This has been driving me NUTS lately.

[demented-pants.livejournal.com]

Am I the only one noticing a trend lately wherein people everywhere seem to be going, "Oh, windows is so insecure and awful, I'll switch to Macs, they're better," without having a damn clue what they're talking about? When pressed, sure, they might say, "Macs don't get viruses," which is (of course) a fallacy, or, "Windows crashes all the time..."

Regardless, they switch to macs and then they're totally illiterate and I have to help them figure out wtf they're doing. And then when everything doesn't JUST WORK ZOMG like they're expecting it to, it's somehow *still* Windows' fault, somehow.

Ugh. I'm not advocating for one above the other. I use Mac, Windows, and Linux all three, though I have a definite preference for Windows, personally. Use what works for you.

But for fuck's sake can we all have a little bit less of that annoying superiority?

Comments

[agentdanak.livejournal.com]

so, not a mac user (but can sort of remember how to use a mac), so i don't know why the camera should be taped over...

explain?

[confectionqueen.livejournal.com]

Yeah I was wondering about that one too.

[preserver3.livejournal.com]

This may take some explanation:
Step one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clickjacking
Step two:Understanding how Adobe Flash Player Camera Control works on a Mac
Step three: seeing a demo in which you arrive at a word press blog that is not run by a hacker, but has a hijacked post containing a UI redirect built into one of the ads. As you peruse the site, clicking, commenting, etcetera, you notice that your camera light is on, then you find that images of you have been uploaded to a remote flicker account and are being presented on a website in 1 per second reviews....


currently the only way I know of to protect Firefox is with the noscript add on. There is to my knowledge no native protection for Safari or Opera.

Hence why you may see many techies, in a sign of solidarity more than anything else, with a piece of black electrical tape over their camera on their Macs.

[agentdanak.livejournal.com]

wow, that's kinda creepy.

thanks for explaining!

[preserver3.livejournal.com]

special note... the claim is that Adobe has since closed this loophole(not a bug, as the integration of a flash camera control is a feature they have retained), and FlashPlayer 10 actually makes it extremely hard to do, but it remains possible due to other weaknesses in a vulnerable browser.

As an even more special note, this is not a Mac specific exploit, it's simply the nature of how integrated the camera is in the iMac design that makes it an excellent target.

[agentdanak.livejournal.com]

*nodnod* yeah, i've seen articles about someone rigging their i-camera to start going as soon as the lid opened when the machine was sent in for repairs.

in a way, the controls are pretty neat. then again...i guess not in all ways.

[tanetris.livejournal.com]

currently the only way I know of to protect Firefox is with the noscript add on. There is to my knowledge no native protection for Safari or Opera.

Not on a Mac, but what I personally do with Opera is run with plugins disabled (easily enabled/disabled from the quick-prefs, or a checkbox for it can be placed on toolbar of choice). When there's some sort of Flash I actually want to see, F12 & click to enable, mouse gesture up & down to refresh, F12 & click to disable.

You can also use site preferences to always enable or disable plugins and/or javascript for particular sites.

Not as elegant as NoScript, and you can't (easily) be as selective about particular elements of the page, but it would likely prevent most cases of what you're describing.

I'd use the tape anyway. Regardless of OS. But I'm paranoid.