Pwn2Own winner says Macs are more safe, though less secure

tptacek · on March 28, 2009

My partner Dave made this point in 2006; it's one of our more popular posts, and got good comments:

http://www.matasano.com/log/644/safety-vs-security-2/

OS X is a suburb. Win32 is downtown Manhattan. You might prefer the suburbs, but remember: neighborhoods change.

on March 28, 2009

[deleted]

tptacek · on March 28, 2009

What part of the Mac is analogous to the shiny security system? It's Win32 that has all the sensors and alarm circuits these days.

_tggb · on March 28, 2009

Shiny, from the users perspective. Security-wise, I thought that OS X came with its firewall (which is really just ipfw) enabled.

Googling just now corrected me, so I deleted my comment as it was inaccurate and a poor analogy. Sorry about that.

spk · on March 29, 2009

One thing that I don't get about this contest is that they included Chrome and not Opera. Yes chrome is the "new kid in the block" but the other one, despite it's low market penetration, has been around for many many years.

(PS: I am an Opera user, but not a fanatic/fanboy etc. I am not trying to start a browser flame here.)

jimfl · on March 28, 2009

I love this distinction. It's like the distinction between accuracy and precision.