Notes (GucioDevs) Mac OS

Notes (GucioDevs) Mac OS

Just because you use a Macintosh, don’t think you’re any more secure than a Wintel user.

A sharp increase in the number of flaws being discovered in Mac OS X suggests that the Apple operating system may soon be every bit as prone to malicious attacks as Windows systems, according to a report from the SANS Institute, a Bethesda, Md.-based security training and research firm.

Mac OS X still remains safer than Windows because its relatively small installed base is a less attractive target for malicious hackers than Windows systems. But the number of flaws being discovered in the operating system is leaving its reputation as a secure alternative to Windows “in tatters,” according to the semiannual update to the SANS Top 20 list of Internet vulnerabilities.

“Users often feel invincible when they have their shiny silver-colored Apple and they are surfing the Web with it,” said Ed Skodis, a director at SANS. That may be a mistake, he said, because “there’s a significant amount of research going on for security vulnerabilities in the Mac OS.”

About 52 vulnerabilities were discovered in Mac OS X in 2005; 17 have been uncovered so far this year, said Amol Sarwate, manager of the vulnerability management lab at Qualys Inc., a Redwood Shores, Calif.-based security service provider.

The number of vulnerabilities reported last year was more than twice the number from 2004, when 24 flaws were discovered, Sarwate said. Out the flaws uncovered last year and so far in 2006, at least a third were considered critical, Sarwate said. During the past few months, users of Apple’s Safari Web browser also faced their first zero-day attack, which is an attack targeted at unpatched vulnerabilities.

Notes (guciodevs) Mac Os Download

Apple’s increasing market share and the company’s recent decision to build its systems around Intel Corp. chips have drawn increased hacker attention to its system, Skodis said. Similarly, Apple’s recent introduction of Boot Camp, which allows Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP, has also raised its risk profile, Skodis said. Though Windows XP runs in a separate partition on the Mac hard drive, it’s only a matter of time before malicious code becomes available that is capable of jumping over the two partitions on the hard drive, Skodis said. “It wouldn’t be hard to do,” he said.

At the same time, there appears to be a significant decline in vulnerabilities being reported in Windows services such as Internet Information Server, mail services and NetBIOS, Sarwate said. But that decline has been offset by a sharp increase in client-side flaws, including the Windows Metafile flaw (WMF) and Internet Explorer (IE) vulnerabilities, Sarwate said.

In fact, the emergence of several zero-days flaws in IE — including one that is currently unpatched — poses a major security risk for Windows users, said Rohit Dhamankar, manager of security research at the TippingPoint division of 3Com Corp.

One should strongly consider an OS upgrade instead. Download the GSAS & EXPGUI programs as a Mac disk image appropriate for the CPU type of your computer (to find out what you have click on the 'About This Mac' item in the Apple menu). For older Macs with Power PC (G3, G4 or G5) CPUs running OS X 10.4 (& 10.5?) use this link. Note: Each time period for each Mac OS X Version starts with the year the OS was released and ends with the year of the end of its support. This applies to OS X and macOS as well. Jaguar 2002–2006. In 2002, Mac OS X v10.2, code-named 'Jaguar', was released with a brand new logo. The logo was an 'X' that had a jaguar print instead of the.

Increasingly, zero-day flaws on Microsoft Corp. client systems are being used to install adware, spyware and other kinds of malicious code on end-user systems, he said. As a result, he said it may be time to rename IE “to ‘Internet Exploiter,’ because the chances of you being exploited using IE are much higher” these days, said Dhamanker, who is also the editor of the SANS Top 20 report.

Notes (guciodevs) Mac Os 11

The SANS study also showed that while Firefox continues to be a somewhat safer Web browser than IE, it is no panacea. According to SANS, users of Firefox and Mozilla have had to patch 11 vulnerabilities that can be exploited by a malicious Web page to run code over the past six months, in addition to several other critical vulnerabilities.

The SANS report also found an increase in vulnerabilities allowing direct access to databases, data warehouses and backup data, especially software from Oracle Corp. And SANS found a continuing increase in file-based attacks, particularly those using media and image files, such as the WMF. “In addition, we have seen a major upsurge in attacks using flaws in programs that process media files, such as Apple QuickTime/iTunes, Windows Media Player, RealNetworks RealPlayer, Macromedia Flash Player and Nullsoft Winamp,” the report said.

Install X11Before you can run the GSAS package (or, for that matter, a large number of other Unix-derived graphics applications), you need to load the X Windows system (X11) onto your computer.

