December 1, 2007

Leopard and Vista – Has the photocopying gone too far?

November 30th, 2007

Posted by Adrian Kingsley-Hughes

Remember that “Redmond, start your photocopiers” jibe back when Tiger was released?  Are Vista and Leopard all the proof we need that the photocopiers have been running flat out both at Redmond and Cupertino?

Leopard and Vista - Has the photocopying gone too far?Oliver Rist of PC Magazine wrote a piece called “Leopard is the New Vista, and It’s Pissing Me Off” which looks at a number of similarities between the two operating systems.  But before looking at the similarities Rist offers up his assessment of the new platform:

I’m not sure what ticks me off more about Leoptard (I can’t take credit for that nickname—some Brit coined it): the fact that so many of the semi-important changes don’t work, the fact that Apple turned a stable OS into a crash-happy glitz fest, or that the annoying, scruffy Live Free or Die Hard actor infecting my TV (and our Web site, by the way) is pretending that Leopard is better than Vista. It’s not better than Vista. Leopard is Vista. And Tiger is better than both of them!

A month of using Leopard with the same software I had under Tiger and the OS has dumped six times. That’s six cold reboots for Oliver. Apple isn’t even honest enough to admit that Leopard is crashing: The OS just grays out my desktop and pops up a dialog box telling me I’ve got to reboot. Like the whole thing is my fault.

I’m not sure that I’d complain if my PC fell over six times a month, but then again if an upgrade had taken the platform from not crashing into crashing more than once a week, that’s something that I’d probably notice, and which would probably annoy me too.

Onto the similarities.

Wait for a Service Pack—Perpetually

This is an interesting one:

Even our own reviewer, who loves Leopard, says not to upgrade until 10.5.1. And now that Apple has coughed that up, he’ll probably say to wait for 10.5.2. Or .3. Now where have I heard that advice before? Oh yeah, every time I reviewed Vista.

What makes it worse is this convoluted argument that my Apple friends give me: They’re more upset at Microsoft on account of it being in perpetual service pack limbo because Vista was supposed to be a ground-up redesign, whereas Leopard is really just a juicy point release. That makes zero sense to me. As far as I’m concerned, they both suck.

My guess is that operating systems have become so complex that serious bugs will be inevitable in the x.0 release.  If you want any guarantees relating to compatibility or stability, wait and see what other suckers users have to say.

The other issue that’s facing Apple is that the Mac ecosystem is growing.  One the population consisted of a bunch of elitists (some would say self-proclaimed elitists) who subscribed to the teachings of the Cult of Mac.  Now that core of devoted followers is being diluted by … ugh … consumers.  These people show little loyalty and just want things to work, and when they don’t work, they complain. 

Also, as the Mac ecosystem grows it has to support more and more hardware and software.  The problems of scale (in the form of reduced compatibility and reliability) that have caused problems for Windows users for years are now causing problems for Mac users.  The OS is a victim of its own success.

Needless Graphics Glitz

Poof, here’s Leopard, and the first thing the Apple folks want to show me is window transparency. Now all of a sudden that’s the coolest thing ever and an obvious example of cutting-edge OS evolution. I had to check to make sure my ears were working when I heard that one.

Does all this interface glitz that Microsoft and Apple have crammed into their respective OSes make the OS any better of easier to use?  I have to be honest and say that I’m not all that convinced.  Sure, it looks cool but there’s much more to usability than how something looks. 

The other issue is that while the interface is the bit that you see and interact with, any changes done to it can’t cialis order online really be considered to be improvements, because while some people will hail them the best thing in the history of best things, others will think that they suck and impact productivity.  When I look at the list of features that were dropped from Vista/Longhorn, I would have happily exchanged Aero for, say, WinFS.  The more we become focussed on the packaging, the more we lose sight of what’s important.

Pointless User Interface “Fixes”

Who’s responsible for Apple’s redesigned dock? I could understand a programmer thinking a mirrored dock would look great on his résumé. But I can’t imagine that a UI expert looked at it and said it was more functional than Tiger’s. A stupid cornflower-blue fuzzball is no replacement for Tiger’s clear, dark arrow that let me know what apps I had open. I could actually see the arrow. The blue fuzzy thing just blends in with the pointless mirrored reflections of the app icons, so now I’ve got to squint for the same information.

