I was asked recently to review two anti-virus products for the Mac: Norton Internet Security for Mac Dual Protection and Intego Virus Barrier.
All I can say is, wow, awesome software. Well done to the developers. Both packages fast, slick, wide-ranging and comprehensive. Like the Maginot Line.
The Maginot Line was a well-constructed string of French fortifications built along the French-German border before World War Two. The forts were state of the art. Domed turrets could mechanically rise, fire a few shots and submerge back into the top of the structure. Tens of thousands of soldiers could fight, protected and sheltered within.
The Line had over 500 separate buildings: guard posts; communications centres; infantry shelters; barricades; artillery, machine gun, and anti-tank gun emplacements; supply depots, infrastructure facilities; observation posts and 45 large forts housing 1000 soldiers each. Much of the Line was connected by lit and ventilated tunnels, through which ran telephone lines. Some tunnels were fitted with a narrow-gauge underground rail system.
In total, the Maginot Line housed 40,000+ soldiers, tying up more than half of the entire French army! Albeit in considerable comfort. They must have felt pretty impregnable in there (like most Mac users do now).
Unfortunately, of course, all this French work was hardly necessary. In 1940, the Germans simply bypassed most of the beautifully built, interconnected strong-points by attacking through Belgium, which was neutral and had no serious fortifications.
But it's like John Ralston Saul says - the winners of the last war think that's how the next war will be fought. It's the losers who think otherwise.
There were, eventually, a few direct assaults on Maginot Line forts, by the way. Most held out until the line was completely surrounded. And then France surrendered anyway.
Like the Maginot Line, the two newish Mac anti-malware packages mentioned above are monuments to man's technical ingenuity - both in defence and in the fact that they need to be so sophisticated to withstand such ingenious attacks.
To this date, though - what attacks? Despite gleefully retold rumours of security breaches and outbreaks, Macs are still mercifully free of viruses and malware. As, of course, some PCs are - if their owners have degrees in computer science, a few years experience, eight-hour days spent safeguarding them or, rather incredibly, by claiming to 'never go on the internet', as some commenters would have it.
Yeah, whatevs.
Of course, there have been Mac viruses in the past. I remember a really clever one in which the letters started dropping off the page in front of you. You couldn't quite believe your eyes until large gaps started appearing. Shortly, all your work was gone. Ouch. Another pasted bits of pornographic, er, 'literature' into emails in transit, leading to some embarrassment. Others deleted files or inexplicably filled hard drives.
Strangely, this happened while Macs held about 12 per cent or more of the worldwide PC market, quite a lot higher than now. The strange part is that 12 per cent of the computer market 15-20 years ago was a tiny number when you consider the total pool of actual users then. Compared to, say, seven per cent of the market now, with its millions and millions more users overall, one could argue there is actually an incentive to write Mac viruses. (I'm not going to define that incentive; who understands hackers? Except, perhaps, the desire to craft very lean and clever code - but this could be exercised for good rather than harm.)
Apple is currently expected to move over two million Macs over 12 months. If Mac users keep their machines around five years (as, anecdotally, they tend to), that's up to 10 million newish Macs out there ... is that not an attractive target?
Intego's suite is as comprehensive as the Maginot Line. It installs the X5 iterations of ContentBarrier, FileGuard, NetBarrier, Personal Antispam, Personal Backup and VirusBarrier.
Personal backup is not relevant to me as I have an Apple Time Capsule using Time Machine, and Personal Antispam could be useful for any Mac users who have their email address on any websites. But I already deploy the excellent SpamSieve [http://c-command.com/spamsieve/] by Michael Tsai, which works with Apple Mail, Microsoft Entourage and other Mac email programs.
I haven't had a good exploration of the Intego features because they're a bit hard to test, with no virus threats. But sure, if viruses were there, I'm sure it's pretty good. Just as the Maginot Line would no doubt have been very effective had it been comprehensively, frontally assaulted.
Likewise, Norton Internet Security for Mac Dual Protection is fast, slick, unobtrusive and most importantly helps protect those who have Windows on their Macs. However, I don't have the nerve (or, once again, the need) to reinstall it after my Time Capsule stopped backing up. Uninstalling Norton solved that, although I didn't spend the time, admittedly, to isolate if it was actually Norton's IS4MacDP that was the cause. With no viruses to speak of and those precious Time Capsule backups under threat, I reckon that's excusable.
So, if a Mac virus shows up, you might like to try either of these. I will actually post a review of the Intego suite on my mac.nz site over the next few days.
In the meantime, it's not like Mac users won't know if a virus appears. It will be loudly proclaimed from every rooftop, and most loudly of all by those multitudes of PC virus sufferers.
In the meantime, the MacMaginot line is pretty comfy. So I wish you happy Mac computing. But remember Belgium ... (And yes, 'Webster' is a Belgian surname.)
- Mark Webster mac.nz
PHOTO: A 135mm gun installation at Ouvrage du Hochwald on the Maginot Line in 1940.
