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Old 14th December 2009
RogueAI RogueAI is offline
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Default Can OS X viruses infect BSD?

Entirely out of curiosity, since Darwin is a BSD can viruses written for OS X infect other BSD systems?

I know this is a pointless question in practice and I would not be surprised if the total number of Mac viruses is less than the number of viruses created daily for Windows.
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Old 14th December 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RogueAI View Post
Entirely out of curiosity, since Darwin is a BSD can viruses written for OS X infect other BSD systems?

I know this is a pointless question in practice and I would not be surprised if the total number of Mac viruses is less than the number of viruses created daily for Windows.
Depends what you call a "virus". If by virus you consider some malicious binary cod for OS X then the answer is definitely NO since OpenBSD can not run OS X binaries. If by virus you consider malicious script then there is absolutely no reason other than your system administrator skills that will protect you from it on your OpenBSD box.
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Old 14th December 2009
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@RogueAI
Have you seen any viruses on Darwin?

Darwin IS NOT binary compatible with any of the BSDs, and gues what, even BSDs are not binary compatible between themselves.
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Old 14th December 2009
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@RogueAI
Have you seen any viruses on Darwin?

Darwin IS NOT binary compatible with any of the BSDs, and gues what, even BSDs are not binary compatible between themselves.
At least OpenBSD has got compat_freebsd, so in theory it's possible
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Old 14th December 2009
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@Oliver_H

Same for NetBSD, which can be binary compatible with FreeBSD, Linux (even by default), and several more
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Old 14th December 2009
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At least OpenBSD has got compat_freebsd, so in theory it's possible
FreeBSD compatibility layer on OpenBSD is all but dead. Look at the port which
installs the libraries. It is for FreeBSD 5.XXX. I have never met an
OpenBSD person who used any kind of FreeBSD binaries on OpenBSD.
As a matter of fact the compatibility between FreeBSD and OpenBSD is so poor that OpenBSD can not even mount FreeBSD version of Unix file system.

On another hand NetBSD compatibility layer is alive and well not just on i386 but on many other architectures.
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Old 14th December 2009
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The only useful level of compatibility between the BSDs are the APIs: much of which is a virtue of a shared heritage and occasional cross pollination.
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Old 14th December 2009
RogueAI RogueAI is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Oko View Post
Depends what you call a "virus". If by virus you consider some malicious binary cod for OS X then the answer is definitely NO since OpenBSD can not run OS X binaries. If by virus you consider malicious script then there is absolutely no reason other than your system administrator skills that will protect you from it on your OpenBSD box.
Thank you very much.

Quote:
Originally Posted by vermaden View Post
@RogueAI
Have you seen any viruses on Darwin?
Nope, but when looking for an OS to switch to from Windows multiple sources mentioned that there have been viruses in the past. I honestly do not know much about how viruses work so I wanted to make sure that even if they did become extremely common on Mac as they are on Windows they would not become common on whatever OS I switched to.
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Old 15th December 2009
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Your definition of a "virus" is what maybe shadowy, don't forget that Trojans and Worms (even malware/spyware/whateverware) and other types of "infections" out there for ALL types of software, including phones, yes they use software as well, as a matter of fact you can say that almost EVERYTHING with electronic code *could* be at risk.

There have been "outbreaks" of infections on Apples since November of 2007, it's tech history in fact, shit, MacOS DOES NOT EVEN TURN ON THE FIREWALL BY DEFAULT (even if that did help much...).

There is over 6 different producers of "antivirus" software for Macintosh's, EXPECT them to be "common" as more and more people (macophiles) whom pretend that the sales guy who sold them their PERSONAL COMPUTER (teehee) knows anything about it besides the price and what colors are in stock.

One of the Macintosh's at work got infected (worm of sorts we believe), it was flooding one of our TCP/IP printers out with traffic trying to infect it ... MAN you should have seen the macophiles face when 3 IT personal come to your office to take away your Mac because its INFECTED (and return it with a freshly updated OSX install and the newest versions of the required software of course) TEEHEE again ...

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Quote:
they would not become common on whatever OS I switched to.
I hope that part of the sentance makes you think a bit more about what you are really trying to say, i cannot interpet correctly so i will not try, i DO hope that you do not think that any type of software is safer than the other? its called an L-User error, it happens between the mouse and keyboard, usually causing MOST of the problems known to IT/Tech

That said i am not referring to you, I as others, have progressed/evolved into using OpenBSD and such for the sake of _insert your reason here_, this took MUCH time and trial/error/bs, but i must state that i personally REALLY like what OpenBSD can help you do for your servers/network.


P.S. i am not owning/running any Apples right now, sold my lastest MacBook (white) about 1 month ago, i do have a VMWare virtual machine with OS 10.6.2 running for testing/support/analytical purposes.
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Old 15th December 2009
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RogueAI View Post
I honestly do not know much about how viruses work so I wanted to make sure that even if they did become extremely common on Mac as they are on Windows they would not become common on whatever OS I switched to.
A true virus, generally operates like a biological virus in a way: it infects files be injecting itself into that file. Viruses range from targeting to executables all the way to attacking the computers master boot records. In fact, an early computer virus did just that (link;search for Motorola).

Under a UNIX based operating system or a properly managed Windows NT based operating system, the damage that can be done is limited. Things the virus can exploit to gain additional privileges or even some setuid executables are you bigger concern.


In my experience, most Windows users still do not understand the concept of file system permissions and have used Windows XPs 5~6 year migration path to wallow in their idiocy as permitted by Microshaft Marketing -- resulting in a user base that thrives on making systems even more subspectible to compromise by malicious people, let along malicious software!


In the unix world, such users are somewhere between retard and brain damaged fool. But represent a much much smaller minority here then "Over there" with the masses.


I have never had a confirmed virus infection on any of my machines and it has been many years since any malicious program was detected on my Windows machines. The difference between sanity and insanity....
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