For 10.4, one can load the Mac OS X install disk. Note that this requires administrator access to the computer. The X11 installation procedure consist of the following steps:

  • On the finder window for the DVD, scroll down and double-click on the Optional Installs icon, which starts the installer.
  • Proceed through the windows by pressing Continue (note that X11 must be installed on the boot disk).
  • On the package list page, click on the arrow next to Applications to open the list, then select X11 to be installed by clicking in the box to the left and click Install.
  • The installation then begins.
  • When installation is complete, the X11 package can be run from the utilities menu of the system Applications folder.
See the page on Installing X11 under Mac OS Xfor more details.

For 10.3 (Panther) I am pretty sure a similar process to 10.4 can be used, but I don't have access to a machine that can boot that OS. Alternately, if you have OS X 10.3 on CDROMs, insert CDROM #3 and then click on the Packages folder and within that folder, click on X11User.pkg. Read the installation screens, click on the 'next' button a few times, and X11 is installed.

For 10.2 (Jaguar), X11 installation is not simple,so you will need to do some searching on the web, find a guru or consult one of the many Mac OS X books that cover this subject.One should strongly consider an OS upgrade instead.

Download the GSAS & EXPGUI programs as a Mac disk image appropriate for the CPU type of your computer (to find out what you have click on the 'About This Mac' item in the Apple menu).
  • For older Macs with Power PC (G3, G4 or G5) CPUs running OS X 10.4(& 10.5?) use this link:
    ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/OSX_gsas+expgui_PPC_2007Jan15.dmg (~14 Mb)
  • Newer Macs with Intel (Pentium) CPUs should use this link:
    ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/OSX_gsas+expgui_Intel_2007Jan15.dmg (~32 Mb)
    Intel-based Macs can also use the PPC version, but willsee at least x5 better performance with the version compiled for this CPU.
  • For older Macs with Power PC (G3, G4 or G5) CPUs running OS X 10.2 or 10.3can use this link:
    ftp://ftp.ncnr.nist.gov/pub/cryst/gsas/OSX_10.3_gsas+expgui_2007Jan15.dmg (~14 Mb)
    Note that this is likely to be the update for 10.2 and 10.3.

    for a CCP14 mirror, look in http://www.ccp14.ac.uk/ccp/ccp14/ftp-mirror/briantoby/pub/cryst/gsas/

Mount the downloaded file by double-clicking on it. This should create a new volume in your top-level ('Computer') called 'GSASvol'; clicking on this device will opena finder window with a single folder ('gsas') present. (

Notes (guciodevs) Mac Os Catalina

Note that some browsers will automatically perform this step for you.)

Notes (guciodevs) Mac Os X

While you can run GSAS & EXPGUI from this location, you are strongly suggested to instead copy the entire package to your computer by dragging the gsas folder icon to another finder window, or by clicking on it and using Copy and Paste.

Install a 'shortcut' to launch EXPGUIThe OS X version of GSAS & EXPGUI has an EXPGUI AppleScript application named expgui.app in the gsas folder with the icon shown to the right. This AppleScript will start X11, if needed and then lauch EXPGUI. (If you have ideas for improving the script, the code can be found in file expgui_applescript.txt.)The EXPGUI AppleScript can be used in three ways:
  • Double-clicking on the icon will launch EXPGUI so that it starts with the 'file open' window in your home directory. This window can then be used to navigate to access/create experiments in other folders.
  • Dropping one or more GSAS Experiment (.EXP) files onto the EXPGUI iconwill cause the experiment files to be opened. If more than one file is dropped,each file will open in a separate EXPGUI session.
  • Dropping one or more folders onto the EXPGUI icon will cause EXPGUI to be started with the 'file open' window in that folder.

If you will use GSAS a fair amount, you will likely find it convenient to drag the EXPGUI icon to the dockfor easy access.

Note, that this EXPGUI app will not work correctly if copied or moved to another folder. It must be located in the gsas folder along with all the other files and subdirectories needed by GSAS & EXPGUI -- you can instead create an alias (by highlighting the AppleScript icon in the Finder and using the File/'Make alias' menu item or the Command-L shortcut). An alias created in this fashion can be moved wherever desired -- for example, to the desktop or to the Application folder.

  • For Unix power users: Make a command line shortcut (optional)
    People who have not become completely enlighted to the Mac may wish to set up a way to type something (gasp!) in a terminal window that will allowthem to start EXPGUI. There are a number of ways this can be done,(see section 2.2 in the Unix installation notes.)Also, on the Mac it is possible to add applications to the X11 Applications menu, by using the Applications/Customize menu option. Note that the command used to start Tcl/Tk and EXPGUI will vary depending on where you installed the package. I install the package in ~/Applicationsso the command string to start EXPGUI is: