The worm in the Apple

Who hasn't seen the ubiquitous Apple vs PC commercials, you know the ones where the Apple computer is a young, hip healthy guy whereas the PC is a middle aged, overweight, nerdy guy? They're funny as hell, especially the one where PC is sneezing (colds are caused by viruses! Subtle!) and the Apple guy makes some comments about the virus and such.

And that commercial is hitting the nail right on the head......but then it isn't. It is a fact of life that Windows users are plagued with viruses, Trojan horses, worms etc. Evey where you turn, there's another horror story of the PhD dissertation papers lost and people's private data corrupted. And it is also a fact of life that Mac users never seem to complain about such problems. Indeed they are always trying to "convert" Windows users to switch to Mac, and use the virus-free argument, among others.

Now most of the other arguments for choosing Mac over PC I am willing to accept. Macs look much cooler than PCs, and Apple leads the pack, I think, when it comes to user friendliness and innovation. But the virus free argument.....that doesn't sit well with me.

Just a few days ago, there was a news article on Yahoo News titled "Apple Releases Godzilla-Sized Security Patch". In the article it says that "Apple patched 41 vulnerabilities in Mac OS X and related software" . The patch was over 130MB in size and it was"...announced in the wake of the discovery of the first true financially motivated piece of malware to hit the Mac. The RSPlug Trojan".

Now, why would I talk about Macs and PCs one might ask? I thought you were a skeptic not a tech guru? Well, I am not a tech guru, in fact I am no guru in any field. What I find interesting is the wrong logic used in the "virus-free" argument. Basically the argument goes like this " Windows users are plagued by viruses and security worries. Mac users on the other hand are not. You should switch to Mac to escape the viruses".

In a certain way that argument holds, if you're the only one person switching. But the argument itself is self destructing. The reason Mac users did not have to worry about viruses, up 'til now, was not due to some superior, smarter, programming by the Apple programmers, but specifically because Macs are not popular, therefore it was not worth it for a hacker to write Mac viruses. So the arguments now looks like this : "Macs are not popular, therefore hackers don't bother to write viruses for them. So switch to Mac to escape viruses and live worry-free".
Basically it is saying, I am not popular and that is why I should be popular!!!

Unfortunately, if most of us were to follow that line of reasoning, Macs would become popular and hacking them would become profitable for hackers, and the viruses for Macs would increase to the same level you have for Windows. The above mentioned news article just goes to show that we are indeed headed that way. And you and I would be more likely to be victims, since if we switched to Mac we would also switch off the part of our brain that worries about computer viruses and security and thus not bother to have an anti virus software and update it periodically.

"There's a clear message here: No operating system is immune to vulnerabilities. Every computer user needs to keep on top of the patch mountain in order to defend their data.." says the article. Hmmm, with a bit of word tweaking that statement could be beautifully adapted to the human brain. That way bogus arguments like the one mentioned here would not be able to survive.