Again, it’s style over function. 

Nuked Networking

Leopard’s networking sees the physical part of the network just fine, wired or wireless. And if there’s an AFP share, that pops up like a puppy for a doggie treat. But the Web abounds in complaints—plaintive cries as to why Leopard seems to ignore Windows shares, and semi-effectual fixes. Or it sees Windows shares for a little while and then in a fit of pique decides to drop them again. It’s like the French waiter of networking. Oh, but who cares, Oliver? After all, it’s not as if networking were in any way related to business functionality. Or that interacting peaceably with Windows is in any way required. As long as we can talk to the iPod and Apple TV we’re good, right?

It seems to me that neither Apple nor Microsoft has done a good job of revamping the network stacks – I find that both Vista and Leopard are picky when it comes to seeing other systems.  For people who are trying to make these platforms work (as opposed to just playing with them) this is a real deal-breaker.  Networking is so critical to both home and enterprise users that to get it wrong, and so badly wrong, is simply incredulous.

Bundled Apps as New Features That Suck

Sidebar is a decent example of a New Feature That Sucks, but SideShow is a great example.

For Leopard, the sad bundled app-as-feature is Time Machine. To hear Mac moonies tell it, this is the best thing to happen to backup since the letter b. In reality, however, it sucketh and it sucketh huge.

Yep, Sidebar sucks.  SideShow sucks whole lemons.  But I have to say that while Time Machine could be a lot better, it’s not the suckiest bundled Leopard app by a long shot.  That prize in my opinion has to go to iTunes.

Conclusion

I’ve come to the conclusion that what’s holding back adoption of Vista is XP.  XP was around for too long, became too entrenched and was too good in comparison to Vista.  I’m detecting hints that the same might be true for Tiger.  It was good and around for a lot longer than any of the previous Mac OS X incarnations, and that allowed it to become the norm.  The longer that something is considered the norm the more resistance there is to change.

Thoughts?

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Judge slams FBI fishing expedition at Amazon

November 28th, 2007

Posted by Richard Koman

How would you feel if you bought a book through Amazon and then found out your book purchasing records had been turned over to the FBI? Would it make you think twice about shopping at Amazon in the future? Amazon think so, and it turns out, so does a federal judge (order, PDF).

The FBI is going after one Robert B. DeAngelo, a former Madison, WI, official who has been indicted on tax evasion and mail and wire fraud charges, Cnet’s Declan McCullagh reports. It seems DeAngelo ran a healthy little used book and CD business out of city offices. He kept his costs low by using city computers and city warehouses.

So to get the goods on DeAngelo, the FBI wants to talk to some of his customers. Not that they suspect the customers were involved or were victimized by the scheme, but to get information to nail DeAngelo. So they issued (or rather the grand jury issued) a subpoena to Amazon for information on every one of DeAngelos customers. Eventually the subpoena was changed to 120 customers, 30 for each year under investigation.

Amazon felt the request infringed on their customers’ First Amendment privacy rights and moved to quash cialis online overnight the subpoena. Specifically Amazon argued you have a First Amendment right to keep your book-buying history private. The government argued there is no such privacy right.

Judge Stephen Crocker held that there is a “cognizable First Amendment right” in such privacy, which can be balanced with the government’s need for information by having Amazon contact DeAngelo’s customers and ask for volunteers to talk to the FBI.

Declan reports that after this order, made in June but only now unsealed, Daniel Graber, the assistant U.S. Attorney in Madison, gave up and rescinded his request for the customer records.

So what exactly is the First Amendment concern?

