Adobe Apologises for 16-Month Delay in Fixing Flash Bug

chas_m · Feb 9th, 2010, 02:17 AM

Story here.

I wouldn't call 16 months to fix a major security problem "lazy," would you?

MannyP Design · Feb 9th, 2010, 07:29 AM

Certainly Apple wouldn't know, would they? I'm sure they've never taken any considerable amount of time to fix anything.

Have they?

rgray · Feb 9th, 2010, 07:35 AM

Lazy? A mere 16 months? How about Microsloth taking 17 years to fix a bug that dates back to Windows NT?

BBC News - Microsoft to patch 17-year-old computer bug

	Quote:
	First appearing in Windows NT 3.1, the vulnerability has been carried over into almost every version of Windows that has appeared since. The monthly security update will also tackle a further 25 holes in Windows, five of which are rated as "critical". Home hijack The ancient bug was discovered by Google security researcher Tavis Ormandy in January 2010 and involves a utility that allows newer versions of Windows to run very old programs. Mr Ormandy has found a way to exploit this utility in Windows XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008 as well as Windows Vista and Windows 7. The patch for this vulnerability will appear in the February security update. Five of the vulnerabilities being patched at the same time allow attackers to effectively hijack a Windows PC and run their own programs on it.

rgray · Feb 9th, 2010, 10:53 AM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by chas_m
	Story here.

The linked page contains what may be more important/interesting, namely Adobe Labs - Downloads: Flash Player 10.1 where you can get the pre-release version(s) of 10.1.

Of note on that page is a comment:

	Quote:
	Consumers can try the beta release of Flash Player 10.1 to preview hardware acceleration of video on supported Windows PCs and x86-based netbooks. [emphasis mine]

How does this apply to Mac which are "x86-based" (are they not?)? Does this mean that Flash will be accelerated for Mac that have dedicated graphic processors?

EDIT: According to macrumours:

Quote:

Unfortunately, one of the most significant improvements of Flash Player 10.1, hardware-accelerated decoding of H.264 video, is presently only available in the Windows version. According to the release notes for Flash Player 10.1, the feature is unavailable on Mac OS X due to a lack of access to the programming interfaces needed to deploy it.

	Quote:
	In Flash Player 10.1, H.264 hardware acceleration is not supported under Linux and Mac OS. Linux currently lacks a developed standard API that supports H.264 hardware video decoding, and Mac OS X does not expose access to the required APIs. We will continue to evaluate adding the feature to Linux and Mac OS in future releases.

and

Quote:

In an early review of Flash Player 10.1, however, Anandtech still found significant improvements in CPU utilization under Mac OS X, dropping from 450% CPU load to 190% in viewing full-screen Hulu content on the Mac Pro used for testing.

	Quote:
	Going from roughly 450% down to 190% (or a bit over 10% of total CPU utilization across 16 threads) made full-screen Hulu playable on my machine. In the past I always had to run it in a smaller window, but thanks to Flash 10.1 I don't have to any longer. With actual GPU-accelerated H.264 decoding I'm guessing those CPU utilization numbers could drop to a remotely reasonable value. But it's up to Apple to expose the appropriate hooks to allow Adobe to (eventually) enable that functionality. Until then, even OS X users have something to look forward to with the Flash 10.1 upgrade.

i-rui · Feb 9th, 2010, 11:58 AM

So Apple is holding back a proper flash version for OS X by not releasing the API to adobe?

what a soap opera this is turning out to be.

Chas3 · Feb 9th, 2010, 12:20 PM

How about apple using 1.5 year old cards in their top of the line workstations?

groovetube · Feb 9th, 2010, 12:29 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by MannyP Design
	Certainly Apple wouldn't know, would they? I'm sure they've never taken any considerable amount of time to fix anything. Have they?

noooo. Of course not. But we'll have to wait until Apple bashing is the fad du jour though.

groovetube · Feb 9th, 2010, 12:31 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by i-rui
	So Apple is holding back a proper flash version for OS X by not releasing the API to adobe? what a soap opera this is turning out to be.

Been trying to point this out for several pages in the adobe sucks thread.

i-rui · Feb 9th, 2010, 12:51 PM

^ya, sorry i did read something like that from one of your posts. but it's interesting to see the quote from Anandtech.

i guess the flip side is apple doesn't want to release internal APIs to adobe because flash might pose security risks to the os.

(?? just speculating)

anyways, it seems to me they both need to get off their butts and work together.

groovetube · Feb 9th, 2010, 01:11 PM

	Quote:			Originally Posted by i-rui
	^ya, sorry i did read something like that from one of your posts. but it's interesting to see the quote from Anandtech. i guess the flip side is apple doesn't want to release internal APIs to adobe because flash might pose security risks to the os. (?? just speculating) anyways, it seems to me they both need to get off their butts and work together.

truer words...

Feb 9th, 2010, 02:17 AM	#1
chas_m Honourable Citizen Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Victoria BC Posts: 11,323	Adobe Apologises for 16-Month Delay in Fixing Flash Bug Story here. I wouldn't call 16 months to fix a major security problem "lazy," would you? __________________ Cheers chas_m Evangelist, ACDSee Pro for Mac: Get the beta! Join the community! Help us build the next great Mac photo manager! Our life in Victoria BC • Music blog • My Podcast • Film blog Victoria Macintosh Users Group

Feb 9th, 2010, 07:29 AM	#2
MannyP Design Honourable Citizen Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: New Brunswick Posts: 6,384	Certainly Apple wouldn't know, would they? I'm sure they've never taken any considerable amount of time to fix anything. Have they? __________________ Manny \| Graphic Designer Vote for Manny and Laura in the Sony Bloggie Video Facebook Contest!

Feb 9th, 2010, 11:58 AM	#5
i-rui Honourable Citizen Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,617	So Apple is holding back a proper flash version for OS X by not releasing the API to adobe? what a soap opera this is turning out to be. __________________ www.i-rui.com

Feb 9th, 2010, 12:20 PM	#6
Chas3 Full Citizen Join Date: Jul 2007 Location: London, Ontario Posts: 453	How about apple using 1.5 year old cards in their top of the line workstations? __________________ Windows PC i7 920 Oc'd 4.0ghz (Venemous-X cooler), 6gb 1600mhz, GTX 460 Gigabyte 1gb x2, 2 TB Raid 0 Windows PC Core 2 Duo e6600, 320gb x2 Raid 0, 4gb 1000mhz ddr2, 9800gt 1gb Acer Aspire One 2gb, 32gb pci ssd. Macbook 2.1Ghz Core2Duo 2GB iPod Touch 3rd Gen 64gb Airport xTreme The ".n" version

Feb 9th, 2010, 12:51 PM	#9
i-rui Honourable Citizen Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 1,617	^ya, sorry i did read something like that from one of your posts. but it's interesting to see the quote from Anandtech. i guess the flip side is apple doesn't want to release internal APIs to adobe because flash might pose security risks to the os. (?? just speculating) anyways, it seems to me they both need to get off their butts and work together. __________________ www.i-rui.com

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