[PLUG-TALK] MacOS & Android Malware

Russell Senior seniorr at aracnet.com
Thu Apr 19 17:33:40 UTC 2012


>>>>> "RJ" == Russell Johnson <russ at dimstar.net> writes:

RJ> On Apr 19, 2012, at 9:02 AM, Rich Shepard wrote:

>> According to an article in today's 'Oregonian', the prevalence of
>> devices running macOS and android has attracted the malware
>> writers. If macos is vulnerable, wouldn't linux also be vulnerable?
>> And, given the BSD paternity of macos, how vulnerable is it? (Web
>> browser entry excepted because that's OS-indendent ... yes?)

RJ> It's been going around the news agencies for the past week or
RJ> so. Supposedly, some 800,000 OS/X devices are infected with some
RJ> malware. Of course, the source reporting these infections is an
RJ> anti-malware company in Russia. At the same time, there are a
RJ> couple of methods given to verify if you are infected or not. One
RJ> of them is a simple shell command checking for a specific key in
RJ> the plist data.

RJ> While they are not immune to compromise, all OSes have some
RJ> vulnerability and you must take this into account. OS/X is just
RJ> becoming more of a target because it's gaining market share. It's
RJ> still less than 10%. Linux is less than 1% according to the
RJ> reports I've read.

According to what I heard on this recent panel discussion:

  http://www.soros.org/initiatives/fellowship/events/privacy-overrated-20120416

malware has apparently become a favorite way for US surveillance
agencies to gain access to your communications, in the presence of
strong encryption and where easy backdoors have not been installed for
their use.  Because of the control carriers and others exercise over
the software on your devices, and because of the statutory authority
that the FBI and others have to gain access to your devices with or
without a warrant, you should consider yourself potentially under
constant surveillance whenever you carry a cell phone.  You shouldn't
assume the Constitution is going to protect you, because the FBI is
assuming it doesn't (according to the nice FBI lady on the panel).

Welcome to East Germany, folks.

See also: 

  The Lives of Others (2006)
  Das Leben der Anderen (original title) 
  http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0405094/


-- 
Russell Senior         ``I have nine fingers; you have ten.''
seniorr at aracnet.com



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