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quote:

iPods spread disease?

Well well. Looks like a few new iPod owners are getting infected when they attach their players to their computers. I'll quote the first paragraph from Apple's web site:

We recently discovered that a small number - less than 1% - of the Video iPods available for purchase after September 12, 2006, left our contract manufacturer carrying the Windows RavMonE.exe virus. This known virus affects only Windows computers, and up to date anti-virus software which is included with most Windows computers should detect and remove it. So far we have seen less than 25 reports concerning this problem. The iPod nano, iPod shuffle and Mac OS X are not affected, and all Video iPods now shipping are virus free. As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses, and even more upset with ourselves for not catching it.

So Apple has a quality-control problem, and they blame it on Windows? They mention that decent AV software would catch the virus, but then they become oblivious to the irony that they themselves apparently don't run any?

What's even more inaccurate in Apple's claim is that the malware isn't an actual virus. Rather than exploiting a code vulnerability to spread, it relies instead on a common configuration vulnerability -- the gullibility of humans. To encourage spreading, it creates an autorun.inf file, entices the user to execute the worm, and then looks for any mappped drives and drops itself on whatever it finds. I continue to maintain that autorun has no purpose on business computers and you should disable it at the domain level.

Apparently, someone at Apple fell for the dancing pigs and subsequently infected the equipment used in the manufacture of certain iPods. Ignoring their own problems, Apple finds it easier to blame Microsoft. That's right, blame is always preferable over responsibility.