Firefox contains spyware (probably)

[Hermit]

Pistols at dawn, gentlemen?

That's not how things are settled in Australia, mate.

Old fashioned beer-soaked slobber-knocker at dawn, gentlemen?

You're getting the drift of it, but whatever a slobber-knocker is, it's more likely to occur after the day's work is done.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Pistols at dawn, gentlemen?

That's not how things are settled in Australia, mate.

Old fashioned beer-soaked slobber-knocker at dawn, gentlemen?

You're getting the drift of it, but whatever a slobber-knocker is, it's more likely to occur after the day's work is done.

A slobber-knocker is where you knock someone in the slobber. (ie, a fist fight.)

The quote is "Paul" if you haven't seen it.

[Hermit]

Pistols at dawn, gentlemen?

That's not how things are settled in Australia, mate.

Old fashioned beer-soaked slobber-knocker at dawn, gentlemen?

You're getting the drift of it, but whatever a slobber-knocker is, it's more likely to occur after the day's work is done.

A slobber-knocker is where you knock someone in the slobber. (ie, a fist fight.)

The quote is "Paul" if you haven't seen it.

Haven't seen "Paul", nor have I heard that expression anywhere else. Also, the thought of JimC and I engaging in a fist fight fills me with laughter. As far as that is concerned, there's nothing more ridiculous than seeing two old men attempting to punch it out.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Find "Paul" and watch it NOW. It will make even your dour ass smile.

And the speaker was a county sheriff, not too sophisticated.

[Hermit]

Find "Paul" and watch it NOW. It will make even your dour ass smile.

Just had a look at a trailer for the film. Perhaps it does not do justice to it, but based on what I saw I think my dour ass will have to contend itself with just ee-a-ing.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Find "Paul" and watch it NOW. It will make even your dour ass smile.

Just had a look at a trailer for the film. Perhaps it does not do justice to it, but based on what I saw I think my dour ass will have to contend itself with heehawing.

You have to keep score and see how many nerd movie references you can spot (or, hint-hint, hear.)

[Hermit]

Find "Paul" and watch it NOW. It will make even your dour ass smile.

Just had a look at a trailer for the film. Perhaps it does not do justice to it, but based on what I saw I think my dour ass will have to contend itself with heehawing.

You have to keep score and see how many nerd movie references you can spot (or, hint-hint, hear.)

Oh! I think I can count the number of nerd movies I've watched on not many more fingers than allegedly remain on Ratsetsu's hands, so I'll give this parody of other parodies a pass.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

That's just a side benefit. Don't make me come over there and wire your eyelids open.

[Mysturji]

But where is the pop up coming from? It can't come out of nowhere. You'd have to visit a certain website or click on some other element first to get the popup to even occur.

How does Mozilla know you have Firefox installed, and that it's due for an update?
How does Apple know that you have iTunes installed, and it's due for an update?
These things are do-able, it you have the will and the technical expertise. Of course, an Apple or Mozilla insider in you pocket helps, too.

Yeah, but it's not an actual firefox update. It is just made to look like one. It's not firefox that is triggering it.

That's what I said.

It didn't look like it. Are you sure you know what I am saying? You wonder how Mozilla knows you have firefox installed and it is due for an update. The answer is that firefox "phones home", if you haven't disabled that option, and sees if there are updates available. The software is the trigger. But in the case of this spyware, it's not part of firefox. It can't be triggered when firefox "phones home". Something else has to trigger it. My question was - What is triggering it? It has nothing to do with firefox, other than making itself look like a firefox update.

Slight misunderstanding here. I wasn't "wondering", those were rhetorical questions. (I assumed your technical knowledge was at least as good as mine in this area as you were asking intelligent questions, and it's not my speciality).
If "Nefarious Persons Unknown" have the necessary know-how and equipment, they can snoop for those "phone home" messages and spoof replies to them - especially if they have a mole inside the organisation that provides the software feeding them insider knowledge. Hope that clarifies what I was trying to say.

[Mysturji]

I say yes to everything...

That's because you you use a computer platform with such a small market share that no malware and virus programmers have an interest in expending time on. No reason to feel smug about it. In fact, I'd feel embarrassed if I supported Apple Corp. It's monopolistic and avaricious modus operandi makes any other computer company look charitable in comparison. Your mindset has slipped a long way since your SDS days, hasn't it?

It is more to do with the unix base of apple OS. While not impossible it is a lot more difficult to be destructive or gain access to things that you aren't authorised for with the way the filesystem and permissions are laid out. I am quite surprised that there aren't more floating about now with the boom in iThings.

Speaking as a non-expert in this matter I venture to say that if Apple had the market share Micro$oft owns just now, enough resources would be thrown at the former's OS by hackers that the situation would look virtually indistinguishable compared to the one pertaining now, except for the role reversal. With the millions of lines of codes, permissions are not overcome. A weakness will be found elsewhere, allowing them to be circumvented. At any rate, the spyware mentioned in the OP is not hacking any OS. It is slipping into computer systems due to their owners' guilelessness and gullibility. JimC's smugness about his new-found Mac faith borders on gloating, and his repetitive comments in that regard have become irritating to me.

Luckily you are speaking as a non-expert, as what you said is pretty baseless. Unix is a totally different architecture from Windows, and was built with security foremost in it's design. The design itself makes security breaches WAY harder than with Windows.

Windows is based on DOS (yes, even now) which was designed for single-user systems, therefore that single user had to have admin rights or he'd be paralised every time he needed to change anything.
Unix was designed as a muti-user environment, where admin rights were (at least, able) to be strictly controlled, so the common garden "lusers" couldn't break anything important.
Furthermore, Unix was designed for people who have at least some kind of clue about what they're doing, whereas Windows is designed to let any idiot get up-and-clicking in a few minutes.

[DaveD]

Windows is designed to let any idiot get up-and-clicking in a few minutes.

Windows is designed?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Furthermore, Unix was designed for people who have at least some kind of clue about what they're doing, whereas Windows is designed to let any idiot get up-and-clicking in a few minutes.

Which is actually the point here. "Don't let the wizards capture your system." Still good advice.

[Mysturji]

Windows is designed to let any idiot get up-and-clicking in a few minutes.

Windows is designed?

Point taken.

[Svartalf]

Furthermore, Unix was designed for people who have at least some kind of clue about what they're doing, whereas Windows is designed to let any idiot get up-and-clicking in a few minutes.

Which is why I've been a windows user since 1996... even if I do know I don't know how to do thing.

[Mysturji]

I use windows because I like to play games.