p.m. today EDT, however, the numbers had climbed to 44 seeders and more than 1,500 leechers. The beta was also posted to the private, invitation-only torrent tracker Oink yesterday, according to CrunchGear, a tech blog. But when CrunchGear exposed the leak, Oink pulled the beta. That sent downloaders into a verbal rage during which they vented their collective spleens at the blogger who outed Oink. "Go [expletive deleted] yourself you [expletive deleted] rat," ranted one. Based on the PirateBay listing, the Leopard 9A466 beta weighs in at a bit more than 6GB. But the exact byte count worried a user tagged as "konelli." "It's definitely not my intention to spoil the party, but how do we know that this is the real thing? Last time I checked, the WWDC version was supposed to be 6.94GB (or 7,450,640,384 bytes). This is, well, less. Has anybody finished downloading who could confirm that this is genuine?" Apple was asked if it planned to pursue the person or persons who leaked the build to BitTorrent, or what actions it might take against PirateBay. It did not immediately respond with comment, however. The first question is especially important in light of past history. The last time an under-development version of Mac OS X ended up on BitTorrent, the Cupertino, Calif.-based computer maker brought out its lawyers. In December 2004, Apple sued three men, as well as 25 others identified only as "Does," for releasing a developer preview of Tiger, Mac OS X 10.4, via the BitTorrent file-sharing network. All three were members of the company's own Developer Connection, Apple claimed, and had illegally leaked their copies of Tiger. But after several Apple notables, including co-founder Steve Wozniak, pleaded for leniency in blogs and other online postings, Apple backed off a bit. During a 10-month span from March to December 2005, Apple signed a settlement with the three named defendants: students Vivek Sambhara, David Schwartzstein, and David Steigerwald. Each promised to never again release information about the company or its products, while media accounts reported that Schwartzstein and Steigerwald also distributed repentant statements and paid damages to Apple. "We are pleased that Mr. Steigerwald has taken responsibility for his actions and that we can put this lawsuit behind us," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told the Associated Press in March 2005 after the company settled with David Steigerwald, then a 22-year-old North Carolina college student.