"Update update upgrade//
upgrade don't hesitate//
patches patches patches//
security vulnerability patches//
update upgrade upgrade"... etc
Are we running software for productivity, performance or for living the life of applying updates and patches to "security exploits" created in security labs by "experts"? Let's say you're screwed. What will happen? Nobody knows.
All fuss about security didn't prevent ransomware attacks as well as sudden discovery of the security hole on a hardware level such as Spectre and Meltdown lurking as they said for
decades before being "mitigated" in 2017 or so. The interesting thing is that no reports about serious breaches and global catastrophes caused by the couple. Old holes covered, new ones open. So, considering that there're really a few variants:
- Your machine is seized. No security updates can stop that. One day in the future it will just happen: they "harden" their defence grid, the other side figures out new ways to override it. By "figures out" I mean it mostly succeeds.
- Your machine is infected. In this case, as they been telling us for years, nothing serious will happen either because, they said, your Mac has Unix-proof inherited security mechanisms that simply isolate infected parts of the system.
- Nothing happens. The main advertised reason ("you should update your software because of security") loses all its attractiveness. At that point you may run your software as long as you benefit and if you decide to update it's just because you want new features. To buy a computer and apps just for "security" is the most absurd and ridiculous thing - and the unscrupulous marketing strategy - thought out ever. Wouldn't it be most secure not to buy them at all? A computer is a tool for work to be done, not a hacker's gloves.
- Even if you're so obsessed and managed to build the wall so that you feel the ideal security is accomplished then you're not secure either: you left all too many footprints so those who really want and in possession of large data hoards (government) will get to you. Social No, social profiles, your home, work, family - all of that is easily detectable. The reason is that it's easily identifiable by persons having access to greater technical means of surveillance which leads to the acknowledgement of the fact that these people have a lot of power you could do nothing against in terms of cybersecurity. Any government has more at its disposal and the best in class. Tech companies make great play with deliberately injected fears.
Does that mean you're free of troubles? Definitely no. However, those are of a completely different nature and the main one is compatibility which is a nice word for "obsolescence": the more products a company has on its offerings list the more compatibility issues is going to emerge. In just 3 years "the most advanced operating system" is worth (according to Apple's vision) throwing it out. If you want to sync your devices your iOS and OS X must fall within a very narrow scope of compatibility: you can't sync Lion computer with an iOS7 device through iTunes 10.6.3 despite the fact that support for Lion ended in 2014 and iOS 7 was released in 2013 - you must run either iOS 6 or Mountain Lion or newer or update to a crappy and godawful iTunes 12: I don't understand why I can't use iTunes 10 or at least iTunes 11? You can't sync Mavericks (supported in 2013-2016) with iOS 12 (2018), only iOS 11 (2017) because iTunes 12.7 (2018) will require at least Yosemite (2014: the trash just like iTunes 12). Today I got my new iPhone SE with iOS 11 (2017) and wasn't able to sync it with Mac because iTunes 11.4 (2014) is not enough, I only managed to do that in High Sierra with iTunes 12.8! Likewise, if you've got "iBook Author" that's compatible with pre-El Cap you
cannot use its "preview on an iOS" feature. That's just stupid: in iBook Store, the requirements to read eBooks are Mavericks and later and iOS 4 and later, why in the world can't I use preview in an older version of iBA?
I did update to Mavericks and High Sierra but found Mavericks robust and advanced enough so that HS seems like overkill. Being cautious I never installed on top but ran concurrently and this strategy justified itself in several situations. More and more time I spend in Mavericks: it has better apps support than Lion and it's UI is gorgeous. Meanwhile, I pop in HS just to do a couple of things and get back. I was running Lion as my main OS X up to last year's December. I never experienced any breaches, threats etc and I browsed the darkest corners of the web including adult sites and other places of my pervert interest. My main threat was the ageing of the software: at first, Google dropped support for the mapping services in Apple apps, then other players followed the suit and Safari 5 became simply unusable on such demanding sites as Facebook, Cult of Mac, MacWorld, Flickr, Vimeo and the likes - used it for light browsing with browsers providing better support than Apple. For example, Chrome 49 (2016) was so advanced when released that it can run pretty well even today and began to show early signs of decay only recently with the likes of Disqus, Apple.com - and in the latter case not because of the rendering technology but because Apple decided to do the general overhaul of their site: I'm able to log in with Chrome but buttons to post, comment and click don't work anymore. You won't believe but I successfully logged in to Apple's site and ASC, browsed, posted in Safari 5.1.7 (2012) till December 2018!
I inverse their mantra: don't compromise your efficacy in favour of security. Breath easy.
