The Apple Developer Transition System – a Trojan Horse PowerMac
Now, OS X can run the vast majority of the apps available for Linux — but, in general, Mac users don’t use the open source apps, because the usabilty a native OS X app is.so much better. Most open source apps are way over-engineered and under-designed, meaning that they are stable and full-featured, but they don’t look and feel good. The Verge author Vlad Savov wrote seven days ago it is Apple (NASDAQ. (and never fusing the Mac OS and iOS devices) is more profitable for Apple. Some of whom are jealous of the Surface. Mac OS X Server 10.3 Panther is one of the latest in Peachpit Press' Visual QuickPro guides (not to be confused with the beginner 'QuickStart' series) and is written by one of the best IT/Mac trainers in the industry, Schoun Regan, with assistance by his devoted sidekick and co-trainer at itinstruction.com, Kevin White. Apple MacBook Air MJVM2LL/A 11.6-Inch laptop(1.6 GHz Intel i5, 128 GB SSD, Integrated Intel HD Graphics 6000, Mac OS X Yosemite (Renewed) 4.4 out of 5 stars 2,348 $396.66 $.
![Mac Mac](https://www.scoringnotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/dorico-m1-scaled.jpg)
During the late 1990s and early 2000s the Macintosh was getting more powerful, and for a while the PowerPC G-series CPUs provided more computing power than comparable Intel chips. But by the middle of that decade the G5 was reaching an engineering tradeoff in terms of processing power versus thermal output; the fastest Macs ran very hot and required the development of liquid cooling systems. These limitations prevented the release of G5 based PowerBooks (though prototypes were rumored to exist), and required Apple to think differently about its future.
So in 2006 Apple stunned the world (again) by announcing they were going over to the Dark Side: the Macintosh was going to switch to Intel processors. Apple had been secretly compiling Mac OS X for Intel shortly after it’s evolution from NeXTstep. To allow developers to prepare their own software for the change, Apple designed special Macs with Pentium-based motherboards inside PowerMac G5 cases for testing purposes. Called Developer Transition Systems (DTS), these Trojan horse “PowerMacs” came with a special developer version of Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.1 for Intel and were leased, not sold, to developers. The mothership required all DTS units to be returned after one year, so very few of these hybrid Macs survive outside the gates of Cupertino.
The DTS is an interesting beast. A small logic board labelled Barracuda sits inside a ridiculously large tower (to fool the passers-by). The processor is a 3.6GHz Pentium 4 with Hyper-Threading. But despite being an Intel version of Mac OS X Universal applications will not launch in Intel mode, they just bounce a few times in the dock then abort. In order to launch third party software you need to check the preference to “Launch using Rosetta” in the Finder’s Get Info window. As far as these apps are concerned, they’re still running in a PowerPC world.
When you first start the machine a BIOS screen appears, allowing you to hit F4 and set the boot drive order, system date, etc. No Open Firmware here. Unlike other Macs the hard drive needs to be partitioned using Master Boot Record (MBR), not GUID as used for all shipping Intel-based Macs. That’s unique. This thing is really a PC with proprietary software pasted on top. Look at all those Pentium 4 CPU features!
As a VMM addition, this was a real find. I got system from used Mac shop that keeps an eye out for interesting items; they got it from someone who was going to dispose of the tower as scrap metal. Fortunately that fate was avoided and the DTS arrived in working condition, but it did not have a copy of Mac OS X installed. The previous owner had used the tower as a (shudder) Windows XP machine and erased the Apple development software. Noooooo!!!!
Finding a copy of the necessary software and then getting it to run on this system proved a bit of a challenge. That’s an understatement. These puppies require serious determination to bring back to life.
The magic system necessary is Mac OS X build 8b1025. After a few months I was lucky to get help from fellow Mac collector (and Prototype Man) Henry “Hap” Plain, who found a copy after locating a working DTS himself. But making drives from the disk image files he sent was unsuccessful, I couldn’t get my machine to boot. Multiple swapping of hard drives followed. After several tries we resorted to shipping drives across the country, and that finally worked. At last the mythical 10.4.1 on Intel was running live in front of me!
But I couldn’t duplicate the setup for backup purposes. This is an important part of keeping vintage computers working. Clones made of the startup disk would not boot the machine, they stalled at a black screen with a blinking cursor. More weeks of experimentation. More hard disks in and out. Let me tell you the drive slots on the G5 (err, DTS) tower are really annoying to deal with, they make me appreciate the Mac Pro design even more.
