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Why so many Apples


bashincajun

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I am traveling so to pass the time i have been watching alot of talks given at some of the most recent Cons and i noticed that there are a lot of Security Professionals that i see using MACs, anyone have any idea why?  is it a convenience thing?  or just preference?

I have used a Mac in the past and the only thing that i liked about it was Parallels had a very smooth transition between OSs but that was it.

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A lot of them have switched to MAC i guess because the base system is BSD and Unix, similar to the Linux command line environment, and also, because it's not windows..lol

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46 minutes ago, b0N3z said:

because its not windows and the machines work.

Laptops I would consider a Mac; however I'd rather just dual boot Linux like I'm doing currently. I also rarely use the windows side... I'd also never use a Mac for a desktop. I like having control of the hardware.

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1 hour ago, Decoy said:

Laptops I would consider a Mac; however I'd rather just dual boot Linux like I'm doing currently. I also rarely use the windows side... I'd also never use a Mac for a desktop. I like having control of the hardware.

MAC machines today, use everything windows and linux do. Most of the hardware is the same, other than the casing on the mac book pro machines, they run intel i7 with Nvidia and AMD gpu's, so it's a matter of, do I want to spend money for the shiny one, or get 10 tons more shit for less with the black one and a windows sticker that I can always put linux on anyway.

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I don't like Mac at all. It's locked down too heavily and too "protected", you can't really modify it at all. Apple do that to all their products - look at the iPhone.

Macs and iPhones you can't troubleshoot yourself very well - whereas even though Windows may crash or break more often you can still fix it or modify it in ways that it won't happen again. Mac you just can't, you just run around begging Apple to fix it, crying at the huge tech bills they give you. With Windows you can customise and do basically anything to it (within reason), however I agree it's not as powerful as a good Linux distro like Debian, Kali etc.

Look at iOS - can't even access the file system without jailbreaking it - and even then it's still not ideal. As opposed to Android, which is built on Linux in a way that you can access the CLI, you can do more with it - including accessing the file system without root :P Downloading files from the internet is easier - even without root, watching videos in multiple formats - not just .mp4 (Apple is stupid in that area), and even the small thigns like installing different themes and widgets. It feels more like you are in control.

Owning an Apple product means Apple owns you.

Android > iOS
Windows > Mac (even though Windows is a little buggy at times)

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It does make you wonder.  There's plenty of tech videos on youtube that show them using Mac's of some sort.  And I know people who swear by them.  But as mentioned above...who wants to spend that much on a machine that's going to basically be spending most of their time just surfing the web.  My preferences are second hand machines or a few generations old machines.  Sandy bridge i5 machines are selling for $100!!!  Sorry don't mean to go off topic a bit but perfectly usable machines are cheap.  And like a lot of people on here...Other than Windows 7 I'm finding myself using Linux more and more.  Again if I have a laptop that I'm using to surf the web 95% of the time...why would I use Windows when I could just use Linux.  Just my two sense. 

(I need to start forcing myself to use Windows 10 however I just can't seem to do it.  :)  Maybe I'll just go full on Linux)

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I don't Like apple because of the price, or as I call it, The Apple Tax, but I can't fault their setup, and if you tout Linux as being great, then BSD on a MAC is like the grandfather to that(in a sense), as it's a Unix box, straight up.

While I agree in part on the iOS devices like the iPhone, iPad, they are mostly jailbreakable and aside from a section that is locked down, before and after that specific iOS version(s) you can root and boot and run them into the ground for the most part and unroot and wipe with older versions of  iOS and older iTune installers. Doesn't always work depending on what you have, but majority of them are recoverable and re-loadable. They are still WAY over priced, for things you can do MORE with in a sense on the Android, Linux and PC side for freedom of running anything you want(with respect to what ROMs are available for your phone device -  my phone, no such luck :(

At the end of the day, you use what you know, regardless. Many security people using the MAC book's aren't doing it to be fashionable. They like the OS stability and relatively secure defaults, plus the hardware specs(which is one of the reasons they tend to be more expensive to an extent) but nothing is 100% fullproof, nor are Apple products. Malware hits all OS's in some form or another and many exploits are our for all of them.

Edited by digip
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Apple, does less, costs more, looks shiny.
 

