Microsoft or Apple - Who Is the Faster Patcher? 252
Amy Bennett writes "And the answer is... Microsoft. Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology analyzed 658 high-risk and medium-risk vulnerabilities affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple. They measured how many times over the past six years the two vendors were able to have a patch available on the day a vulnerability became publicly known, which they call the 0-day patch rate. What they found: 'Apple was below 20 [unpatched vulnerabilities at disclosure] consistently before 2005,' said Stefan Frei, one of the researchers involved in the study. 'Since then, they are very often above. So if you have Apple and compare it to Microsoft, the number of unpatched vulnerabilities are higher at Apple.'"
heh (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:heh (Score:4, Funny)
>> I've thought Bush sucked since 1999. And, since that family has their fingers in everything, it is way more on topic than say, talking about computers. I definitely wasn't cool at the time. It's like not liking Adolph in 1930 -- too soon.
Oh Boy (Score:2, Funny)
Apples to ... (Score:5, Funny)
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Orange [microsoft.com]
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Well, duh... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well, duh... (Score:5, Informative)
Personally as a certified Free software I'm rubbing my hands & looking forward to the Linux types who've switched for, basically, teh shiny. It's Freedom that counts folks, not features or functions or shiney... Freedom.
Re:Well, duh... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, kiddo, but I'm going to have to disagree.
The "freedom" aspects are nice and everything, but without needed features or functions, you don't have jack.
Not all software has to be "free" (and not everything *should* be).
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without needed features or functions, you don't have jack
emphasis mine. True, without needed features/functions you don't have jack. But once you get needed features and functions the rest is fluff. GP is right, it really is about the freedom. I routinely throw away all sorts of glitz for pure functionality. When it comes down to it, most of teh shiny just gets in the way. I want the freedom to eliminate the extra crap and focus on my work. If I don't have the freedom to throw that stuff away, then I don't have freedom at all and I suffer. .02
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True, without needed features/functions you don't have jack. But once you get needed features and functions the rest is fluff.
The thing is, though, for most people, Linux does not have the needed features. Both usability as well as aesthetics are features which Linux come up short on.
For example, I'm sure you can do any of the editing iPhoto allows on Linux using nothing but free command line utilities. In fact, I'm sure those command line utilities can actually do much more than iPhoto can. However, those utilities, however technically superior they are, are absolutely worthless to the vast majority of users.
Of course, on Linux
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I have no doubts that my sensibilities do not extend to the general populace. But I view a computer as a tool and nothing more. A fun tool, but a tool.
Once you get the features and functions you *need* then the rest is crap. period. that is, of course, just my opinion.
To imply, as I think GGP did, that freedom somehow prevents one from having needed features an
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Reproduction of the product is "free", so the marginal cost should trend to zero, especially over a long enough time period.
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You may not have realized this, but in the real world, the "freedom" you are talking about generally causes the end result to be "free" as in price.
You see, in the real world, not every piece of software can be profitable as open source. In fact, a lot of it can't. The ways to make money off of it are pr
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The "freedom" aspects are nice and everything, but without needed features or functions, you don't have jack.
Today though, for most computer users, free software wins, while some doesn't have as many features most are as feature rich or have more features, and the few that don't have as much are slowly getting them in there. 5-6 years ago you might have had a point, but today, most people really only need a a) relatively stable OS (Linux) b) Decent GUI (KDE/XFCE/GNOME) c) Secure/fast browser (Firefox) d) easy install of new software (apt-get or similar) e) Secure e-mail client (Thunderbird) f) Decent word pro
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I can't think of any good reason why some software shouldn't be free. Care to elaborate?
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Time to join me in the real world. People are required in order to create software. People need to be paid. Most software would be unable to make money if it is "free" as it would also end up being free as in sale price (as I have explained earlier in this thread).
Sounds like a pretty good reason to me.
To paraphrase a statement someone made on here ages ago which I happen to agree with - "Information wants to be free.
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If you want a reason that *only* falls on the *shouldn't* side, here's one for you -
It should be up to the person who writes it (or company who commissions it) to decide what they want to do with it. Or are you advocating that *their* freedom of choice to do with *their* creation what they want within legal bounds be taken away to give you a "freedom" that is actually a privilege granted by the peop
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AIs are posting on slashdot!? better than nuking us I s'pose...
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Microsoft is at least 10 times bigger than Apple at the moment, and so is their OS development. How does Apple have MORE unpatched errors when the Mac OS is not the one getting riddled with trojan horses, spyware, viruses and stolen data bases? So, one unpatched error does not equate to another.
The time of Knowing about the flaw to the time it is patched -- does this just mean a different reportin
Oh Noes! Somebody said something good about MS! (Score:2)
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If a tree falls ... (Score:3, Funny)
what day of the week is it? (Score:5, Funny)
or (Score:2, Funny)
Or if they are patching a problem in a DRM system or other end-user-inhibitor.
