Army steps up Mac orders; security fix reissued; X-Factor lawsuit?
The US Army is shifting more of its IT infrastructure towards the Mac to thwart hacking attempts. Also, Apple has relaunched its latest security update to remedy a new flaw, and a talent show may file suit against Apple for an iTunes outage.
US Army expands Mac usage
While the American military often focuses on buying the lowest-cost systems with the most software, recent security threats have prompted a new turn towards the Mac in the Army, according to a new report by Forbes.
The military branch began shifting away from a nearly Windows-only environment as soon as late 2005, when General Steve Boutelle warned that a homogenous operating system environment would expose the Army to large-scale hacking attempts.
However, these efforts will ramp up in February 2008 when a new program from Thursby Software gives Macs access to the military's Common Access Cards system, opening up use of the systems to a wider swath of the Army's IT network. About 1,000 new Macs are installed every six months at current purchase rates.
About 20,000 of the government body's 700,000 systems are Macs, including a selection of Xserve clusters; despite being hard-hit by cracking attempts, many of these servers simply 'shrug off' these attempts as the code is designed to break Windows systems, according to Army enterprise IT head Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Wallington.
Apple issues Security Update 2007-009 1.1
Just days after releasing the initial 2007-009 Security Update, Apple has introduced version 1.1 of the fix.
Available for Leopard (35.6MB) as well as Tiger in PowerPC-only (15.9MB) and Universal Binary (27.4MB) formats, the new iteration primarily resolves an issue with Safari crashing on visiting websites with specific code.
The patch otherwise remains the same as before and primarily mends issues with Adobe web plugins and web scripting.
UK talent show considering lawsuit for iTunes outage?
A reported outage for Apple's iTunes Store in the UK may have led to missed sales and a potential lawsuit, according to a claim by Britain's daily paper The Sun.
Although the music service is said to have coped with extremely popular releases in the past, with X-Factor talent show winner Leona Lewis having sold 50,000 songs within an hour after it became available, a flood of traffic to iTunes after Scottish singer Leon Jackson won the latest competition allegedly crashed Apple's servers just after midnight, preventing anyone from downloading music until it was resolved 15 hours later.
X-Factor co-host Simon Cowell, who also oversees shows such as American Idol, is purportedly "hugely disappointed" that Apple may have deprived Jackson of vital early sales and may file a legal complaint against the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm for its inability to cope with demand.
An Apple spokesperson has declined comment, The Sun claims.
US Army expands Mac usage
While the American military often focuses on buying the lowest-cost systems with the most software, recent security threats have prompted a new turn towards the Mac in the Army, according to a new report by Forbes.
The military branch began shifting away from a nearly Windows-only environment as soon as late 2005, when General Steve Boutelle warned that a homogenous operating system environment would expose the Army to large-scale hacking attempts.
However, these efforts will ramp up in February 2008 when a new program from Thursby Software gives Macs access to the military's Common Access Cards system, opening up use of the systems to a wider swath of the Army's IT network. About 1,000 new Macs are installed every six months at current purchase rates.
About 20,000 of the government body's 700,000 systems are Macs, including a selection of Xserve clusters; despite being hard-hit by cracking attempts, many of these servers simply 'shrug off' these attempts as the code is designed to break Windows systems, according to Army enterprise IT head Lieutenant Colonel C.J. Wallington.
Apple issues Security Update 2007-009 1.1
Just days after releasing the initial 2007-009 Security Update, Apple has introduced version 1.1 of the fix.
Available for Leopard (35.6MB) as well as Tiger in PowerPC-only (15.9MB) and Universal Binary (27.4MB) formats, the new iteration primarily resolves an issue with Safari crashing on visiting websites with specific code.
The patch otherwise remains the same as before and primarily mends issues with Adobe web plugins and web scripting.
UK talent show considering lawsuit for iTunes outage?
A reported outage for Apple's iTunes Store in the UK may have led to missed sales and a potential lawsuit, according to a claim by Britain's daily paper The Sun.
Although the music service is said to have coped with extremely popular releases in the past, with X-Factor talent show winner Leona Lewis having sold 50,000 songs within an hour after it became available, a flood of traffic to iTunes after Scottish singer Leon Jackson won the latest competition allegedly crashed Apple's servers just after midnight, preventing anyone from downloading music until it was resolved 15 hours later.
