Panther's FileVault can damage data

[Tim May]

On Friday, November 7, 2003, at 07:52  AM, Eugen Leitl wrote:

> In case you've been using Apple OS X 10.3 (Panther)'s FileVault 
> (Rijndael128
> on ~/) there's a yet unfixed bug. Answer no if requested to regain 
> lost disk
> space in encrypted directory[1]
>
> Notice that while the screen lock buffer overrun has been fixed, there 
> are
> still unresolved issues with it[2]
>
> [1]http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/39/33769.html
>
> [2]http://www.securityfocus.com/bid/8912
>


It's astounding to me that that Apple failed to do basic QC on its 
major new release.

The problem with the Firewire 800 drives using the Oxford 922 chips is 
inexcusable. Did Apple never bother to run the new version of OS X with 
drives made by vendors other than Apple? (I'm assuming here the 
Firewire 800 problem is not present in Apple drives, about which I am 
not 100% convinced.)

Apple should've had a team of testers running the new 10.3 version, as 
with each new version, on a variety of machine configurations, keeping 
careful track of incompatibilities and gotchas. That something so gross 
as trashing external drives (the very popular ones from LaCie and 
others) went unnoticed is just plain inexcusable.

I have a perfectly new copy of "Panther" OS X 10.3 sitting ready to be 
installed on the machine I am on right now. But I won't install it 
until Apple does its QC.

And since I'm still on a dial-up connection and cannot easily download 
100 MB of "updated" versions, I plan to contact Apple when the new fix 
is released and tell them to send me a new CD-ROM.

As an Apple shareholder since 1984, this really sucks. What does Apple 
think they are, Microsoft?


--Tim May