The Occasional Blargh

✪ The Bitter Shepherd

It’s one word with an exclamation mark followed by a list of dated quotations from various sources running back through the past seven years. It’s the most on-point, refined, minimalistic yet communicative piece of writing I’ve seen. You don’t need to read it, you absorb the point by how long it takes to scroll through it to get to the punchline at the end. There isn’t one.

— Guy English "When The Boy Cries Wolf"

Turns out there was a punch line. There was a wolf eyeing the various flocks of sheep in the village. The boy — who was dismissed not because he cried wolf falsely before, but because other have commented about the possibility of wolf attacks over the years — gets not an apology from the head shepherder who accused him of fear mongering, or even thanks for trying to spur the wolf hunters to take up arms, but gets teased by him for not predicting accurately that wool would become the new luxury fashion three years ago.

Claim chowder is a lazy retort — it's easy to pretend to see all that has happened in the past as inevitable. It's much harder to extropolate tomorrow from today. Just ask John. He thought the wolf wouldn't show today. It didn't show yesterday, nor the day before, nor way back when he criticized Apple for handling the broken fence essentially the same way they handled it today.

✪ Measure Twice, Spin Once

We need to start by defining the terms.

★ May 23, 2011: Measure Twice, Cut Once

1. An Apple-related crisis or problem occurs.
2. There’s an immediate flurry of news coverage and speculation.
3. A week or more passes before Apple responds, but when they do, they do so decisively.

Apple’s policy is to respond to a crisis with certainty, or at least as much certainty as can be mustered. Certainty takes time. No drip, drip, drip of vapid PR statements. Just silence, then an answer. Seems to be working out pretty well for them.

With regard to the Mac Defender situation:

★ May 24, 2011: Apple: How to Avoid or Remove Mac Defender Malware.

Like I said, measure twice, cut once.

Yeah, but I can't imagine that would be looked kindly on by people who were left hanging in the wind for 20 days. I know a lot of security professionals and tech pundits would contest that such a strategy is a good one. In fact, I know of one pundit would strongly criticize Apple for treating this as "a marketing problem".

★ May 30, 2004: Security Cannot Be Spun

The worst aspect of these security issues hasn’t been the vulnerabilities themselves, but Apple’s response to them.

As far as can be determined by anyone outside the company, Apple did nothing in response until last week, when the vulnerability was made public and garnered significant attention.

Seven years ago to the month, Apple finally responded to the reports of a serious security vulnerability, one potentially worse than the initial Mac Defender one of today or its newer variant. However, this response came well after the publication of the issue which, from what I can gather, is a flaw that could allow someone to trick the Safari web browser into executing arbitrary commands on the Mac. That exploit never amounted to much. Today's exploit amounted to thousands of Mac users innundated with porn thanks to a fradulent program. Sadly, Apple's response has not improved much. (And Safari's "Open Safe Files" played a central role in both.) But even more depressingly, we've learned we've lost a clear-eyed pundit to the warmth of the RDF.

(May 28th note: Want some more fun Ed Bott-John Gruber commentary? Click on this! You know you want to!)

Even legitimate developers seem to want to prove ✪ wrong.

✪ The Shepherd

In referencing the fable of the boy who cried wolf, I wonder if ✪ remembers how the tale ended. If I recall, it wasn't too happy for the shepards (as noted by a twit).

UPDATE: It's cute how he links to the one person who brings up the fairy tale in a way that somehow manages to be complimentary to his post.

It would be wonderful if ✪ or anyone else could justify the blasé, if not contemptuous nature they each treat concerns about the potential of malware targeting Apple's operating systems. ✪ is considered an expert on Apple related stuff, but I guarantee you he doesn't understand the OS which he believes is uniquely immune to vunerabilities. The Brian Krebs/David Maynor debacle from many years ago demonstrated this to a tee.