Say what you will about a potential Middle Eastern cyberterrorist plot to induce massive service outages on the Internet by coercing Macs all over the world to flood the 'net with noise on New Year's Eve-- at least it's given the Mac news sites something to write about other than the special reduced-price offer on PowerMenuWindowsPlayer 2.02 (now extended through January!). If you haven't been keeping up, here's the skinny: someone discovered that a "peculiarity" of the networking architecture in Mac OS 9 (and the version of Mac OS 8.6 that shipped with several newer Macs) could potentially allow someone to force Internet-connected Macs to bombard specified targets with junk data, effectively nuking their connections through what's commonly called a "Denial of Service" (DoS) attack. Fanning the flames is the fact that the discoverer of this happy little prospect found out about it because of "probes" his Mac received from somewhere in the Middle East-- hence, the Y2K terrorist conspiracy idea. We've been reveling in the sheer drama of the whole thing ever since the story first broke.

But for conspiracy theories that would make Fox Mulder's head spin, look no further than AtAT's faithful viewers. Indeed, the student has surpassed the master, Grasshopper-- we don't know if it's the lack of sleep or the mind-altering chemicals that "They" have been pumping into our water supply, but somehow we missed the big picture and failed to see what's really going down. Stephen White put the puzzle pieces together, though, working from what he calls "obvious clues": The site that first described the attack is heavy on the "intimidating numbers and ASCII art that lull a sense of complacency into any unsuspecting reader's mind." Then look at the name of the attack: "DoS." Nothing's more likely to instill fear in the Mac community then DOS, right? And what better way to ensure the story's spread than to blame Arab terrorists? Then there's the name of the "discoverer" himself: "Dr. Copeland." Copeland. Copland. Coincidenza? Ha!

So thousands of believing Mac users downloaded and installed the "OTTuner" patch released by Apple to prevent this full-scale terrorist Internet attack-- only to find that it killed their Internet connections completely. Well done, "Dr. Copeland"; well done, indeed. And Steve's not the only one suspicious of this whole scenario; faithful viewer David Murray also forwarded his friend's doubts about the "OTTuner" patch: "Could this be a really sick (and/or Redmond-sponsored) attempt to implicate the Mac in the hundreds of thousands of Windoze crashes we know are just around the corner?" And just what else is that "OTTuner" extension doing on systems that didn't have their Internet connections immediately disabled?

Now, while it's true that the "OTTuner" bug fix is, in fact, being served directly from Apple's own site, that's easy enough to look past with conspiracy-colored glasses-- "Dr. Copeland" is a disgruntled Apple employee, perhaps. Simple! So adjust your aluminum-foil hat, stay away from the fluoridated water, and be wary of ulterior motives when downloading so-called "bug fixes." On the other hand, you could choose to be completely rational, give Dr. Copeland the benefit of the doubt, consider him a concerned Mac user who caught a problem before it caused a meltdown, accept Apple's posted fix as a Good Thing To Install™, load it up, and (assuming you still have Internet services) merrily surf away knowing that your Mac is protected from being enlisted as a pawn by the forces of evil. But where's the fun in that?

For those of you still nervously awaiting the end of the world after former Mac-basher Hiawatha Bray recently crossed over into Apple-friendly territory, don't worry; there are still plenty of anti-Apple pundits around. Take Jesse Berst, for example. Sure, it was sketchy there for a second-- he published a column voicing his utter frustration at the constant crashes and inconsistencies of Windows, and even said he was considering switching to an iMac. Heck, Apple even sent him an iMac DV Special Edition. They sent one to Bray, too, who gushed about it in a completely positive review; Berst, on the other hand, evidently wasn't impressed. While he hasn't published a review himself, he's just named Steve Jobs one of the four people "to leave behind" in the coming decade.

We're thankful to faithful viewer T. Greiner for bringing Berst's latest article to our attention, in which ol' Jesse has the following to say about Uncle Steve: "Did he turn Apple around? Yes. Did they change the look of computers? Yes. Will they ever be more than a fringe player? No." Because of this, Jesse claims that Steve is "a has-been... stuck in the past... hanging on to past success... unwilling or unable to change with the times... [and] heading for the 'where are they now' file." Evidently to Jesse, if you only have 10% market share right now, you can't possibly be innovative and influential over the course of the next ten years. All those low-cost, "easy-to-use," Internet-focused PCs coming out next year with only USB ports and no expansion slots? Those certainly have nothing to do with Steve's baby, the iMac.

Wow. Really, what else is there to say? Wow. The very idea that anyone could think Steve Jobs and Apple "don't matter" in the field of computer hardware, right after the arrival of the improved iMac, the iBook, the G4, and AirPort-- well, it boggles the mind. Then again, Berst also lists Bill Gates and Microsoft as not mattering in the operating system category. While we'd love to believe that, with Windows 2000 right around the corner, whether it sucks or not is irrelevant: with a Windows installed base as large as it is, Windows 2000 is going to matter, one way or the other, for years to come. And what about "Redmond Justice"? The settlement or verdict is bound to set precedents that will long echo throughout the industry. Hmmm. Perhaps Jesse got hold of some bad fruitcake or something...

This isn't exactly Apple-related, but it gave us a chuckle, so bear with. We assume you know what Hotmail is-- the largest free web-based email service, with over fifty million users. You may also know that a couple of years ago, Microsoft bought it, putting it under the MSN name. And you may have heard about Microsoft's embarrassing attempts to migrate the Unix-based Hotmail architecture over to a Windows NT infrastructure; because of NT's scalability problems, all efforts to make Hotmail a Windows-driven technology crashed and burned. To this day, Hotmail's running on Unix, much to Microsoft's dismay. (To be fair, Microsoft's not the only company not using its own operating system to host its web site; Apple's main site was once hosted exclusively on Macs, but is now served by Unix systems.)

And now Hotmail's the source of another embarrassment up there in Redmond. Faithful viewer John Haytol forwarded us a CNNfn article about how Hotmail services went down last weekend-- because Microsoft forgot to pay their $35 domain name registration bill. Apparently Hotmail relies on Microsoft Passport to allow users to log in and check their mail-- and Microsoft had neglected to pay the annual renewal fee for PASSPORT.COM. So when Passport stopped working, Hotmail did, too. Millions of people were inconvenienced because of a $35 late payment. Think of it this way: if Bill Gates' entire fortune were represented by a 3 GB hard disk, that $35 comprises the letter "q" stored somewhere on the drive.

But here's the real irony: as pointed out by faithful viewer Jeff Adkins, CNET reports that a lone Linux programmer named Michael Chaney actually got the Hotmail site working again by paying the registration fee himself, with a personal credit card on Christmas morning. Microsoft claims to be "profusely grateful" to Chaney, which is why they generously offered to-- get this-- "repay the $35." Ooooooo. What a lucky guy that Chaney is! He did a good deed for one of the richest corporations on earth, and in return, they're even offering to pony up the $35 he spent for them. Evidently Microsoft has been overcome with Christmas spirit, because they didn't even charge a 15% weekend transaction surcharge. Wow, it's just like A Christmas Carol, isn't it? For what it's worth, Chaney describes the whole event on his Linux-driven web page, and hints that maybe Microsoft should consider kicking him a little something extra for his trouble. It'll be interesting to hear whether his hints amount to anything or not.