What a week ! First , indie App Store developers getattacked by Lodsys over in - app purchases , then Mac users get attacked by the Mac Defender malware , and thenMac straw men get attacked by ZDNet and PCWorld ! And as if that were n’t enough , today’sthe Rapture . Phew ! The Macalope ’s going to need a pile after all this Apocalypse is over .
Stunning developments about boring patents!
The large news report earlier this week rotate around several main app developer whoreceived legal threatsfrom Lodsys , a company who arrogate that the use of in - app buying outrage its patent .
The Macalope read much ofthe main patent in question(there’san hour of his life he wo n’t get back ) and , to his avowedly untrained and very , very blase eye , it appears to describe a system for manufacturer to get feedback from substance abuser on the serviceableness of embedded software .
If that does n’t sound like “ in - app purchase ” to you , well , you ’re not alone . One of the diagram is even of a facsimile auto . Which , when you think about it , is charmingly uninitiate . As if facsimile - machine , pressman , and transcript - machine producer care about serviceableness !
Oh , you fax - machine - maker apologists and fanboys can deny it , but the evidence is in offices across the globe . They just . Do n’t . Care . Which is in all probability how this patent of invention ended up in the hands of a firm specializing in letters patent troll .
Read more …
Of course , the Macalope ’s not a patent lawyer , nor does he play one on television ( not since his clowning sketch show on CourtTV got canceled)—and there are other patent involved . But the only connection between the patent and in - app purchase he could see was “ A substance abuser communicates something back to a vender from inside the software . ” This is why the brownish and furry one was surprised that , according to Lodsys ( who , by the direction , isveryput out by how ill-bred hoi polloi are being to them , because who could see that coming ? ) Apple has already licensed its patent . Technically , that may be honest ; the patent of invention used to belong to a company that certify parcel of patent , with which Apple does have a relationship . But Apple may not even know it licensed the patent in enquiry .
The folks in Cupertino are apparently“studying ” the situation , so stay tuned for more exciting patent of invention - related sound development , rational - attribute porn aficionados !
Mac attacks on the rise
As if theMac Defender Trojanwasn’t bad enough , now Mac users have to deal with another infestation . Yes , according to the Macalope ’s inquiry over the last workweek , Mac users are see a shocking rise in the identification number of straw - man attacks against them .
Let ’s commence with ZDNet ’s Adrian Kingsley - Hughes , who saysthe good Mac user ( who start using the Mac since the Intel shift ) require to disregard the rest of us life-threatening long - time Mac user , who may also bedope smokers(OK , he did n’t say that last part ) .
I ’m truly staggered by the fact that the great unwashed who have been around computers for decade and who are supposedly keeping their finger’s breadth on the tech pulse are still clinging on for earnest life to the whim that Mac is somehow immune of invulnerable to modernistic malware .
And the Macalope is staggered by people who assume those not running around with their whisker on attack must be dangerous loonies with weird , made - up feeling .
John Gruber , the guy cable behind the Mac site Daring Fireball suppose that those who dare to suggest that there ’s a problem are blazon out wildcat .
OK , Adrian , since you want to discuss allegory , permit ’s look at yours .
I ’ve one word to describe these citizenry who choose to ignore the actual problem facing the advanced Mac user and alternatively choose to live in the past – dinosaur .
Look around you , do you see any dinosaurs ? No . Here ’s why …
And then Adrian supplies a picture of a dinosaur - killing asteroid crashing into the Earth .
So .
According to Kingsley - Hughes , the more proper response is to treat this Trojan like it’sthe remainder of the world . Good to know !
allow ’s check off out PCWorld . They ’re usually funny .
Tony Bradley saysMac Defender crashes the “ Apple security Myth ” .
Apple , and the Apple faithful would like to pretend that Mac malware does n’t live .
Well , in our defence , it ’s really easygoing , because there is n’t very much of it ! But , in person , the Macalope like to pretend he ’s a train!Whoo - whoo !
Acertain Apple loyalistrecently call me — and a diversity of respected tech writers — out for experience the audaciousness to point out that Mac OS X is not invulnerable and that the voltage for Mac malware is steady rising .
That link is to Daring Fireball . So , permit ’s break this aside . Bradley is incriminate Gruber of being exasperate by the suggestion that :
The first accusation is unmitigated poop . Here ’s a post by Gruber from all the mode back in 2004 call , not coincidentally , Crying Wolf , which was about the MP3Concept Trojan that a number of newsworthiness sites trumpeted as the first Mac Trojan attack , despite the fact that it was a validation of construct .
No one with any common sense would ever lay claim that Macs are imperviable to computer virus , insect , or Trojan horses . peculiarly Trojans — which just about anyone with a 3 - digit I.Q. could put together .
Gruber does not believe Macs are invulnerable . To the Macalope ’s cognition he ’s never said he believes Macs are invulnerable . Let ’s move on to the second accusal , which is more to the point . The Macalope does n’t desire to put word in Gruber ’s oral cavity , but the horny one reads it more as “ show me ” than an out - and - out denial .
See , Gruber ’s critics ( well , this hebdomad ’s harvest of critic — the Macalope does n’t want to make it sound like he only has a couple ) love to link to that Wolf post ( Ed Bott links to it every five minute ) . None of them , however , bring up thefollow - up linktothis post by Guy English :
In the floor of the male child That Cried Wolf the village ultimately ante up the price for not being wakeful . The rendering has always been to take it as a fable to meliorate personal behaviour but what I enjoy most about that fib is that it works both way — there are two parties at fault : the attention seeker and those who take the cognitive crosscut of disregarding what the attention searcher was saying because they ’d been wrong in the past times .
Ohhh . When you put it like that , it sound a little different . But , no , lease ’s dissemble not to see that , because then we can get in a few more whacks at the straw man .
Look , we do n’t think Macs are invulnerable . It ’s patently obvious that they ’re not . As far as getting antivirus software , Charlie Miller , an honest - to - goodness Mac vulnerability expert , state it ’s still in all likelihood not worth it for most people . So the Macalope will do the fair - to - goodness Mac vulnerability expert one skilful and suggest youdoget some antivirus software . Why not when there areperfectly finefree option ?
And Apple ? Yeah , the Macalope completely agrees the company should be help people clear this off their Macs and should do a serious job getting in front of these affair .
Is that so hard to understand ?
Going nuclear
Speaking of get in front of these things …
In reaction to Ed Bott ’s multiple posts , uncounted Tweets and , the Macalope suspects , incessant ZDNet water cooler lecture about Mac Defender , John Gruber coyly suggeststhat there ’s one way Apple could effectively block OS X Trojans perpetually : preclude users from installing software that was n’t from the Mac App Store , just like on iOS .
Ka - boom . ( In more ways than one . )
Now , masses ( and certain mythical beasts ) might not wish that for a variety of reason , but Apple , unlike probably anyone else , could do it . The Macalope ’s long advocated Apple get in the lead of surety problem , because he ’s never wanted to live the survive hell that Windows users have been in for geezerhood . ( aside from the interface , he means . ) avowedly , the idea of engage down the operate system did n’t really occur to him as the solution . But , hey , the Macalope wanted a solution , so it ’d be a small square of him to say “ I did n’t meanthatsolution ! ”
As the horny one ’s pronounce , sometimes it use up an audacious imaginativeness of the future — and Apple certainly has one , whether this is part of its game program or not .
But if it is part of the architectural plan , we ’d like an on / off switch . Just put it in the command line or something so the neophytes ca n’t find it .
