Hacker News Reader

Comment by eli | Hacker News Reader

Agreed. All I could think when reading the Google article was, "They really think OS X is inherently more secure?" Surely it just benefits from having fewer attackers bother to target it.

View on HN

Sometimes that's all it takes. I don't need to run faster than a hungry bear, I just need to be able to run faster than you.

However, this only helps if you're a typical desktop user whose primary threat is a random virus or other malware attack. If you're like Google, on the other hand, you have to worry about highly developed targeted attacks -- to stretch the analogy, a large bear that has specifically picked you out of the crowd.

When that's the case, all the random scattershot viruses in the world become irrelevant, and your platform's inherent security mechanisms and development practices are the only things that matter.

That may be "all it takes" for J. Random Hacker worried about his personal system being compromised. But when it comes to a large corporation with a metric shit-wad of extremely sensitive and potentially very sought after data finding themselves in the digital targeting reticule of hostile corporations and even the intelligence services of first world governments that level of "security" is about as useful as a bullet-proof vest made of single ply toilet paper.

Yeah, I'm sure the powers that be at Google never thought about that. If interested parties are using off-the-shelf attack software, this gives Google a leg up, however temporary, because there is less off-the-shelf attack software for OSX.

So while everyone is scrambling to find holes in OSX to exploit in order to grab Google's data, Google secretly converts to plan9, never having intended to use OSX anyway. It's the greatest misdirection in history!

Google is a big company, they are subject to a lot of the same dumb-itude (though hopefully less so) as other big companies. They are capable of making poor choices for all the wrong reasons just like anybody else (see also: buzz, wave, knol). Personally, I hope they are making smart security choices behind the scenes.

Nevertheless, my point was a counterargument to the idea that merely switching to windows and being "faster than the other bear bait" was enough for google, as it's not.

Sure, as a home user. Not if you're guarding against well-funded hackers looking, specifically, to steal your documents.

OS XI ain't done til Android won't run. :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com