Security or Obscurity ?
Security
Mad as hell, switching
to Mac
to Mac
ByÊWinn Schwartau,ÊNetwork
World,Ê05/23/05
World,Ê05/23/05
This is my first column written on a Mac - ever. Maybe
I should have done it a long time ago, but I never said I was smart, just
obstinate. I was a PC bigot. But now, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not
going to take it anymore.
I should have done it a long time ago, but I never said I was smart, just
obstinate. I was a PC bigot. But now, I’ve had it. I’m mad as hell and I’m not
going to take it anymore.
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right??Add your thoughts in the forum.?
Mac illusions?Columnist Mark Gibbs: “I have been Macified.” In
the coming weeks I’m going to keep a diary of an experiment my company began at
6 p.m. April 29, 2005 - an experiment predicated on the hypothesis that the
WinTel platform represents the greatest violation of the basic tenets of
information security and has become a national economic security risk. I do not
say this lightly, and I have never been a Microsoft basher, either. I never
criticize a company without a fair bit of explanation, justification and
supportive evidence. I have come to the belief that there is a much easier, more
secure way to use computers. After having spent several years focusing my
security work on Ma, Pa
and the Corporate Clueless, I also have come to the conclusion that if
I’m having such security problems, heaven help the 98% of humanity who merely
want a computer for e-mail and multimedia. Even though I’m a security guy going
on 22 years now, my day-to-day work is pretty much like everyone else’s. I live
on laptops and use my desktops at home and the office for geeking and
experimenting. My two day-to-day laptops (two, for 24/7 backup) are my business
machines. I don’t need them to do a whole lot - except work reliably, which is
why I am fed up with WinTel.I want my computer to function every time I turn it
on. I want my computer to not corrupt data when it does crash. I use a handful
of applications: Microsoft Office, e-mail, browser, FTP client and some
multimedia toys. Regardless of format, they should work without crashing. I
live on the ‘Net. I do not want my browser to eat up all of my memory. In the
WinTel world I need an assortment of third-party tools to try to keep my PC
alive. That’s just crazy. Why does WinTel have these problems? I have heard all
sorts of explanations, and I don’t subscribe to any of them. I’ve come up with
my own (hopefully rational) reasons WinTel will fail - and has to
fail:Windows is complex, trying to be
everything to everyone. This complexity comes at
a terrible price: downtime, help desks, upgrades, patches and the inevitable
failures. When a new operating system or
service pack is released, there are tons of changes to the
functionality.
WinTel machines use different versions of
BIOS. They are not all equal, nor do they all
have the same level of compatibility. Some
Windows software applications are well written; others take
shortcuts. Shortcuts may work in some
environments, but not all, and ultimately the consumer pays in lost time,
availability and productivity.
Hardware.
There are hundreds of “WinTel-compatible” motherboards, each claiming to be
better than the next. Whatever.
Memory. Not
all RAM is equal. Some works well. Cheap stuff doesn’t.
Hard disks.
Same problem: cheap or reliable. Your call. Here’s my answer to the WinTel
problem: We need an open Simple Operating System (SOS) that meets the needs of
the majority of people who buy PCs for everyday home and enterprise tasks. Get
rid of the complexity and simplify the interface between SOS, BIOS and hardware.
In other words, KISS. You know what it means. KISS SOS. Because SOS doesn’t
exist yet, my company has given up on WinTel. We have successfully moved to Mac
in less than two days. Think about it: a security-friendly alternative that
works and doesn’t require gobs of third-party utilities to safely perform the
most mundane tasks. Please follow the details of our experiment at
It’s already way more interesting than I thought it would be.