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Apple’s comedy programming strikes again

by on05 December 2017


Novice security flaw patch destroyed by update

Apple’s comedy programming team has struck again and released a software update which undoes an emergency security patch which undid a security flaw which was so basic a toddler on crack would not have written it.

A few days ago, a serious security flaw with macOS High Sierra came to light. It was discovered that it was possible to log into the "root" account without entering a password. The Tame Apple Press rushed to praise its favourite company for pushing a fix out of the door quickly. TAP failed to mention that Apple was stupid for allowing code like that out the door in the first place, but that is another matter.

But it seems that the comedy Apple software team could not allow people think that they could do anything right. The bug fix has a bug of its own and if you upgrade to macOS 10.13.1 you could well find that the patch is undone.

Apple's bug fix is an animated poo of software. Apple predicted a particular order in which users would do things - after all worshippers at the fruity cargo cult do exactly what Jobs’ Mob tells them all the time. However this assumption means the original problem can be reintroduced. If you had upgraded to macOS High Sierra 10.13.1 and then installed the patch you should be fine - but not everyone did this.

If you had yet to upgrade to the very latest version of High Sierra -- that is, you were running 10.13.0 -- and you install the patch and THEN upgraded to 10.13.1, the "root" access bug rears its head once again.

Others found even if they have upgraded to 10.13.1 before installing the patch, there is no notification that a reboot is required to finish the installation, and therefore the problem remains.

Basically, if you want to avoid problems, you need to make sure that you've upgraded to High Sierra 10.13.1, then install the patch and then reboot your computer. If you installed the patch in 10.13.0 and then upgraded to 10.13.1, you'll need to reinstall the patch and reboot.

The most effective work around is to take a sledgehammer to your Mac and buy a cheaper more high tech computer with software like Windows or Linux which is written by programmers who follow a basic Q&A. if something goes wrong they fix it quickly without waiting for a round of applause from the media for repairing their novice cock ups.

Last modified on 05 December 2017
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