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Dear silicon.com... Apple vs Vista, jail for mobile users and the broadband swindle…

Reader Comments of the Week
Written by silicon.com staff, Contributor

Reader Comments of the Week

What's got silicon.com readers reaching for their keyboards this week? Reader Comments of the Week showcases how our users are responding to the latest tech news and views on the site...

Rotten apples?
Apple OS X more vulnerable than Vista?

Show me one person's system on OS X that's been exploited. I'm not talking proof-of-concept - I'm talking actual exploit.
-- Anonymous, USA

Mr Anonymous from the USA, have you actually read the article? Yes there have been more updates of OS X - but where does it state that it is less secure?

"Apple OS X more vulnerable than Vista?
…but not necessarily less secure"

Does this headline say anything about OS X being less secure?
-- Windows User, UK

They are basically playing with statistics here. Finding theoretical "vulnerabilities" does not mean anybody would be able to exploit them in the real world. In many of these cases you have to do multiple stupid things to even have a chance of running into trouble. In contrast, we have plenty of real world experience with XP and Vista viruses - this is clear.
-- Tom B, Durham, NC

Ou is simply being deceptive. He did the same thing last spring, he counted flaws in open source software that accompanies OS X, such as Perl. In many cases, such as Perl, the same fault was counted multiple times, e.g. any one instance of OS X could only have one of five of the flaws listed.

There are some actual flaws in the operating system itself but these are buried under a mound of mostly irrelevant flaws with respect to how users of OS X use OS X. Virtually all are not exploitable by a network attack. Most are difficult from an unprivileged account on the machine itself and there is little or no exploit code for these.
-- Michael Fischer, Canterbury

Editor's choice

silicon.com editor Steve Ranger flags up his picks on the site this week...

Peter Cochrane's Blog: Resolutions for 2008
The best of 2007
Leader: Missing Xmas parcels highlight online fulfilment dangers
2008: The year of mobile handset evolution?


The price of a call…
Threat of jail for mobile phone drivers

This seems to be getting a little out of hand. A little bit of perspective needs to be given, along with some continuity.

If you can be jailed for holding a mobile, then you should also be for smoking, changing radio stations and anything else that requires the use of one hand off the wheel.
-- MusicFan, CV UK

Hang on the jails are already full.

The police don't have resources to implement the existing law on mobiles.

What difference is this "announcement" going to make?
-- Roger Huffadine, Worcester

Of course it is stupid to distract yourself while driving. But then we had laws to deal with that long before the mobile phone even existed - 'driving without due care and attention'.
-- Anonymous, South East

More pointless micro-management, with a view to removing discretion from the prosecutors and judges. As already mentioned, there are already laws dealing with this – 'driving without due care and attention' and 'dangerous driving'. No more is needed.
-- Jeremy Wickins, Sheffield

Absolutely, we need legislation to make it illegal to drive without due care and attention.

Oh wait. We've got it already.

Here's a radical idea. Let's replace some cameras with real police officers who can see when someone is driving badly, on the phone, clearly over full of Christmas spirit or whatever and actually let them enforce the law.
Or is that too simple?
-- Simon Bradley, London


Not up to speed
Broadband speeds under scrutiny

Here's a suggestion:

First: You buy an 'up to' certain speed package which sets a cap price.
Second: The line speed is constantly monitored by the ISP and you pay that fraction of the cap price that you actually get.

So if you have an 'up to' 8Mb package and you only receive an average of 4Mb over a month then you pay 50 per cent for that month.

The ISP's would have engineers on overtime trying to get every last bit per second out of your line.
-- Karen Challinor, UK

Karen's idea is good but I wonder if it is practical. I pay for up to 16Mb. I get at various times 450kb to 7.2Mb. Average is probably just below 5Mb. One problem is that when my link is slow a reboot of the PC and modem can usually bring the speed back up to 6Mb or 7Mb. Who at the ISP end can deal with that?
-- misceng, UK

What bit of "up to" do people not understand?
-- Anonymous, UK


Please note, comments may be edited for clarity, grammar and style. The views expressed are not necessarily the views of silicon.com. You can write to silicon.com by posting a Reader Comment below, or emailing editorial@silicon.com.

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