"[VENDOR NAME] seem willing to rebut the idea that antivirus for the Mac is air. [VENDOR EMPLOYEE], the local [VENDOR NAME] chap, would be happy to talk to you next week--Tuesday say."

This is superb. One of the problems with security vendors is their glibness: as IT security moves faster as a greased cobra and malware can play havoc with users' computers, they tend to promote more than their fair share of FUD (fear/uncertainty/doubt). Security experts often can't talk about ongoing operations for...security reasons. As J Michael Gibbons (ex-FBI, currently Unisys) said in CWHK's October issue: "Law enforcement typically has nothing to gain by going public, so it's in their interest to not go public until someone's been convicted".

So, here's a hot lead to the names of actual viruses that we can track. We can list these quantifiable digital nasties for any vendor, and then query them on specific countermeasures. Splendid!

Editor responded thusly: "If [VENDOR NAME] have found viruses for said OS, they should be willing to send the names of said viruses in an email, I can then check with journos, Apple, and other security experts on these viruses. If they exist, they will have names. If [VENDOR NAME] doesn't want to name the names, not much for me to write about..."

Multiple emails later, the vendor who seemed so eager to name names several Tuesdays ago has declined to name a single Mac OS X virus.