X-Factor co-host Simon Cowell, who also oversees shows such as American Idol, is purportedly "hugely disappointed" that Apple may have deprived Jackson of vital early sales and may file a legal complaint against the Cupertino, Calif.-based firm for its inability to cope with demand.
An Apple spokesperson has declined comment, The Sun claims.
Comments
And wouldn't the army be the last people concerned about costs **coughcough, and more concerned about power and stability? Apparently they are coming around now.
Does this lawsuit have any claim whatsoever? Being down for several hours is not a crime, last i checked.
Way to go army... They've seen the light of mac! (now if they'll only see the light of withdrawl...)
Does this lawsuit have any claim whatsoever? Being down for several hours is not a crime, last i checked.
A civil lawsuit has nothing to do with crime.
A civil lawsuit has nothing to do with crime.
Whereas Leon Jackson winning X-Factor was.
Whereas Leon Jackson winning X-Factor was.
It's not as if the people who wanted the song would have changed their mind after a single day. If I wanted a song yesterday and couldn't get it until today, I'm not going to suddenly think 'hey, I don't want the song any more'.
However, I remember them saying on the show about being able to get the winner's songs off itunes so I guess if they are publicizing itunes and Apple are not delivering a return on that, it doesn't look good. Not worth a lawsuit but perhaps a goodwill gesture such as keeping the songs on the itunes front page for longer.
It's not as if the people who wanted the song would have changed their mind after a single day. If I wanted a song yesterday and couldn't get it until today, I'm not going to suddenly think 'hey, I don't want the song any more'.
However, I remember them saying on the show about being able to get the winner's songs off itunes so I guess if they are publicizing itunes and Apple are not delivering a return on that, it doesn't look good. Not worth a lawsuit but perhaps a goodwill gesture such as keeping the songs on the itunes front page for longer.
I think they should issue everyone who tried to download the song, a $100.00 credit ?
I think they should issue everyone who tried to download the song, a $100.00 credit ?
I think they should issue all of those who bought the song a bullet to the brain.
I'm glad to see the Army getting Macs -- but I guess this means we can definitely expect more viruses written for Macs now. Ah, well...
Good point.
I think they should issue all of those who bought the song a bullet to the brain.
lol!! agreed
I'm glad to see the Army getting Macs -- but I guess this means we can definitely expect more viruses written for Macs now. Ah, well...
For the record, if the army had kept it quiet, both them AND us would be more secure
As for the claims that more viruses will spread up because the US Army is purchasing under 200 Macs and XServes a month is pretty poor logic when you consider the 22M+ Macs and XServes currently out there with potentially easier security to circumvent as the average user will not lock down their machine as securely as the military.
For the record, if the army had kept it quiet, both them AND us would be more secure
What a double edge sword freedom of the press and the army is these days. Sometimes I wonder who the frack makes these lame brain decisions.
I'm glad to see the Army getting Macs -- but I guess this means we can definitely expect more viruses written for Macs now. Ah, well...
To get more, you have to have at least one.
To get more, you have to have at least one.
I think there have been some, but I think they were proof of concept, and not released. A small number of trojans might have gotten out, but didn't spread. I think the grand total has been fewer than ten.
I think there have been some, but I think they were proof of concept, and not released. A small number of trojans might have gotten out, but didn't spread. I think the grand total has been fewer than ten.
I believe you think wrong.
As posted on Apple's site, "By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, 850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac."
And still none to date.
However, there have been a couple of headlines posted like, 'first Mac virus developed,?' all turned out to be false rumors.
As posted on Apple's site, "By the end of 2005, there were 114,000 known viruses for PCs. In March 2006 alone, 850 new threats were detected against Windows. Zero for Mac."
And still none to date.
The sentence you quote above is marketing slight-of-hand .
Apple states:
• "114,000 known viruses for PCs" (this states there have been x many total known PC viruses up to the end of 2005. It doesn't state how many are for Windows XP and how many have been patched. But that is fine, it's showing Windows being a more susceptible OS)
• "In March 2006, 850 new threats were detected against Windows" (Now for some reason they skip the first two months of 2006 and state how many threats were discovered for Windows. Threats aren't necessarily viruses. We, as Mac users, should be well aware of the difference as we constantly protect and patch against potential threats but haven't needed to take extra measures to detect and remove viruses)
•*"Zero for Mac" (With the previous sentence referring to a one month time frame Apple could only be referring to that month while implying a much longer time frame)