Apple’s strongest security feature: the Mighty Mouse
Posted by iGor
We’ve all heard the stories and seen the movies about jealous PC users who break into Mac user’s houses while they’re sleeping and try to mess up their Macs. While Hollywood has perhaps sensationalized the stories slightly (often trying to shoehorn in a love story or car chase), the threat is all too real.
Apple computers have long held a virtually spotless record when it comes to warding off viruses and hacking attacks compared to its Windows-running rivals, but the fact is your Mac is just as vulnerable as any PC once someone has physical access to your computer. Leave your computer unattended for just a minute, and if someone really wanted to, they could quickly drag all your photos or music to the trash and empty it in about 20 seconds.
Apple to the rescue!
Luckily, Apple has got you covered with a $49 ($69 for the wireless version) security device known as the Mighty Mouse. Using a Mighty Mouse virtually ensures your computer will be inaccessible to just about any jealous PC-using evildoer who may wish to do your Mac harm.
Setup
Setup is easy; simply plug the mouse in, and you are good to go. In our tests, the average PC user who attempted to click on something using the Mighty Mouse took approximately 40% longer than with a conventional mouse. Even when they were able to click on something, they actually performed a right click 30% of the time. Those extra seconds add up, and usually allowed us time to get to our office and flick the lights on and off, thus scaring them away.
Total lock down
For the ultimate in security, Apple allows you to assign its Exposé feature to the Mighty Mouse (you can do this in System Preferences> Keyboard and Mouse).
If you assign Exposé’s “All Windows” function to the Mighty Mouse’s scroll wheel (middle button), the average PC user will only be able to perform an endless cycle of causing your windows to slide back and forth, never getting close to damaging or deleting any of your files. In our tests, all PC users walked away in frustration in under 2 minutes when the Exposé feature was applied.
Buying advice
The Mighty Mouse acts as a veritable Fort Knox, protecting your Mac from unwanted access the way no other device can, and it looks great doing it. We say $49 is a small price to pay to to get that little extra piece of mind that comes with knowing you’re files are safe from PC-loving evildoers.
🙂
My kids can’t use my computer for exactly that reason! The MM baffles them.
yes a might mouse might slow me down, only if it was not attached to the computer.
ha ha, yes I’ve noticed this. It takes some getting used to.
That’s so funny. Last week a friend of mine couldn’t get a cd to burn on his pc, so he brought the files over to us. We have a Mac Pro with a mighty mouse, and he tried to show us where the files were on his usb stick using the mighty mouse, and he kept doing the expose thing every time he clicked. He must have done it 4 times before looking at me helplessly, and I then effortlessly opened the drive. so funny!
well, i guess mac users need SOMETHING to feel superior about.
Erm, nice article, but it doesn’t say anything about “security from the terrible PC users who want to walk into your house and manually delete all your files” on the Apple site… because people like that exist…
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=macs_cant
what will the mighty mouse do when I throw the mac out the window?
None of my friends can ever get a left click in on my mighty mouse…
The MM was a little hard to get used to. Its fine for me now.
Ahahahaha useless Macs.
Aahaha… dugg and dugg. awesome stuff… using a wired MM right now at work, and y’know… the exact same thing happens when people who have worked here for years longer than I have can’t operate the damn thing… priceless.
I still like my regular wireless PC mouse more however. APPLE, MAKE A CONTOURED MOUSE FOR ONCE! 😀
Oh my god, a user unfamiliar with a piece of hardware will have trouble using it!
But of course, when a Mac-for-life user who’s never had more than one mouse button tries to use a PC mouse with 2 buttons, and clicks the wrong one all the time, it’s not a “security feature”, it’s “unintuitive”.
Pfft.
“Apple computers have long held a virtually spotless record when it comes to warding off viruses and hacking attacks compared to its Windows-running rivals”
Because nobody fucking uses it. Most of the people who use it are tech savvy and won’t get hacked. DA DA DA! I personally enjoy Vista!
Indeed, and whoa betide those who don’t clean that scroll pea.
Another sub-standard product from Apple. Kudos! Let’s have a two button mouse look – and sometimes function – like a ONE button mouse! Form over function!
I think you need more than a mouse if people are randomly deleting stuff from your ‘puter. WTF mate?
Oh damn that’s hilarious
“I personally enjoy Vista!”
So you do like Mac OS!
Tommy Tuttle,
This article was a satire, he wasn’t lauding the Mighty Mouse’s excellent security features, he was making fun of how hard it was to use. I’m not sure what your so ruffled about.
Hmm, I thought MACs were supposed to be intuitive? Seems to me a PC user would figure this out in about 10 seconds while a MAC user would only figure it out from stubborness to get online and gripe in forums about it.
Macs Rule!
So… someone, who shall remain nameless (Becky Zemo) likes Vista –
That’s one.
/Nice job M$ you have one person snowed already!
Don, take a piece of advice. Macs suck, MS Vista RULE!
I was expecting the obvious answer to local security. Set a password on your screensaver and make the hot corner be the top right. Then you use the mouse to move to the top right and your desktop is secured.
Burried. Lame.
Well with Windows being on 95% of all machines out there it’s easy to say anyone else has a spotless track record when it comes to viruses and hacking, not exactly hard to crunch those numbers. Personally I’m enjoying Windows Vista Ultimate, on my PC that is 😉
Photar, you can’t bury things as lame here. I think you’ve spent too much time on Digg. I picture you walking around in your daily life saying ” Burried. Lame” whenever you don’t like something, be it a cheeseburger or the latest gas prices.
