Mac Users Under Trojan Threat

Posted February 16, 2006, 2:13 p.m.

A ‘Trojan Horse’ application called Oompa-Loompa (OSX/Oomp-A or OSX/Leap-A) is making the rounds in the Macintosh universe. While this application is not a virus, it does have some virus- or worm-like properties and is probably the closest thing to affect the Mac platform since the launch of the Unix-based Mac OS X.

As in the past, some media outlets and companies will probably attempt to arouse concern of a major security threat against the Mac platform. But the Oompa-Loompa trojan can only activate when a user unpacks a tgz compressed file and double-clicks the application (which appears at a cursory glance to be an image file). The trojan then infects random applications and attempts to propagate via iChat (Apple’s AIM program), but the receiving users again can only be infected if they intentionally decompress and run the application.

In other words, don’t double-click strange files. This goes for users of all computer platforms. For more information on this trojan, Andrew’s Post at the Ambrosia Software message board is the best source.

Scott Bradford is a writer and technologist who has been putting his opinions online since 1995. He believes in three inviolable human rights: life, liberty, and property. He is a Catholic Christian who worships the trinitarian God described in the Nicene Creed. Scott is a husband, nerd, pet lover, and AMC/Jeep enthusiast with a B.S. degree in public administration from George Mason University.

Quotes

Competition does a much more effective job than government at protecting consumers.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

If a bigot says in public often enough that racism is evil, the bigot is self-influencing himself to be less racist. We are better off encouraging insincere but positive opinions, because they are self-fulfilling to a degree. Reward what works.

You have to risk failure to move forward.

As life must be nourished, defended, and preserved; so freedom must be repurchased in each generation.

It gets late early out there.

How is there laughter, how is there joy, as this world is always burning? Do you not seek a light, ye who are surrounded by darkness?

We are not saved by reading and trying to live the Sermon on the Mount, i.e., by imitation. . . . God gave us not just words but The Word; not just a philosopher but a martyr; not just His mind but His Body.

Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.

Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea or sensation, and never shrinks back to its former dimensions.

The right of a nation to kill a tyrant, in cases of necessity, can no more be doubted, than to hang a robber, or kill a flea. But killing one tyrant only makes way for worse, unless the people have sense, spirit, and honesty enough to establish and support a constitution guarded at all points against the tyranny of the one, the few, and the many.

Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. That’s true for companies, and it’s true for products.

The man who renounces himself, comes to himself.

I would sooner walk in the dark, and hold hard to a promise of my God, than trust in the light of the brightest day. . . .

Nobody really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you’ll see why.

The tragedy in all of this is the simple fact that the average tax-paying American was not given an honest and genuine choice. The voter finds himself enduring one party long enough to witness a whole series of travesties and then switches to the other party thinking he will get a substantial reversal of policy. But he doesn’t.

The passions are not evil but they are stupid. They need a teacher.

There is no great merit in any merely outward act; all depends upon the inward motive that provokes the deed.

Any product that needs a manual to work is broken.

The best way to predict the future is to create it.