The subpoena is troubling because it permits the government to peek into the reading habits of specific individuals without their prior knowledge or permission. True, neither the government nor the grand jury is directly interested in the actual titles or content of the books that people bought … But it is an unsettling and un-American scenario to envision federal agents nosing through the reading lists of law-abiding citizens while hunting for evidence against somebody else. In this era of public apprehension about the scope of the USAPATRIOT Act, the FBI’s (now-retired) “Carnivore” Internet search program, and more recent highly-publicized admissions about political litmus tests at the Department of Justice, rational book buyers would have a non-speculative basis to fear that federal prosecutors and law enforcement agents have a secondary political agenda that could come into play when an opportunity presented itself. Undoubtedly a measurable percentage of people who draw such conclusions would abandon online book purchases in order to avoid the possibility of ending up on some sort of perceived “enemies list.”

Judge Crocker shows a clear understanding of the way of the blogosphere, too.

Taken a step further, if word were to spread over the Net–and it would–that the FBI and the IRS had demanded and received Amazon’s list of customers and their personal purchases, the chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America. Fiery rhetoric quickly would follow and the nuances of the subpoena (as actually written and served) would be lost as the cyberdebate roiled itself to a furious boil. One might ask whether this court should concern itself with blogger outrage disproportionate to the government’s actual demand of Amazon. The logical answer is yes, it should: well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon’s customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases, now and perhaps forever.

Because the government showed, during an ex parte hearing, that it has a legitimate need for the information, the judge decline to quash the subpoena. Holding that “at this juncture (and perhaps at every juncture), the government is not entitled to unfettered access to the identities of even a small sample of this group of book buyers without each book buyer’s permission,” the judge ordered a “filtering mechanism” by which DeAngelo’s customers can volunteer to speak with the feds.

This packet will allow any used book buyer who chooses to cooperate with the investigation to contact the government and arrange an interview. Anyone who wishes not to participate in this exercise, by virtue of his or her silence, will be left alone, and the government will never learn that person’s identity or the titles of materials he/she purchased
from D’Angelo through Amazon.

I have to say, this is great decision that balances privacy rights and law enforcement concerns. What I can’t understand is why the US Attorney didn’t go forward with this plan, if I’m reading the withdrawal of the subpoena correctly. I have no doubt some civic-minded citizens would have come forward with critical information. It makes you wonder, actually, if denied a fishing expedition, the government suddenly lost interest.

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Sunbelt Software: Google search results delivering massive malware attacks

November 27th, 2007

Posted by Larry Dignan

For the last two days, security software firm Sunbelt Software has been all over what could develop into a scary trend: Rigged Google search results that deliver big malware payloads.

On Monday, Sunbelt reported “we’re seeing a large amount of seeded search results which lead to malware sites.” The search terms leading cialis online no prescription you to these malware payloads were pretty basic fare.

This screenshot courtesy of Sunbelt shows an example of the malware sites (Sunbelt’s post has a bunch of other examples).

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On Tuesday, Sunbelt researcher Adam Thomas followed up with another post. Thomas wrote:

Sunbelt Software has uncovered tens of thousands of individual pages that have been meticulously created with the goal of obtaining high search engine ranking. Just about any search term you can think of can be found in these pages.

Simply put, damn near any Google search term–even terms like “hospice”– can take you to one of these malware sites. Computerworld quotes Sunbelt Software CEO Alex Eckelberry as saying “this is huge.” I’m inclined to agree, especially considering Eckelberry’s inventory: “27 different domains, each with up to 1,499 [malicious] pages. That’s 40,000 possible pages.”

Thomas continues:

For months now, our Research Team has monitored a network of bots whose sole purpose is to post spam links and relevant keywords into online forms (typically comment forms and bulletin board forums). This network, combined with thousands of pages such as the two seen above, have given the attackers very good (if not top) search engine position for various search terms.

In our previous post, we mentioned that the malicious pages also contained an IFRAME link which would attempt to exploit vulnerable systems. If you were unlucky enough to run across one of these links while surfing with a vulnerable system, you would become infected with a family of malware that we call Scam.Iwin. With Scam.Iwin, the victim’s computer is used to generate income for the attacker in a pay-per-click affiliate program by transmitting false clicks to the attacker’s URLs without the user’s knowledge. The infected Scam.Iwin files are not ordinarily visible to the user. The files are executed and run silently in the background when the user starts the computer and/or connects to the internet.

Google has been notified and hopefully its fancy algorithm can nuke these bogus sites pronto.

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