🙂
AppleFan: Just because you use something thats un-intuitive does not make you clever. It just means your willing to sacrifice usability for style, spend to much and then gloat over it.
That’s weird. I am not a Mac guy by any stretch, but I have yet to run into any PC user who likes Windows Vista. Although, I will say this, it is nice to see Windows users starting to defend their OS as vehemently as Mac users do, even if they’re wrong.
(BTW, I have never seen a Mighty Mouse, but I thought this article was funny).
It’s, it’s, it’s a joke, son.
What a dumb article. A Mighty Mouse is the easiest peripheral to use.
when you cant use a mouse…how about u try the keyboard they have shortcuts for that reason…or upload a computer program to execute the command…wud take a short amount of time..
Security through obscurity………I sense a pattern.
Don’t outgrow your britches lads or it will turn into a game of spy vs. spy.
I must be a super-genius, for it took me all of five seconds to figure out how the mighty mouse works! I wonder how many of these mac-hater posters have ever used a mac?
what about setting a hot corner to the screensaver and having the screensaver password protected?
Been using Mac’s for two years – from day one though I had my 8 button Logitech trackball and never gave the Mighty Mouse a thought.
Funny thing is I feel more superior about the trackball then having a stable OS. Ohh you people who have to move around your hands to use the computer I feel for you.
I’m a mac-hater, and its what they provide to us in uni.
What is funnier than this article is all the outraged, indignant PC fanboy responses. Guys, you’d think it was obvious from the first sentence. Movies about jealous PC users who break into Mac user’s houses while they’re sleeping? Oh yeah. There are soooo many of those movies. LOL
Jono Cono nailed it…with maybe 5% of the total userbase teh Mac crowd doed not offer the cr/hacker/virus crowd much incentive; how do you brag about infecting 50 machines?!?
I also love how Macs are touted to, “Just work”. Today’s Macs are PC’s with alternative Operating Systems installed, so we know the advantage does not come from hardware, even though you pay at least 30% more for the exact same thing. Nope. Simple. If you limit any platform’s software library, you limit the number of possible issues. And with such a small user base, you can be sure that Mac’s software library will be limited simply by today’s market economy; limited demand, limited supply, limited growth.
I also love Vista. Give it plenty of memory and SuperFetch actually does a great job of making the system respond instantaneously. Combined with ReadyBoost, I see zero hesitation between me clicking on an icon and the application being open and ready to use.
The one good thing I can say about Macs is that a Mac user currently holds the high score in Photoshop!
Its a little hard to get used to, but you get the hang of it in a couple of days.
I have the best of both worlds XP and mac os X tiger. Get them both and stop complaining. Thankyou very much. I must say MS did a great job with the photo copying of MAC OS X. We will see if MS can keep up and photocopy leopard. Maybe in five more years.
Windows+L
That’s just great. You’re like one of those guys who posts tutorials on YouTube showing how to pick locks. Your article tips off the bad guys to our secret weapon. What’s to prevent one of these enterprising wrong-doers from buying his own Mighty Mouse, and spending the requisite six month break-in period adjusting to a four-button mouse which only has one button? What then?
All we’ll have left is our lack of a “Start” menu to prevent our Macs from being shut down.
@Becky Zemo
Mac users aren’t tech savvy!? Myself and most Mac users I know are seasoned Unix professionals with at least 10 years of experience. We prefer OS X to Windows because it’s Unix based. It doesn’t get viruses because it doesn’t allow any program to run as the administrator user and do as it pleases.
Pretty much all of the MOST tech savvy people I know use Macs, and the dumber ones use Windows. 😉
Funny, had no problem pairing the mouse, and figuring out how to use it on my pc running vista… ha ha ah ah ha
90% of the commenters here have completely missed the point of this article. It’s satirising the Mighty Mouse. Helloooooo!!! Any intelligent life out there?!?!
(*echoes*)
(*tumbleweeds*)
Anyhoo, you can greatly enhance the security features of the Mighty Mouse, just assign both ‘left click’ and ‘right click’ to ‘Desktop’ thus making all the windows disappear whenever you click anything, and for those in the know, you can assign the ‘squeeze’ button to be an ordinary left click. Forget the right click, who needs that anyway…… (cue more kneejerk debate)
“What is funnier than this article is all the outraged, indignant PC fanboy responses.”
Totally agree. I say, whoever prefers Windows deserves Windows, so everybody’s happy.
Lol.. i like hedgecore… hey man another thing about Mac that is different from PC is that Mac isn’t in all caps, it is just short for Macintosh.
to the rest of you all have fun hating on the OS that Vista is based on… and use a mac some time and you will notice the similarities… looks like Gate$ stole another OS idea just by changing a few things so it is essentially the same but he can’t be sued over it… exactly what he did the first time!
MM sucks( and I do love MAC ). Setup the right “button” on the MM to be a left click and disable everyting else on it and a 2 year old can use it. Then you just spent a lot of money for a “stupid” one button mouse, that those little bastards have a much better time using than the 2 button 😉
Apple mice suck like hell!
It’s funny, I never have that problem in Windows, because I just lock my computer. I know you can (somewhat) do this in OS X through fast user switching, but it’s lame and a pain compared to windows key + L. For a “secure” OS it sure does seem to want you to leave your computer open to anyone who walks by.
@Aneudys
Perhaps you should see a certain presentation by Bill Gates about the whistler project a feew years before OS X was announced.
You may see some simularities between what M$ were working on 6 years ago and the ‘Original’ development ideas that apple had, even better if your sat in front of OS X.1 and following bill gates’ instructions as he navigates around HIS beta.