A better analogy

The Macalope has very little to add to this Daring Fireball post on David Maynor's crappy prestige for the MacBook wireless trick (part of the prestige is timing, David) other than to note that Mr. Gruber's "frog that can recite the alphabet" analogy misses the mark. Because the horny one can tell you categorically there's no such frog (he's been to all of the mythical creature meetings and he's never seen one) and -- despite the blatherings of numerous silly pundits -- no one outside of Slashdot commenters was claiming that OS X bugs didn't exist.

A better analogy would be someone who claimed they had something you knew existed but just hadn't seen before. Like maybe an Indian Head nickel. And when you asked to see it they said, oh, they'd love to show you but you wouldn't understand it because you're not a coin collector. And you were like huh? C'mon, stop being a jerk and show it to me. And they said they couldn't because the U.S. Mint might sue them. And then you said "What? That doesn't even make any sense!" And all of a sudden they stopped talking and their crazy uncle jumped in between the two of you and started screaming about "the gubbermint."

Something like that. That'd be a more accurate analogy.

If somewhat thinly veiled.

[monkyhead]

And then...

And then he ate the restaurant!

[The Real John Muir]

Survivalist?

Ah the Maynor & Ellch MacBook wifi saga, brings back memories of the old '06 so it does. Never again would the world ignore a storm within a teacup quite as numbskulled and cack handed as that. Well until the Groobs actually whapped out his alphabetic Frog savant only for it to turn out to be none other than the Hypnotoad!

I like how Gruber linked that picture of the leading man's home office, which is in fact a fine little conspiratorial whackjob arsenal. Maybe the sight of that put him off any frontal rhetorical attack.

[ripragged]

No preference

Gruber's analogy and yours are both close to what I saw. From the perspective of an end user who just wants to be confident that his computer is reasonably secure, neither of them quite captures the reality.

The item or object isn't just a curiosity; it is a potential tool for an active and malignant community. It also calls into question, without a shred of evidence, the safety and security of the curious.

I liken it to a man meritlessly accused of sexual harassment or child molestation. The moment the accusation is made, the man is guilty until he proves his innocence; even then he will wear the taint of the accusation forever. That is what David Maynor tried to do to OS X.

The fact that Maynor let the whole thing sit for almost a year before publishing his explanation is fishy, which makes his explanation equally fishy. I don't know enough about the mechanics of hacking to speak intelligently about it. I do recognize chest thumping, obfuscating, finger pointing, and backpedaling though. That's what Maynor's report looks like from here.

[Marc Salzberg]

It's very interesting..

that the 'crazy uncle' has been silent on the subject, even though it would
bring his hit count up.