The iPod Virus: Apple Arrogance
Recently, there was an outbreak of E. Coli in the United States- bags of spinach across the country were recalled and the questionable spinach was traced to a region in California. How would you have felt if you had E. Coli poisoning- or worse, died- and all the farmer responsible said, “There is E. Coli in our spinach and we are really upset that human bodies are not more strong and healthy to protect against these things.”
That’s what Apple just did.
Historically, Apple has been an arrogant company and its user community has at times been snarky. We are an elitist minority and usually, we like it that way. We claim that Macs are better and safer and so much cooler, so we are not being arrogant. We’re just giving you the truth.
Apple users can do what they like, but this is my message to the Apple corporation: Stop it. You have gone too far.
In September, an undisclosed number of Video iPods were sold with a Windows virus called RavMon.exe on them. This is a serious issue and one that should be dealt with swiftly and effectively. These things happen and the way to separate the great companies from the bad ones is to see how they respond.
Apple’s response was terrible. They said:
As you might imagine, we are upset at Windows for not being more hardy against such viruses
I’m sorry we broke in to your house, they say. You should have stronger locks.
There isn’t a hint of an apology on their page disclosing the issue, only an aloof sense surprise that people actually use Windows.
Wake up, Apple- your biggest cash cow is the iPod and most of them are used by Windows users. Insult them all you like in the Mac ads, but your iPod users are Windows users. And you just sold them a virus for $400.
Now that I got that out of the way, let us try to deal with the issue of the virus. If you bought a Video iPod after the 12th of September this year, you may have been sold a virus. I would recommend this free trial of McAfee anti virus which should deal with it. Make sure you run it with the iPod attached and scan any attached external drives. Then restore your iPod from iTunes (how to restore).
Apple has not yet disclosed a method of detecting whether your iPod is one of the problem iPods and I doubt they will, unless they smell a lawsuit. Public apologies, meaningful freebies and not being called a weakling is the least an infected paying customer should expect from a company like Apple. Right now, I feel embarrassed for being an Apple user and insulted for being an occasional Windows user.
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Comments
@Beeblebrox, I was hoping you would show up soon!
Devanshu, I totally agree with you. Methinks Macster is being intentionally obtuse here, not to mention sanctimonious (How dare one compare human life to a computer product! Well I never!).
In this case, the analogy is perfectly apropos.
Not perfectly, come *on*! Human bodies are not the product of a rival spinach-producing company, as I expect you are aware!
Frankly though, any degree of sophistry in discussing this issue seems to me ridiculous. Including that comment in the press release was obviously a totally stupid, inappropriate thing to do. The only appropriate course of action under these circumstances is to apologise profusely. Anything else is just shifting the blame. It looks bad, and it is bad.
No analogies necessary.
Human bodies are not the product of a rival spinach-producing company, as I expect you are aware!
Now who’s being naive, Ben? You’ve been drinking the spinach industry kool-aid again.
“Your neighbor’s dog ruins your garden and they chastise you for not having a fence.”
This is no good, A fence is a good idea to keep all animals out of ones garden…..I have a fence around mine to keep rabbits out.
“You buy a toaster that causes your house to catch fire and the manufacturer tells you that you shouldn’t live in a wooden house anyways.”
Good anology, point is taken.
“You buy a Zune and it causes your Mac OS X to crash and Microsoft tells you that you shouldn’t be running Mac OS X.”
This is probally something that would truely happen.
Anyway, I still think it is being blown out of proportion. If an apology is what you wish to hear, I apologize on Apples behalf.
RavMon[rev].exe is a benign trojan not a virus as summarized by both Symantec and Sophos. It is not a critical, self-replicating form as you seem to scream out from the context of your article.
How it got there? Simple, one of the production computers (now, we know it’s Windows-based) was already infected with the trojan W32.Rajump or Vardo. These malicious codes plant copies of themselves anywhere in the Windows root directory or to USB drives. And the iPods in final partitioning and firmware download inserted this malicious code transparently.
But to spawn this benign code, your Windows PC would already contain a running Rajump or Vardo trojans looking for RavMon[rev].exe files to execute. This code in the iPod will not simply execute itself.