The arguement of "Oh it weighs less though" also went out the window a long time ago. There are laptops, smaller and lighter than the Macbook Air, with better specs, better battery, oh and more than one damn port.

But, at the end of the day, it's all about personal preference. What does the job best for you? What do you prefer?

 

Professionally speaking, I could never recommend and Apple product.

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I would never buy one personally as i don't see the justification in the price, but i figured since maybe they offered something i didn't know.  The hardware is pretty much interchangeable now days.  OS wise when i used one (previous Employer Required it) I had parallels and spent most of my time in Linux any way.  Even now as far as laptops go all of mine are Linux.  My home setup is the only one that runs windows and that is gaming and the Mrs.

I figured it was personal preference as to why people were using them but just kinda made me wonder.  I would never buy an apple i was always put off by the blind cult following that they have had.  That and when it comes to smart phones i don't want to conform to the phone i want the phone to conform to me and my needs.

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To be honest I use one because it's the easiest way to have Mac OS, Windows, and any Linux distro. Every hackintosh that I've made was way more buggy than I would like. So it allows me to test on all environments a little better.

That being said I would agree with most of these posts. It is way over priced and to pay so much for a machine that solders down it's components is rough.

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On 7/21/2017 at 11:10 PM, Squibs said:

To be honest I use one because it's the easiest way to have Mac OS, Windows, and any Linux distro. Every hackintosh that I've made was way more buggy than I would like. So it allows me to test on all environments a little better.

That being said I would agree with most of these posts. It is way over priced and to pay so much for a machine that solders down it's components is rough.

Mmm. OS' are like watches. If you want something dirt cheap that works well you get Linux (= cheap watch), but if you want to buy the name and the reliability you buy Mac (= Rolex or something..).

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2 hours ago, abelwho said:

Me i like mac, I don't like paying for a pc aver three years. Mac built too last. Just saying. 

Apple is as much a buy every year as PC makers are. Personally, I've held my PC's for years, and only ever had the issue of HDD migration, or the occasional fan replacement. Sure, GPU's get better, but usually you can upgrade on decent motherboards in most systems. Side by side, the market of PC and Apple computers aren't far apart. It's a matter or preference mostly.

My previous machine, I built myself in 2008. It still works fine, but was for when I had my own business and was only packed away when we moved to the current house in 2015. I now work for one of my clients full time, and closed shop, so the old machine was mostly client work related.

Work also provided me a new machine in 2015 and I was running both till we moved, so I won't need to upgrade other than when the OS end of life requires me to, but the hardware, will be fine other than HDD migration, which is something all systems will need at some point if they die. My current box is a 32GB, 4.7Ghz beast, that does what I need for my work and then some, and I don't see any reason to move or change anything, other than maybe the GPU which was a bit dated when I got it, but not a requirement for my needs. Plenty beef for what I do. MAC, wants you to replace it, not every 3 years, but every few months when the newest, fastest, thinest, shiniest, lightest, +9000 iOS thingy insert any marketing rubbish here comes out. They do it with all their devices, from phones and iPads, and ipods, to their Laptops, which in many ways aren't any better than other brands except maybe their screens, which I admit are nice, but now 4k screens are coming out on laptops and even tablets and phones, so they aren't the only choice any more. 

At the end of the day, use what you need. I don't fault anyone for using a MAC. They have their benefits, and even that single port, is in itself, somewhat making it more secure(if disabled) I just can't justify the price, nor do I like their OS. The only upside to a MAC, is if I needed to use one, I could run Photoshop and Illustrator on them, which you still can't with Linux, and that's about the only thing really keeping me from moving off Windows(and gaming). 

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22 hours ago, abelwho said:

Me i like mac, I don't like paying for a pc aver three years. Mac built too last. Just saying. 

Actually, that is very untrue. Every few years a Mac becomes redundant because Apple, ever the only-for-profit organisation, makes it so older Macs/iPhones/iPods/iPads cannot upgrade to the latest firmware because it is "too old". This is just a money-making scheme forcing people to upgrade their hardware to upgrade their software. Of course, there are backdoor hacks for this, but, in general, a consumer-grade person or even a corporate company using Macs will upgrade their hardware. Digip said this:

19 hours ago, digip said:

MAC, wants you to replace it, not every 3 years, but every few months when the newest, fastest, thinest, shiniest, lightest, +9000 iOS thingy insert any marketing rubbish here comes out. They do it with all their devices, from phones and iPads, and ipods, to their Laptops, which in many ways aren't any better than other brands except maybe their screens, which I admit are nice, but now 4k screens are coming out on laptops and even tablets and phones, so they aren't the only choice any more.

