In even more ways. Built-in privacy features help protect your information and keep your Mac secure. An updated start page helps you easily and quickly save, find, and share your favorite sites. And Siri suggestions surface bookmarks, links from your reading list, iCloud Tabs, links you receive in Messages, and more. Learn more about Safari. The first MacBook Pro (the first Apple laptop to switch to Intel in 2006) was introduced as a “One more thing.” There you go. — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) November 3, 2020 This is somewhat.
There is a never-ending debate as to whether Macs are “better” than PC’s. “Better” is of course a subjective term; for instance, while Macs are generally acknowledged to be easier to use, if you’re a long-time Windows user the first time you sit in front of a Mac, it certainly won’t seem that way.
In any case, here follows a list of differentiators… if nothing else, these are reasonable arguments as to why you should consider buying a Mac.
1. Macs are actually cheaper in the long run
Sure, you can buy a Windows PC for fewer up-front dollars. But the true cost of ownership should be calculated based on not only the acquisition cost, but the residual value after you sell it or trade it in. It’s the difference between those two numbers that really tells you what your computer costs to own. When you calculate the cost of ownership in that way, Macs win easily. All you have to do is compare the value of a Windows PC from, say, three years ago (which is often close to zero), and compare that to what you can get for your 3-year-old Mac. It’s virtually always no contest.
2. Macs are much easier to buy
We tried shopping for a PC just to compare, and after about 15 minutes our eyes glazed over. When you have so many choices, not only of manufacturers, but bells and whistles and speeds and sizes, it’s almost impossible to know whether you’re getting the right, or best, deal. With the Mac, it’s much easier to narrow down your search quickly, PLUS, be assured you’re getting a well-made and well-respected product, included being loaded with a whole bunch of great software you’d have to buy extra on a PC. On top of all that, there’s no equivalent to PowerMax in the PC world. Our friendly and expert staff is happy to help you through the entire process.
Note: We received a message from someone who took umbrage at the above, saying he thought it was “incredibly ignorant.” We responded with the following, which may or may not appease those of you who share that opinion, but it is our opinion and we’re sticking by it:
Simplicity isn’t for everyone, of course, and many IT professionals and computer geeks will look at the plethora of options available in the Windows world and not only not be fazed by them, but delight in the choices. Those same people often get frustrated that if you want to run the Mac OS, your choices are essentially limited to Apple, and then the limited choices they give you within that. But it sure makes it easier “for the rest of us” to make a decision, which is why we entitled that paragraph: “Macs are much easier to buy.” Obviously, with either, you can just see one and click “buy,” but with a PC, you’ll never be sure whether Samsung or Dell or HP or Acer or Toshiba or who knows how many other brands to choose from was the “best” one, all with their different video cards and storage options and screen sizes, not to mention the presumed or expected quality. That’s a lot of choices, and that makes it harder. That’s all we’re saying.
3. In general, when Apple makes assumptions with its software, it gets it right, Microsoft often gets it wrong
Surely this is subjective, but when you run Microsoft’s software, even on a Mac, it loves to run interference, making assumptions as to what you’re doing and trying to stay a step ahead. Most often, however, it just gets annoying. For instance, by default, if you type a “1)” in Entourage or Word, suddenly the next paragraph automatically starts with a “2)” even if you don’t want it. Most people spend more time undoing the presumptions than benefitting by them… Microsoft is just horrible at getting in the way.
4. Viruses
While this has changed just a little as Apple has gained ground on Microsoft, Mac users are still living in relative bliss with the lack of viruses, spyware and malware. We’re not saying they can’t get them, but it’s just far less of a problem for Mac users than it is for Windows users.
One More Reason For Mac Download
5. Time Machine and the Cloud
Not nearly enough people back up their hard drives (because it should be everyone), but Apple’s Time Machine makes it so elegant and simple that all you really need to do is hook up a drive and turn Time Machine on. And it’s not just a back-up, but you can go back in time to find a document you deleted. Apple is further assisting with backing up with the utilization of iCloud, something especially appreciated in this age of people using multiple devices, such as the iPhone and iPad.
6. When something goes wrong…
Microsoft makes the software. Dell, or Sony, or HP, or seemingly a million other manufacturers, make the Windows PC. Then you have third-party drivers and whatever else for all the peripherals. When you have a problem, everyone points a finger at everyone else. With the Mac, the issue rests more often just with Apple. Of course, any customer of PowerMax who has ever had a question or problem can attest to the friendly expertise we also provide to help sort it all out for them as well.
7. Apple makes upgrading its OS simple, Microsoft still keeps it complicated
Apple smoothly transitions its customers to its latest OS for free. Windows can’t even use a consistent naming scheme: the versions include: 7, 8, XP, Vista, CE, NT, 98, 2000. The best we can say about that is that their scattered approach to naming matches their scattered approach to their OS.
8. Microsoft is for people who love tinkering with computers, Apple is for people who just want to get their work done
What’s pretty much true is that the back-end, server-infrastructure kinds of things is well-handled by Microsoft, because it’s in the “land of the geeks,” who love to dig into the machinery and tinker with all the settings and understand all the acronyms. Those kind of people like Windows on the front end as well because they understand all the crazy intricacies and complications of the computer system. Apple isn’t nearly as big in the IT world, and that’s okay, because its front end user interface for “the rest of us” doesn’t require us to be computer whizzes to get things done.