So, for Apple to place some blame on Windows is warranted. Sure, Apple’s contract manufacturers share the blame for being complacent with their security. Why would they be using Windows-based production machines anyway for iPods??? If those machines are OSX-based, this whole thing would not have happened!
OMG, Steve is probably shitting himself for finding this out. It was a Windows machine that tinkled a trojan code on Apple’s iPods. Ha! ha! ha! What an irony…Can this be some MS conspiracy theory to damp the iPod’s popularity for Zune? It is just very, very fortunate for the Zune is about to launch in a few weeks. Hmmm…
Beeble? I understand completely and I do not consider myself superior to anyone, I just feel the anology was a bit extreme. Lets be for real here, when has anyone died from a computer virus? It was a mistake on Apples behalf and they admitted fault.
Robotech, after reading your post, I will say….I worship the ground you walk on
The point you seem to miss is that what type of “virus” is this? Many have windows have anti-virus software anyways so it’s not a big deal. Microsoft should fix these bugs and do it quickly.
“I understand that the second half of the sentence drew attention to themselves, but by calling Windows out first they put cheap shots before humility.”
Not ALL of the ipods have the viruses. This is not some major virus that people should be panicking about. They needed to mention the ridiculous instability of windows. It’s true that they should’ve been more humble about it. Bringing microsoft into the picture is fine though. Do they ever learn from their past experiences? Many of the developers are not even careful. Look, this company has billions of dollars. If they don’t want to use that money to fix viruses fast then that’s their problem.
At least they were upfront about it. You are not a developer for windows so i don’t think you have much of a say as to why apple brought it up. Do you know how strong or weak this virus is? If not, then you shouldn’t be making a freaking fuss over it.
*cough*. I mean, “If you are not a windows developer then i don’t think you should say anything”.
Lets be for real here, when has anyone died from a computer virus?
You’re doing it again.
It was a mistake on Apples behalf and they admitted fault.
Yes, after blaming Microsoft. It’s a smug and disingenous admission, much like Hastert’s “I take full responsibility even though this is entirely the fault of the Democrats.”
“If you are not a windows developer then i don’t think you should say anything”.
I wonder if this idiotic principle holds true for the legions of Mac-tards who regularly criticize Windows for being so vulnerable. Are you out there telling them to shut up because they aren’t developers for Windows?
It’s like this. Apple never really wanted to support the PC… but they had to in order to get mp3 marketshare. Even though they are committed to supporting PCs it must be frustrating as hell to them when some chinese manufacturer ships them a preformatted drive with a virus on it. Yes, they should have double checked the preformatted drives and they didn’t.
I think they are just being honest about how they feel, angry with the world (windows) and *more* angry with themselves.
Dev, I am sorry to feel your pains for being a longtime Apple fanboy but you shouldn’t be. After all, MS itself don’t feel sorry for you and your casual use of Windows.
You see, MS is happy to report her billions of profits year in and year out while the legions of Windows users suffer from the suffocating disease and infestation of Win32.Viruses and Win32.Trojans. And top that off, MS fanboys act like getting infected by viruses and worms a normal thing to have. How’s that for being brain-washed and Gerber-fed by M$(BTW, “Kool-Aid” is already trademarked by Apple to mean something only a Mac faithful can understand, ok?)
To drive my point further, countless MS cynics and hyposhits spill their anger at Mac faithfuls for the truth HURTS - that it’s Win32 that propagate all these scourge to the masses. They are so infectious that even a non-Win32 OSs like OSX and the iPod can become a hapless carrier.
No, the RavMon[rev].exe file is harmless and can be cleaned-out quite easily. Go to Symantec’s or Sophos website for the procedures. Don’t go to McAfee for they have lost the reputation long ago in the virus detection and solutions area. In a word, McAfee products stink-a-roony…
much like Hastert’s “I take full responsibility…”, blah, blah, blah! -odiousone
For everyone’s information, this is a technology forum and not a political platform! If you so inclined, there is a new political discussions at http://www.spinmatters.com provided by A.M.
There, feel free to spill your guts at Newt Gingrich, Arnold, Bush Jr, and other political warts. I take one back, I like Arnie. He’s my big mojo gubernator. Enjoy!