Damn it Apple, why are you making this (never-intended-to-be-released-to-the-public) system so difficult to restore? Never mind, don’t answer that.
Eventually Hap managed to locate an image of the actual 10.4.1 install DVD that shipped with the towers from from Apple (I’m very jealous of his connections). This works better: with the DVD you can easily install OS X on the hard disk and reliably make the DTS come to life. But wait! Don’t put that installer away after installation, it also contains a boot loader necessary get the hard drive up and running. I’ve found that I need to keep the DVD in place in order to boot up the machine, otherwise it’s back to a blinking cursor.
As noted, this is not your Grandfather’s Macintosh. DTS, welcome to the VMM.
Posted by Adam Rosen on May 29th, 2014 in Vintage Mac Museum Blog | 11 Comments »
Back to the Mac – with Stickers! »
- Nice article! I have one of these machines, it’s been several years since I fired it up. Any interest in it, or can you recommend a good place to post it up for sale? I know this computer would only appeal to the collector crowd.Thanks,
Ian- Hey, if you’re looking to get rid of that thing, can you send me an email?
- You can send me an email at Alicespice @ aol.com. Seriously interested in it.
- You might try the bootloaders developed by the OSx86 people, that are designed to bootstrap OS X on PC BIOS machines.
- Hello Ian, I would be more than willing to purchase your macintosh. If you are willing to sell it still, please give me an offer and maybe we can work out a deal. Thanks, George
- Sorry at the time I decided to keep it, but now I”m back in sell mode. However coming up with a price on this thing is pretty tricky, especially since I have evidence that this computer was at the WWDC in 2005. Whats your email?
- Hi Ian,I realize this is a huge stretch as you made this post over a year ago now, but I’m looking for one of these machines and would be interested in purchasing it from you, if you still have for sale.My email address is derfbwh AT gmail dot com.Thanks!
- Are you still interested in a DTS? I have one I wish to part with.
- Keeping up with the buzzards mac os. Hi all readers
I have a Mac Pro DTS in fully working condition
With a hard drive that boots without the need for a DVD to be in the drive
Available for sale
Getholdofjon At Gmail dot com - can you upload the installer? i want to try to make my own “mac” with tiger on it
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A year ago today, Apple released a software update to halt the spread of the Flashback worm, a malware strain that infected more than 650,000 Mac OS X systems using a vulnerability in Apple’s version of Java. This somewhat dismal anniversary is probably as good a time as any to publish some clues I’ve gathered over the past year that point to the real-life identity of the Flashback worm’s creator.
Before I delve into the gritty details, a little background on this insidious contagion is in order. A keenly detailed research paper (PDF) published last year by Finnish security firm F-Secure puts the impact and threat from Flashback in perspective, noting that the malware boasted a series of “firsts” for its kind. For starters, Flashback was the first OS X malware to be “VMware aware” — or to know when it was being run in a virtual environment (a trick designed to frustrate security researchers). It also was the first to disable XProtect, OS X’s built-in malware protection program. These features, combined with its ability to spread through a then-unpatched vulnerability in Java made Flashback roughly as common for Macs as the Conficker Worm was for Windows PCs.
“This means Flashback is not only the most advanced, but also the most successful OS X malware we’ve ever seen,” wrote F-Secure’s Broderick Ian Aquilino.
The F-Secure writeup answers an important question not found in other analyses: Namely, what was the apparent intended purpose of Flashback? Put simply: to redirect Google results to third-party advertisers, all for the author’s profit. It’s name was derived from the fact that it spread using a social engineering trick of presenting the OS X user with a bogus Flash Player installation prompt. F-Secure notes that this same behavior — both the Flash social engineering trick and the redirection to fake Google sites that served search results for third-party advertisers that benefited the author — was also found in the QHost malware, suggesting that Flashback may have been the next evolution of the Mac QHost malware.
BLACK SEO
A year ago, I published a series that sought to identify the real-lifehackersbehindthetopspambotnets. Using much the same methodology, I was able to identify and locate a young man in Russia who appears (and privately claims) to be the author of Flashback. As it happens, this individual hangs out on many of the same forums as the world’s top spammers (but more on that at another time).
