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lowededwookie wrote:
I guess we're both wrong:
http://www.malwarehelp.org/know-about-malware.html
What is Malware, Malware -short for MALicious softWARE- is a term used to broadly classify a form of software which is installed in a computer system mostly without the owners permission with malicious intentions. It includes Trojans, viruses, key loggers, malicious active content, rogue programs and dialers among others.
Malware is not a virus but a virus is malware. Semantics eh?

I don't mean to get picky, but mate, I never said "malware is a virus". I know what malware is.

lowededwookie wrote:
I'm not sure you fully understand how Wine works because it doesn't matter if Wine becomes so awesome it's the equivalent to Windows because Wine is not an OS. Wine uses the OS's APIs to emulate the Windows ones.

For example, the Windows menus (File Edit View...) are parsed to say Mac OS X's menus so they would appear on the Menubar as opposed to in the window.

Because Mac OS X and GTK don't have the inherent security problems of the Windows APIs then the system cannot be open to viruses and spyware. Yes they can be run but without things like ActiveX you can't install a virus just by opening an e-mail or viewing a webpage. It's possible to redirect ActiveX calls to say AppleScript or whatever scripting language Linux uses but these are so secure that anything untoward cannot be achieved.

And this is the point. Yes a virus can be secured but NO a system is not open to viruses. The OS that Wine or whatever is running on simply will not permit the virus to do anything but run.

You are at more risk running Windows natively or via Parallels or VMWare than you are running Wine/Crossover or whatever Apple has up its sleeve.

I agree that you are at more risk running it natively, but I believe there is still a risk when using Wine, it looks like we will have to agree to disagree on that point.

Nick Jennings wrote:
I don't mean to get picky, but mate, I never said "malware is a virus". I know what malware is.
Sorry that was my fault. I read your reply wrong and read it that it was. My bad.

Nick Jennings wrote:
I agree that you are at more risk running it natively, but I believe there is still a risk when using Wine, it looks like we will have to agree to disagree on that point.
The risk can only be from running it. For it to actually do anything damaging it needs proper access to the system and Wine does not allow this, it's not designed this way. I'm trying to think of an easy way to explain why but the only thing I can think of is this:

Imagine you had a bomb sent to you in an unsecured delivery van making runs to a prison. The prison then receives the parcels but it checks everything before that parcel is delivered. Now say they had technology that rendered the bomb useless without destroying that bomb. They then deliver the bomb to you in prison but it can't do anything. The prison is much more secure than the delivery van in much the same way Mac OS X and Linux are far more secure than Windows.

Think of Windows as the insecure van. All applications are run with administrator privileges even though the user doesn't have those same privileges. It's as though it's a van where the doors are unlocked and unbarred.

A virus is like a car jacker that intercepts the van and takes over. At the same time it drops a bomb in the back of the van dressed like a normal package and then drives the van into a prison where it drops off all the packages including its bomb then drives away.

Now the prison has guards who check each package and they come across the package with the bomb in it. But say the prison has technology that renders the bomb useless although doesn't destroy it. They then pass the bomb onto you as a harmless package.

This is how Wine and Mac OS X work. Wine (the guards) checks over the package and sees that it is all okay except for the bomb to which it then passes the whole package over to Mac OS X (bomb disposal unit) but Mac OS X is very secure by comparison to the van and so it renders the bomb useless. The package is then processed and handled on to you the end user.

It's still a virus, it's still a Windows application but it's potential for destruction has been removed because of the security of Mac OS X.

For a worm to work it needs a transportation mode, in Window's case it's generally Outlook or Outlook Express. If they're there the it can spread itself. But if they have been removed and you use Thunderbird then the virus cannot spread. Even if you have Internet Explorer installed AND Active-X the virus still cannot go anywhere because the transport mode doesn't exist.

Now what about other types of viruses that don't need access to Active-X but can attack the system and corrupt DLLs etc? Well, once again the virus is rendered useless because while it can interfere with the DLLs it can't get the DLL to make Mac OS X do what Mac OS X doesn't want to do.

Of course we don't need to wait until Apple releases their own version of Wine (although it would be infinitely better if Apple did it), you can download precompiled versions of Wine for Leopard now:
http://thisismyinter.net/?p=21 http://www.codeweavers.com/products/cxmac/