You can use a 10 year old laptop and install Windows 10 on it no problem - as long as it has 4GB RAM, a decent processor and a HDD/SDD (among other things). Even if you didn't want Windows 10 (which would be worth more than the laptop itself) you could just chuck Ubuntu or some other smaller Linux distro on it.

19 hours ago, digip said:

At the end of the day, use what you need. I don't fault anyone for using a MAC. They have their benefits, and even that single port, is in itself, somewhat making it more secure(if disabled) I just can't justify the price, nor do I like their OS. The only upside to a MAC, is if I needed to use one, I could run Photoshop and Illustrator on them, which you still can't with Linux, and that's about the only thing really keeping me from moving off Windows(and gaming). 

If someone (fairly) rich wants to spend a few grand a year on a shiny new Macbook or something then they can go ahead, and it will work fine for them, but they will also be paying a few grand a year more than what I will be paying for something that works for me :)

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  • 2 weeks later...

If we go into OS wars, they all lose, nothing is any more secure than your best use practices, don't care what it is. If it's a shiny silver, vs black box comparison, then ok, cause I can't justify the purchase of their expensive product(s) when the same money can buy me more stuff with usage that works for more things than only on a MAC/Apple device and hardware.

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3 hours ago, digip said:

If we go into OS wars, they all lose, nothing is any more secure than your best use practices, don't care what it is. If it's a shiny silver, vs black box comparison, then ok, cause I can't justify the purchase of their expensive product(s) when the same money can buy me more stuff with usage that works for more things than only on a MAC/Apple device and hardware.

Don't mean to quote myself here, but that is basically exactly what I said.. :P

On 7/26/2017 at 9:26 AM, Dave-ee Jones said:

If someone (fairly) rich wants to spend a few grand a year on a shiny new Macbook or something then they can go ahead, and it will work fine for them, but they will also be paying a few grand a year more than what I will be paying for something that works for me :)

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4 hours ago, Dave-ee Jones said:

Don't mean to quote myself here, but that is basically exactly what I said.. :P

2 can play that game Mr! And I said it first..lol (don't lock the thread...just us meandering standard nerds..)

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15 hours ago, Rkiver said:

...no. Just no.
Proof? Ask celebrities, about their pictures.

Proof?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/01/03/android_tops_2016_vuln_list_with_523_bugs/

http://uk.businessinsider.com/android-most-vulnerable-operating-system-in-2016-2017-1

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/apple-ios-vs-google-android-which-more-secure-smartphone-os-1547396

https://www.scmagazineuk.com/android-tops-2016-vulnerability-list-security-industry-says-meh/article/630059/

etc. etc. etc.

 

I don't like Apple products, but no one can pretend that they aren't more secure compared with Android, as evidenced by many sources.

 

*edit* Of course, one could argue that the most vulnerable part of any OS is the user, and that iOS users trend towards being less IT savvy, but that's my/an opinion rather than evidence based.

 

This is also from experience; try pentesting an iPhone and an Android based phone. You'll find more ways in to an Android phone. I'm certainly not saying that iOS is 'unhackable', but it has less attack vectors, ergo more secure.

 

Maybe I should have phrased it as 'better security', rather than 'great'. Nothing has 'great' security.

Edited by haze1434
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On 8/3/2017 at 0:47 PM, Rkiver said:

...no. Just no.
Proof? Ask celebrities, about their pictures.

Every one of those was a socially engineered password, guessed password, or reused from another hacked site password.  None of them were locally "hacked" hardware/software.

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On 8/5/2017 at 6:58 AM, barry99705 said:

Every one of those was a socially engineered password, guessed password, or reused from another hacked site password.  None of them were locally "hacked" hardware/software.

Ouch.

Also, Google has a white-hat bounty for Android which can make it the most secure OS out there. The more people that hack Android, the stronger it gets.

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