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Originally Posted by vanblah
But this thread has been jacked far enough I suppose.
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I don't think it's a threadjack, as the thread is about computer security. That said, you've become my personal hero for today.
The problem stems from the fact that computers are mysterious to most end users. They understand that there's some software and some hardware and that these two things put together allow them to browse the internet/look at boobs/play games/whatever other task. The exact processes that go into that are completely unknown to them. And because they don't know what's possible, anything seems plausible. Ask me some time why I got out of the IT business. I dare ya.
Putting aside terminology discussions that aren't really relevant, hackers aren't as bad as most people seem to believe. I blame Hollywood, which has perpetuated the idea that a sufficiently knowledgeable individual can basically do whatever he wants with a computer. The reality is that working within computer systems comes with a set of rules. It doesn't matter how much of a mechanic I am, I can't make my car go 300 mph. And it doesn't matter how good of a 'hacker' I am, I simply can't break into a properly secured system. The rules don't let me. Since it's difficult to impossible, then, to fool the system, most of the attempts to crack a box are aimed at the user, who is relatively easy to fool. Kevin Mitnick was mentioned above. The man is a god amongst geeks. He's a geek superstar. And even he was noted more for his social engineering abilities than any prominent technical skills.
I can't say it's impossible to break into a Mac running OS X. I know that OS X is based heavily on BSD and that's the extent of my knowledge on the subject, so I can't say that anything really in terms of what can and cannot be done. I do know, however, that there are people who keep an eye on this thing from both sides of the playing field and that if Apple was distributing an operating system with any serious vulnerabilities they'd probably get called on it pretty quick. Some script kiddie on a message board doesn't change that; these kids were probably just trying to intimidate your daughter. At best, they may have access to some of the more malicious software but even then it's probably more geared towards Windows than OS X (having been out of the security biz for a couple years now, I don't really know what's in vogue anymore and thus don't really feel confident enough to list specific examples). As long as you're intelligent about your usage, you'll be fine.
A little education goes a long way.