Given Flashback’s focus on gaming Google’s ad networks, I suspected that the worm’s author probably was a key member of forums that focus on so-called “black hat SEO,” (search engine optimization), or learned in illicit ways to game search engines and manipulate ad revenues. Sure enough, this individual happens to be a very active and founding member of BlackSEO.com, a closely guarded Russian language forum dedicated to this topic.
Below is a screen shot taken from a private message between a “VIP” user named “Mavook” and a top forum member on BlackSEO.com. The conversation took place on July 14, 2012. A rough translation of their conversation is superimposed on the redacted screen grab, but basically it shows Mavook asking the senior member for help in gaining access to Darkode.com, a fairly exclusive English-language cybercrime forum (and one that I profiled in a story earlier this week).
BlackSEO.com member “Mavook” claims responsibility for creating Flashback to a senior forum member.
Mavook asks the other member to get him an invitation to Darkode, and Mavook is instructed to come up with a brief bio stating his accomplishments, and to select a nickname to use on the forum if he’s invited. Mavook replies that the Darkode nick should be not be easily tied back to his BlackSEO persona, and suggests the nickname “Macbook.” He also states that he is the “Creator of Flashback botnet for Macs,” and that he specializes in “finding exploits and creating bots.”
The senior member that Mavook petitions is quite well known in the Russian cybercrime underground, and these two individuals also are well known to one another. In fact, in a separate exchange on the main BlackSEO forum between the senior member and a BlackSEO user named JPS, the senior member recommends Mavook as a guy who knows his stuff and can be counted on to produce reliable attack tools.
In the conversation screen-shotted here to the left, JPS can be seen asking the senior forum member for recommendations about reliable individuals who sell unique exploit packs, software toolkits built to be stitched into hacked Web sites and exploit common Web browser vulnerabilities. JPS says he’s looking for a pro who can deliver decent exploitation rates.
“I have no time (and no desire) to roam chats and argue there with cool hackers,” JPS said. “I need to check traffic in terms of exploitability, and in the future, if everything is alright, I can work on a continuous basis” with the hired expert. Bloody trail mac os.
Jealous Author Mac Os Catalina
The senior member tells JPS to ask Mavook. “If Mavook won’t budge, saying that he is no longer doing this stuff, write to me again.”
Jealous Author Mac Os Catalina
WHO IS MAVOOK?
If we take a closer look at Mavook’s profile page on BlackSEO.com, we can see that he is a longtime member, dating back to 2005, when he was the 24th member registered on BlackSEO (out of thousands). Mavook’s profile also shows that his personal home page was at one time mavook.com. The WHOIS registration records for mavook.com have long been hidden by commercial WHOIS privacy protection services, but I found the original WHOIS record for this domain using the indispensable historic WHOIS service maintained by domaintools.com. Those records show that the domain was originally registered in 2005 by a Maxim Selikhanovich in Saransk, the capital city in Mordovia, a republic in the eastern region of the East European Plain of Russia.
The email address used to register mavook.com was “[email protected]” (the second character in the address is a zero). A search for that email address in Skype’s user database brings up a user with the screen name “Maximsd”. Mavook also used the email address “[email protected].” That address is tied a Maxim Selikhanovich in Saransk via the registration records for the now defunct Website saransk-offline.com, which at one point sold popular MP3 files for pennies apiece.
One of the emails used by Maxim for that Website and a related site was “[email protected],” which was the same email used to register a now-deleted Facebook account under a Maxim Selikhanovich from Saransk. Yet another abandoned music sales site — mavook-mp3.com — was registered to a “Mavook aka Troxel” and to the [email protected]” address used for mavook.com.
MACS, MAX and MAKS
The final clue offers perhaps the most tantalizing details: The [email protected] address is the contact point of record for a business in Saransk called mak-rm.com, the domain name registered to a IT-outsourcing and Web design firm in Saransk called the Mordovia Outsourcing Company (the “mak” part of the name comes from the Russian version of the company name, which is “МОРДОВСКАЯ АУТСОРСИНГОВАЯ КОМПАНИЯ”). That domain is registered to a “Max D. Sell” in Saransk (see a cached image from mak-rm.com’s homepage in 2010 at the Internet Archive).
According to a trusted source who has the ability to look up tax information on citizens and corporations in Russia, the Mordovia Outsourcing Company was registered and founded by one Maxim Dmitrievich Selihanovich, a 30-year-old from Saransk, Mordovia.