Look at it my way (Score:2, Insightful)
What affects me, is the severity of these bugs that need to be fixed. If that is analysed, I'm sure that Apple prioritises it's bugs better, and fixes the more important bugs earlier and more efficiently than Microsoft. Moreover, the bugs at Microsoft would be more severe, and a lot of patches are released in a hurry without testing properly. A perfe
Re:Look at it my way (Score:4, Insightful)
From your post: "What affects [sic?] me, is the severity of these bugs that need to be fixed. If that is analysed, I'm sure that Apple prioritises it's bugs better, and fixes the more important bugs earlier and more efficiently than Microsoft."
You're sure, huh? Hmmmmm...I'm not sure if you're an Apple fanboi or a Microsoft hater, but either way, you can never be sure about anything (except death and taxes). So, as soon as you said that line, everything else you said became a non-argument, argument.
Re:Look at it my way (Score:4, Insightful)
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I was going to mention how many of Microsoft's patches have induced later zero-day bugs but more or less, you beat me to that point.
I also wanted to mention though how much more frequently Microsoft vulnerabilities are taken advantage of. I know this is simply a metric of Microsoft's percent market share with the likelihood of a computer running a Microsoft product, and not with the programming ability level at Microsoft, but it still means that if left unpatched for a fraction of th
Re:Look at it my way (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the major features of Windows, and one of the most powerful, is that it is widely adopted and incumbent for the majority of the market. This provides them with the network effect that increases the value of this OS. It's only fair that the same penalty that is partnered with this popularity is taken into consideration when comparing operating systems.
Re:Look at it my way (Score:4, Insightful)
If there was a car that had a critical flaw and exploded into flames if you hit it from behind hard enough.... BUT only 0.03% of Americans drove the car... then the NHTSA shouldn't really consider that a 'critical' flaw, it shouldn't be viewed as 'badly' as the same type of flaw in a Honda Accord (driven by far more people)...
All because the market share of this explosion-prone car is low?
That's some whacked-out thinking right there. Just because the company can't get market share doesn't lessen the potential (or real) impact of the vulnerability. I don't care if that's Apple or Nortel or Mythic Entertainment.
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More like there are two types of locks for your front door, we'll assign these locks random brands: Capple and Spikrosoft. Capple has a very small percentage of the market and Spikrosoft has a very large percentage.
Let's say there is a vulnerability that will allow access, but you need to order a specific sets of tools to gain access to each individual brand of lock. Because Spikrosoft has a much larger market share, the tools specific to breaking into that lock will much more heavil
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Lower Market Share = Less Vulnerable is a nice sidestepping attempt, but isn't rooted in the reality of the actual severity of the System A Bug A vs System B Bug B analysis.
"Oh, but when our stuff breaks (just as badly a
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I know this is simply a metric of Microsoft's percent market share with the likelihood of a computer running a Microsoft product, and not with the programming ability level at Microsoft
and:
A break-in through either case is equally devastating, but as I mentioned it's a factor of total number effected by the vulnerability and not quality of product individually.
With that being said, I am not sidestepping anything. I agree that crap code is exactly that and I am purposely placing the severity of the exploit on the exact same level. As a hacker though, if I have the choice of writing code that can break into three computers versus 300 Million and it will take the same amount of effort... I go for the 300 million. This is the simple fact that Microsoft, being the market leader has to deal with.
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I'm not too sure 'bout that... If the folks with the 3 computers basically tell you they're unhackable, where the 300-million-user system is KNOWN to be insecure, wouldn't you find the three-system-hack more challenging?
ah no. (Score:2)
You also neglect that tools only need to be created ONCE, and then distributed through the internet.
"A break-in through either case is equally devastating,"
Absolutely incorrect.
In one, you get access to the entire house, in the other you ahve a bunch of door with a different lock that you need to get in.
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- MS patches faster (unlikely since they very rarely patch outside the Tuesday schedule)
- MS finds more vulnerabilities internally first, so they don't become public knowledge
- MS somehow has found a better way to deal with "security researchers" to keep their findings under wraps until they can fix it
Now, lots of time we hear here that "MS has known about this for months and isn't doing anything until forced to". But is Apple any bett
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Excel still thinks 1900 is a leap year.
I cant see any other company with the arrogance and stupidity not to fix such a simple flaw.
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The official release has worked great for everyone I know.
Troll somewhere else please.
Of course! (Score:5, Funny)
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Sound like a new video game.
Apple's shortcomings (Score:5, Interesting)
If they really want to be taken more seriously in the enterprise market, they're going to have to step up and treat these things a bit more professionally, instead of just basically saying "trust us and don't ask too many questions".
Re:Apple's shortcomings (Score:5, Informative)
It's specific enough for me, listing every application / library, impact, and description.
