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Apple Employees' Macs Compromised by Chinese Hackers

BRLawyer said:
And what's the difference between China and the US again?

"Monitor" its citizens? "Names, mobile numbers, addresses and favourite breakfasts" of anyone? US "Patriot" Act anyone?

This thread is soon going to the Political area, I am sure... 😉
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And why can't the US use the same resources to thwart these hackers?
 
MagnusVonMagnum said:
Who actually got any flipping Malware???
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You asked in the other thread. Now, you've gotten your answer. Does that make you happy? 😀

The threat is very real, Magnus. Even worse, the threats appear to be state-sponsored and targeted at particular companies. The time has come for all companies to be accountable for the use of Java and Flash on their websites -- and get rid of it. Google: are you listening?
 
krravi said:
This tells you that we have been sold (Technology in general, not just Apple) half baked products. Reactionary measures are a symptom of something that was not well thought out(be it software or hardware).
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I've been saying this for ages. The way the software (and hardware) of the computer industry gets away with zero accountability, just for convenience (they convince users that flaws are normal)... This stuff is still in infancy. What other industry is this pathetic? There's no excuse. Not the "complexity" excuse, either. If that excuse was valid, it would invalidate the the reason to use this stuff for what it's used. The technology is pushed through testing to make a quick buck. Security is an opportunistic side-effect industry, just like all the Windows fixing tools.

Demand accountability.

Why do I bother...

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grue said:
Just disconnect China from the internet at this point, no real downside. Less spam, less malware.
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This is actually an amusingly acceptable comment, in the face of the war-mongering over at Apple Insider...

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Lark.Landon said:
1+ billion Chinese citizens.

It's probably a small group of hackers having fun.
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Exactly. Just like mostly every case where this stuff happens.
 
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krravi said:
What gets me is this...

If you have read anything about the NSA(Read "Body of Secrets", forget the author, a great read)... Its supposedly the most massive aggregation of data storage and computing power in the planet. They can read every e-mail, phone conversation and credit card purchase you make (around the WORLD) and actually they supposedly installed a new system that checks purchase patterns even with cash and then the system alerts the concerned people. All transatlantic internet/voice cables exit the sea shore and into AT&T offices where NSA siphons off all the traffic in parallel for analysis. And so on and on....

Then there is this immense brain power. NSA employs the largest number of mathematicians in the world.

With all this power, why can't NSA thwart these hackers? Do they think its child's play and beneath them? If they do, then its about time they got in the game and gave the Chinese hackers a taste of sweet and sour,IP packets.
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It is far easier to poke holes in the multitude of various and flawed systems than to make them invulnerable. They'd have to utterly restructure the entire computer industry, and they can't do that. The one power greater than the USA government is the one that pseudo-controls it: USA capitalism. Just try to demand legal accountability from software vendors. It'll be a nice laugh. Actually, a crying shame.
 
knightlie said:
The weakness is Java, not OS X. But then you don't really care, do you?


If it weren't for Minecraft I would have deleted Java long ago, it's not worth the risk any more.
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I run Windows on a Dell right now, but this thread has made me think why the hell I have Java on it ... no reason i can think of except Oracle keeps bugging me to update it. Time to delete it once and for all ... not worth the risk.
 
BvW said:
China is a dictatorship and policestate sparing no expense to monitor and censor its citizens. What is the likely hood that the government does not know the names, mobile numbers, addresses and favourite breakfasts of these "rogue hackers"?
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That puts a lot of faith in the expert execution of said government. Likely, it's no better or worse ordered than any other super power. Do we see expertly executed government in the grand ol' USA? Or do you think police state dictatorships (China would beg to differ) actually run more efficiently and effectively?
 
melendezest said:
Any user who thinks any computer is un-hackable or immune to viruses is a fool. Period.

There's foolish Mac users, foolish Windows users, etc, etc.

Less prone to these incidents is another story...
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I always wondered about that last line. Not saying it isn't true, just wondered.

