Okay, face it: you're all just a little disappointed in the way Y2K's shaping up to be a big non-event. Sure, as caring, compassionate social creatures we all thrive on the continued comfort and well-being of our fellow humans yadda yadda yadda, but come on-- here we are, scant days away from the calendar rollover, and there's nary a panic attack in sight. Is a little wild-eyed anxiety about the imminent end of the world too much to ask for? The worst we've seen is slightly higher canned goods sales at the local supermarket. There was all that stuff on the news about the likelihood of organized terrorist attacks on New Year's Eve, but even that doesn't seem to have instilled much of a sense of drama into the masses at large. Maybe things will get crazier as Zero Hour approaches, but we're not holding our breath.

And things may be even less anxious for us Mac users, whose beloved computers are less likely to fizzle into silicon dust come midnight Friday. (That doesn't mean you shouldn't be wary of your software's compliance, by the way.) Luckily, we've been granted a bit of holiday drama: the discovery of a new Internet denial-of-service attack and circumstantial evidence of a shady Middle Eastern terrorist conspiracy to render Macs 'netless on New Year's Eve. Ooooooo. Hey, c'mon, we're not kidding, here-- read all about the Mac Flood Attack at John Copeland's page, including tantalizing details about how his Mac was "probed" for vulnerability to the attack by systems operating in "the Arab world." See? Now this is what Y2K's all about, baby.

Anyway, Macs connected to the Internet and running Mac OS 9 are vulnerable, as are all 'net-connected G4s, iBooks, and slot-loading iMacs-- at least, that's what's implied by the info posted with Apple's patch to correct the problem. While we're unable to get to Apple's page to download the fix, Copeland's posted a copy of Apple's info and direct links to the patch itself. All vulnerable users are encouraged to download and install the patch, which consists of a single small extension called "OTTuner 1.0"; be warned, however, that several MacInTouch readers have found that the patch rendered their Macs incapable of building an Internet connection, especially in AirPort situations. So the bad news is that, for some people, Apple's patch to prevent a potential denial of service does little more than instill an immediate denial of service; the good news is that simply removing the OTTuner extension re-enables the Internet connection-- and opens the door for those pesky terrorists to launch a Y2K MacDoS attack again. But hey, no one ever said that drama is easy.

UPDATE:We should have kept reading. As faithful viewer Scott McBride correctly notes, vulnerable Macs used in such a "Mac Attack" are not actually harmed in any way. In fact, it's entirely possible that the owner of a Mac used in such an attack wouldn't even notice what was happening. Basically, a whole slew of affected Macs get coerced into bombarding another target with so much data, that target effectively loses all its bandwidth. So in a "Mac Attack," your Mac might unwittingly become the weapon, not the target. It's quite fascinating, really. Details abound in Prof. Copeland's FAQ.