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Re:Apple's shortcomings (Score:4, Insightful)
As for software, they use plenty of open source and contribute back to the community. What they don't want outside involvement with is their core hardware.
Re:Apple's shortcomings (Score:5, Insightful)
No, Apple does not want outside involvement in their products, and has not been friendly to the open source projects it draws on for some of its products. If by "give back to the community," you meant, "begrudgingly provide some code to the Konqueror team but never really get it right with OpenDarwin," I guess you would be right. They actively work against third party software syncing with the iPod, and have overly restrictive terms for developing software for the iPhone.
Apple only accepted interoperability and broad third party software because it was on the verge of bankruptcy, not because it is a company that sits on a moral high ground. Apple's strategy, originally, was to keep themselves completely separate, so that buying one Apple computer required you to change your whole infrastructure. This was and remains a failing strategy, and so they modified it so that just enough third party development was possible to keep their systems relevant, but nothing more. iPods only support those formats that Apple chooses (and many iPods cannot be reflashed, because they were designed to only be capable of running Apple's software). iPhones only support some third party development, and developers are required not to step too far from where Apple wants them to be. I cannot build a computer that runs Mac OS X on my own, and it is not likely that Apple will ever allow for this. Like I said, you can construct any number of reasons for these things, but there is no denying that Apple does not want third parties developing software for Apple's platforms.
Re:Apple's shortcomings (Score:5, Insightful)
You're also combining the lack of customizable hardware with a lack of customizable software. What they want to retain control of is the hardware and the software platforms. 3rd parties can easily build on top of that. The intent is to manage the user experience. Otherwise they feel users will end up with a mess, like on the Windows platform.
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For the most part Apple tells you that they are patching the OS. They don't go into detail because they assume most consumers don't want to know the details. But if you want to know, you can get it by clicking the link that takes you Apple's website. I think that they are right that most consumers don't want to know/don't care the whether they were patching X11 or CUPS.
This might be just a different style than say MS because MS deals with more technical people, they give out lots of information. But r
Article Lacks Important Information (Score:5, Insightful)
Until I see an article that doesn't throw out one number and then fill the rest of the page with useless fluff and speculation, I'm putting my money on Apple.
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Actually it reads like deja vu.
Last time debunking was pretty quick: Apple also patches BSD sub-system with all the usual Unix apps.
Since for M$ only Windows patches were counted, then for fair comparison one has to exclude all the patches for all the command line utilities and Unix services (all of which are disabled by default) Apple does repackage and ship with OS just for our convenience.
yes, and if grandma had wheels..... (Score:3, Funny)
One can always play with the criteria to get any desired winner.
Going by raw number of anything you lose any distinctions as to the severity or impact of each problem.
In general a buffer-overflow in the Windows kernel is a heck of a lot more dangerous than a similar problem in OSX can ever be.
Re:yes, and if grandma had wheels..... (Score:5, Insightful)
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On the front page of
The person took complete control of the mac box by having the user click on a link in safari.
The rules of this contest state that only non-published attacks can be used. This guy just happened to have this one sitting around to use.
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One can always play with the criteria to get any desired winner.
Or, as the saying goes, "if you torture statistics long enough, they will confess to anything."
How is this a valid test? (Score:5, Insightful)
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When I worked for Sony Ericsson there where some German security researcher (probably students had done the real work) privately let us know that there was a critical security flaw in the firmware. Something that, according to his email, could compromise the whole platform, make IMEI spoofing possible, steal credit card numbers and what not. He gave us three months to come up with a fix before going public with his findings. The only problem was that the only technical information he provided us with was th
quick! patch it! FASTER! QUICK! (Score:5, Insightful)
I've seen programmers churn out patches really, really fast, and create 3 new bugs for every one they "fix".
Don't encourage them.
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Damn apologist self rigtheous zealots. It's really sad when otherwise smart people act with blind loyalty to a brand.
It seems a coward is projecting his zealotry onto others.
meh (Score:4, Informative)
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odd ... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not saying anybody did. I'm just saying they could.
Like Apples and uh... bananas? (Score:2)
So does this mean ... (Score:2)
Thanks (Score:2, Troll)
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Where's the Beef? (Score:4, Informative)
So this is an article that doesn't give any answers to the question it poses and references a study presented at blackhat, but which has not yet been published and in fact whose presentation is not even online yet.
Can't we at least wait until we have some sort of data to discuss before embarking on half-assed arguments about how relevant the data is and if the methodology is credible?
Here's a link to the original research paper (Score:4, Informative)
That link is to a browser view of the PDF at pdfmenot.com which caches the actual PDF, so the poor researcher's personal web site doesn't get hit too hard. You could download the original PDF from there if you really want to.
Wait for the research paper (Score:2)
You can't fault the conclusions unless you know how that conclusion was reached.