9. Let’s face it, Apple understands style
While there are a zillion different styles of PC out there, pretty much everyone agrees that the style, elegance, and just plain “hipness” of the Mac has yet to be beat. They just look cool. Most importantly, because they can stay out of the “I can make it cheaper” fray in the PC world, Apple’s quality is second-to-none.
10. You can run Windows on a Mac anyway, so why not get the best of both worlds?
Apple allows Windows to be installed via its own Boot Camp, or you can use a third-party virtualization program, such as Parallels, VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox. So why not both save money in the long run and have access to virtually any desktop software you want?
Updated Boffins based in Austria, Germany, and the UK have identified yet another which stands for 'Power Leakage Attacks: Targeting Your Protected User Secrets.'
Vulnerability naming is something of an issue in the security community, particularly in cases where the name appears to exaggerate the severity of the the disclosure. 'Platypus' thus should be well-received.
The paper describes a way to extract confidential data from devices by measuring power consumption fluctuations in Intel chips from Sandy Bridge onward using just software and without the need to physically wire instruments to machines. This means it can be used by malware already on a computer, or a rogue user, to break through protection barriers and observe sensitive information, such as secret kernel data structures and the contents of SGX enclaves.
Intel celebrates security of Ice Lake Xeon processors, so far impervious to any threat due to their unavailability
READ MOREThe researchers responsible include Moritz Lipp, Andreas Kogler, David Oswald, Michael Schwarz, Catherine Easdon, Claudio Canella, and Daniel Gruss, some of whom were involved in the 2018 Spectre and Meltdown disclosures.
Their attack exploits the unrestricted availability of the Intel Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) software interface, which was introduced in Intel's Sandy Bridge Architecture (2011) and gained Linux support in 2013.
'We show that with sufficient statistical evaluation, we can observe variations in power consumption, which distinguish different instructions and different Hamming weights of operands and memory loads,' the paper explains. 'This enables us to not only monitor the control flow of applications but also to infer data and extract cryptographic keys.'
A number of computer security experts have managed to conduct similar attacks using external hardware, specifically some electronics and an oscilloscope, to monitor power fluctuations and observe instructions in cryptographic algorithms to extract secret keys. The latest paper's authors point to an attack disclosed in 2016 that required 17 days of measurements to obtain AES-NI keys.
This time, the boffins have done a bit better, obtaining AES-NI keys from an SGX enclave and the Linux kernel in somewhere between 26 hours (ideal conditions) to 277 hours (real-world conditions). Also, this latest attack did not require physical access to the computer because it relied on the software-based RAPL interface. The contents of SGX enclaves are supposed to be hidden from even a system's administrators, users, operating system, and other software running on the box. They are designed to hold things like DRM decryption code for media, cryptographic secrets, and so on, that not even the owner and operator of the hardware – which could be a cloud giant or a PC user – can access.
With privileged access, the Platypus team claim they can recover RSA private keys from an Mbed TLS implementation within 100 minutes by inferring the instructions executed inside an SGX enclave, and can derandomize kernel address space layout randomization (KASLR) in 20 seconds by observing power consumption variance between valid and invalid kernel addresses.
One of the researchers involved, Michael Schwarz, has uploaded a YouTube video demonstrating the technique:
Platypus is not a speculative execution flaw – it doesn't exploit the problematic behavior of speculating future instruction paths. Rather, it's a simple side-channel that leaks information useful for compromising system confidentiality.
The boffins say they tested their attack on Intel chips but they point to the presence of similar power measurement tools for other microarchitectures, like AMD's RAPL interface which allows instructions executed on AMD Zen CPU cores to be identified and monitored.
Apple now Arm'd to the teeth: MacBook Air and Pro, Mac mini to be powered by custom M1 chips rather than Intel
READ MORE'This could allow similar attacks on AMD CPUs, e.g., against AMD’s SEV-SNP, where a privileged kernel-space attacker is conceivable,' the paper explains, and points to other CPU vendors like Ampere, Arm, Cavium, Hygon, IBM, and Nvidia that offer power measurement interfaces.
The researchers say they've disclosed the issue to both Arm and AMD. A spokesperson for AMD didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Intel on Tuesday published patches for the two CVE-listed vulnerabilities associated with this research (CVE-2020-8694 and CVE-2020-8695), which were responsibly disclosed in advance to the company.
'Today, we published INTEL-SA-0389 providing details and mitigation guidance to protect against potential information leakage from Intel SGX using the Running Average Power Limit (RAPL) Interface which is provided by most modern processors,' an Intel spokesperson said in a statement provided to The Register. 'We coordinated with industry partners and released microcode updates for these vulnerabilities through our normal Intel Platform Update (IPU) process.'
Reason For Mac Torrent
Intel's patch alters its software so that instead of providing actual power consumption measurements, it offers data generated from a predictive model. As a result, the power consumption differences that occur when instructions handle data and operands can no longer be discerned.
An update to the Linux powercap driver has been devised to limit unprivileged access to the Intel RAPL MSRs (machine specific registers). On macOS and Windows, access to the Intel RAPL requires the installation of the Intel Power Gadget, so neither of those two operating systems have to mount a native defense against Platypus.
In short, install the latest firmware for your Intel-powered computer to get Chipzilla's fixes, and update and reboot your Linux machines, or limit use of Power Gadget on other systems, if Platypus is a concern for you. ®
Updated to add
Reason For Mac Torrent
In a statement to The Register, AMD said it is working to address security weaknesses introduced by its implementation of RAPL. “In line with industry partners, AMD has updated the RAPL interface to require privileged access,” a spokesperson said. “The change is in the process of being integrated into Linux distributions.”