Are Mac exploits less common due to OSX itself, of just because Windows gets more interest due to its larger market share? And as OSX becomes more popular will it become more of a target and less invunerable?
 
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stuffradio said:
Mac's are unhackable they say. Mac's don't break they say. Windows computers are the only one to get hacked they say.
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Actually the only people that say that are anti-Apple trolls who claim people say that when they need a straw man argument.

People actually say Macs are more secure, not completely secure. People actually say disable the Java plugin.
 
Giuly said:
Java is a runtime environment with access to the host system they say. One with many flaws say. And one that can be embedded by any sketchy website they say.

Disable the Java browser plugin (Applications->Utilities->Java Preferences->Untick Enable applet plug-in and Web Start applications) and move on?
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You could just unplug the computer from the router, or disable wifi and you would be protected also.

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jrbdmb said:
I always wondered about that last line. Not saying it isn't true, just wondered.

Are Mac exploits less common due to OSX itself, of just because Windows gets more interest due to its larger market share? And as OSX becomes more popular will it become more of a target and less invunerable?
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OS X is based on unix, which means it's generally less prone to attacks such as man in the middle attacks, etc. because it's generally more up to date, and updated quicker when an exploit is found.

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hayesk said:
Actually the only people that say that are anti-Apple trolls who claim people say that when they need a straw man argument.

People actually say Macs are more secure, not completely secure. People actually say disable the Java plugin.
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It's a good thing I'm not an anti-Apple troll then.
 
Apple needs to commit cyber terrorism against these people, which we know is the Chinese government. Unleash a massive attack again those computers, and China can't complain, because they say they aren't doing it. So if they are not involved, the computers attacked will not be theirs.
 
stuffradio said:
OS X is based on unix, which means it's generally less prone to attacks such as man in the middle attacks, etc. because it's generally more up to date, and updated quicker when an exploit is found.
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Unix also doesn't have the decades of "competing" features installed, like Windows, nor the multiple cess pools of plug-in containers of Windows. It's less monolithic, less interdependent (ie: break one thing in Windows and you break many other seemingly unrelated things), and generally not designed to win any individual capitalist marketplace competition. Windows compromises to be ubiquitous and inviting to the least skilled developers (not to insult developers, nor suggest development should be hard).

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wxman2003 said:
Apple needs to commit cyber terrorism against these people, which we know is the Chinese government. Unleash a massive attack again those computers, and China can't complain, because they say they aren't doing it. So if they are not involved, the computers attacked will not be theirs.
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Because its a great idea to attack someone based on rumor and circumstantial evidence. We should instantly escalate any and all offense as an action against the entire nation when individuals in that nation are idiots and troublemakers. Just like idiots advocating for computer-terrorism should be immediately gunned down by patriot act drones.
 
stuffradio said:
You could just unplug the computer from the router, or disable wifi and you would be protected also.
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So you are a vivid user of Java applets in your browser? The last one I saw was a speed test and had counterparts in both Flash and HTML5.
 
Giuly said:
So you are a vivid user of Java applets in your browser? The last one I saw was a speed test and had counterparts in both Flash and HTML5.
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No, but I am completing my Computer Science degree within a year, and I am taking a Java course in which we develop applets.
 
stuffradio said:
No, but I am completing my Computer Science degree within a year, and I am taking a Java course in which we develop applets.
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Somebody should tell your professors that applets are an obsolete technology. They don't work on iOS and other handheld devices, and they shouldn't work on PCs and Macs.
 
knightlie said:
The weakness is Java, not OS X. But then you don't really care, do you?


If it weren't for Minecraft I would have deleted Java long ago, it's not worth the risk any more.
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Yeah, my only reason for Java being installed on my Mac is CrashPlan. Their technical support said that they are coming out with a native Mac client sometime this year. It can't come soon enough in my opinion.
 
FloatingBones said:
Somebody should tell your professors that applets are an obsolete technology. They don't work on iOS and other handheld devices, and they shouldn't work on PCs and Macs.
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The whole University is stuck on Java in the Computer Science department. They are slowly moving to C or C++ though.
 
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