(Of course, if the conclusion had been that Apple was better at 0-day patches, there'd be a lot more, "Well, duh!" responses.)
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The security types are difficult to compare on these system. As it would be on any two system with different architectures and management philosophies.
Is it complete root access? are these vulnerabilities exploitable by a network, or do you have to be there?
The category used is so broad to be useless.
Thats because M$ just has more 'features' (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. MS intentionally sits on vulnerabilities and doesn't announce them publicly until the patch is available. Apple, on the other hand, uses a lot of free and open-source software where full disclosure is considered important enough to notify all users through normal mailing lists, newsgroups, and other channels.
This study is intentionally biased to make MS look good and Apple look bad. Wh
Operating Systems (Score:2)
News at 11.
Seriously, what the hell is this. I don't understand how this can be interesting to anyone. OS's have bugs, plain and simple. The vendor patches them, period. That's all that you should care about.
tagged: whogivesashit
I can chug 1.5 Litres of A&W Root Beer (fountain -- not bottled)
There, now this comment is as irrelevant as the (lack-there-of) story.
Now get off my lawn!!!
(damn... I am only 19)
So that would mean (Score:2)
Red Hat is faster still (Score:2)
Steve says.... (Score:2)
Lies, damned lies, statistics, and red herrings... (Score:2)
The two statements "X makes secure products" and "X is ahead in patching" are not equivalent. There are whole classes of security problems in Windows that do not even exist in any UNIX-based OS, and there are classes of security problems in Microsoft's HTML control that have never existed in any other browser engine.
Correspondingly, there have been problems in UNIX that have never existed
Microsoft says Microsoft is better (Score:2)
Can anyone tell me why this is news?
Will we be just as surprised when Apple says Apple is better?
Why is this piece of advertising being treated as news?
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> 658 [...] affecting Microsoft products and 738 affecting Apple
Re:Just more FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
The study speaks of things that can be known. Your response speaks of things that can't be known. You seem to be slinging the uncertainty and doubt part yourself.
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Re:Just more FUD (Score:5, Funny)
On your second point, uncertainty & doubt, I don't know what to think as once we know what needs to be known these will disappear.
What was the study about again?
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Now that Apple has nontrivial market share...
While Apple is growing rapidly, market share is still trivial overall.
"Apple did not rank in Gartner's top 5 worldwide PC vendors, No. 5 of which was Toshiba with a 4.4 percent share."
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/07/10/17/apples_u_s_mac_market_share_rises_to_8_1_percent_in_q3.html [appleinsider.com]
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I was actually responding to the assertion that Apple's market share is no longer trivial, and provided some evidence to su
Re:Just more FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
It's early days still in Apple's second-coming. There's no denying that their market share will only increase for the next few years. There's also no denying that at the moment their installed base is still trivial. Mind share for people making exploits will also take time to get to the same level on the Mac as what it is for PCs.
This is fairly obvious stuff -- history has shown that no software developer takes security seriously unless they have absolutely no option. MS crossed that threshold a long time ago and really got their shit together. Apple hasn't reached the threshold yet, but all indications are that its just a matter of time. There's a world of AJAX apps out there waiting for their trial by fire too..
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But until that moment (which is always "later"), it's pure FUD
If you choose to see it that way, there's not much anybody can do to convince you otherwise.
If you choose though, it could be somebody just presenting the results of their study.
In fact, you could choose to see it this way too -- using the FUD label on any article that suggests Apple (or someone other than MS) might have a security problem, is FUD -- it's just being flung in the other direction.
So while FUD definitely gets flung around a lot, this article certainly didn't seem to have any, and we certainly
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But that is not what is interesting and I could only think of one thing from seeing this article: Is MS now funding anti-apple "research" (similar to all the anti-open source research.) After last months high market share readings do MS now see Apple as a threat?
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Re:Just more FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
I think we're saying the same thing here... (Score:2)
Also, although we can guess at the total number of vulnerabilities per kilo-lines of code, we don't know what insider information either company has on bugs, although the
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Have you ever thought you might have a hardware issue like faulty memory or bad blocks on the hard disk? it is likely on an unstable computer.
A few OS X and iApp bugs and crashes.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Name the applications, version of the OS and the hardware you're using.
First a few annoying bugs Apple has taken way to long to fix:
OS X 10.5.2, Mail.app, when accessing some IMAP4 accounts the "Get Mail" button fails to retrieve mail for some accounts. It's a know issue and it has been since the 10.5.2 update. I am not the only one to run into it, I checked the Apple forums and tested Mail from several different networks and two different Macs. I 'fixed' this bug in Mail.app by switching to Thunderbird.
OS X 10.5.2, When printing to a printer connected to an Airport Express
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Apple currently has no live vulnerabilities, no Mac botnets, nor wild trojans despite besting 6% market share in the US.