| "As you have guessed by now I am some kind of allergic to this... those idealistic over-simplifications... drawing everything in black and white..." I avoid oversimplifications, too. Yet, most of what the author wrote was proven by precedent. Only grip I have is calling Linux anti-security and anti-privacy given how much good work in those used the platform. Gotta be a kernel by kernel and distro by distro judgment on that. Rest seems accurate. "Some of the OS X users I know are incredible technology-orientated and privacy concerned people, should I draw the conclusion they are being overly naive by not using OpenBSD for everything?" The conclusion is that they prefer to use OS X. That simple. Far as its security, it's made by a company that spent a long time lying to its users that they were immune to malware because Mac's were just inherently secure. They added lots of mitigations sometimes 10 years behind Windows and UNIX per one firm. I recall one vulnerability where an administrative service required a username and password for log-in but didn't check it against database. If you entered any password, you got in. Such a history of absolutely, terrible security plus deception of customers means Apple products shouldn't be trusted for security by default. Any "privacy concerned people" using it are making a foolish mistake or intentionally trading away privacy for some other benefit. Now, what you just saw me do was the evidence-based approach to these things. Helps cut through the noise nicely. |
That's fair. FWIW I wasn't trying to focus on Linux in my post. I'm grateful for Linux and the volunteers that contribute to it, both the apps and the security work. The work everyone is doing on FOSS lifts all boats. And you're right of course, not all Linux distros are created equal when it comes to security. And my anti-privacy, anti-security sentiment was more pointed at proprietary software, i.e. a lot of iOS apps.