Radio says "turn FLASH OFF"

[samintx]

have you heard anything about a bug other than the flu bug?

[GGD]

Are you sure they said Flash, and not Java?

http://forums.macresource.com/read.php?1,1492646

[testcase]

Adobe's Flash and Shockwave are common carries of computer viruses. That's why Apple blocked them from iPhones & iPads. One of the "nasties" told you that an update was needed. If you clicked on the link provided, you were brought to a page that looked like it was Adobe's but really wasn't. Even when these Adobe products are working properly, I find them to be resource hogs. Hence the saying: "computer crash? Its probably Flash!"

[Zoidberg]

It's Java: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/giga...found.html

Apple disables Java 7 OS X plug-in after security threat found

(gigaom.com) -- After the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warned of a vulnerability in Java 7 that could allow malicious software to be installed on users’ machines, Apple moved swiftly to shield OS X users who have downloaded Java 7. On Friday the company disabled the OS X plug-in for the latest version running on some Apple-made machines.

MacRumors reports on how Apple did it:

Apple has achieved this by updating its “Xprotect.plist” blacklist to require a minimum of an as-yet unreleased 1.7.0_10-b19 version of Java 7. With the current publicly-available version of Java 7 being 1.7.0_10-b18, all systems running Java 7 are failing to pass the check initiated through the anti-malware system built into OS X.

Apple stopped developing Java for OS X in late 2010 and no longer includes it as pre-installed software on new Macs. Users who want the plug-in can still download the software separately; only those who have Java 7 are affected by the security threat.

[Chakravartin]

testcase wrote:
One of the "nasties" told you that an update was needed. If you clicked on the link provided, you were brought to a page that looked like it was Adobe's but really wasn't.

That was not Flash.

It was a Java exploit that masqueraded as Flash.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_BackDoor.Flashback

testcase wrote:
Adobe's Flash and Shockwave are common carries of computer viruses. That's why Apple blocked them from iPhones & iPads.

The main reasons that Apple has not let Flash video on the iPhone is that it is closed-source and would subject Apple's production-cycle to Adobe's whims, it's very power-hungry and generally inefficient and they could not provide a good user experience with it.
https://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/

[Chakravartin]

Zoidberg wrote: only those who have Java 7 are affected by the security threat.

No. The threat exists in all versions of Java from 4 up.

Oracle partly patched it in an earlier version of Java 7 (which left Leopard users vulnerable), but failed to protect against exploits that were recently revealed to be incorporated in easily obtained kits available to criminals all over the world.

[PeterB]

Anyone know if this is also the reason that keepvid and similar services are now no longer working for me in Camino? I have the "Enable Java" checkbox checked, I get this:



... I've gotten that before when I didn't set to automatically allow the Java from keepvid, but it's now not even giving me that option. As you all probably know, I also just updated to ML, so I wonder if that might be part of it too.

Edit: when I click on the "Missing Plug In" link, it brings me to a new version of Java to download: http://www.java.com/en/download/mac_download.jsp

[Chakravartin]

PeterB wrote:
Anyone know if this is also the reason that keepvid and similar services are now no longer working for me in Camino?

Yep.

PeterB wrote: when I click on the "Missing Plug In" link, it brings me to a new version of Java to download.

Yes, and that new Java/plugin won't work, either.

Apple has rigged it so that Oracle must update Java before it will run in a browser on a Mac again... unless you are sophisticated enough to edit the Xprotect.plist to change the minimal version back.

[kap]

I still have Macs running on 10.6 and 10.5, and Windows 7 Ultimate. How do we turn off Java?

[Chakravartin]

kap wrote:
I still have Macs running on 10.6 and 10.5, and Windows 7 Ultimate. How do we turn off Java?

Just disable it in the pre'fs for your web browsers.