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Windows: Security Or Not?
A.P. Lawrence
Contributing Writer
2006-05-30
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Windows Vista was originally conceived to be extremely tight in the security area.
Unfortunately, as has always been the case with Windows, the all important "ease of use" conflicted with those goals. They first backed down on outbound firewalling, explaining that it was too "technically tricky". But they still had Least-Privilege User Accounts (though apparently it's now called User Account Control or UAC) and some Windows folks bragged that it was better than Mac's sudo model.
Apparently not. ` InformationWeek now says at Review: Windows Vista Beta 2:
Unfortunately, Microsoft went wild with what standard users were not allowed to do in earlier Vista builds. Want to set your system clock? Before this beta, you'd get a notification that you couldn't, and you had to log in as an administrator just to set the system clock -- or the calendar for that matter. The same held for changing power management settings, changing your time zone, and plenty more.
Thankfully, Microsoft listened to its beta users, and toned down UAC in Beta 2. There are far fewer times you'll get notifications -- so you can now set your system clock and calendar, change your time zone and power management settings, set up a Virtual Private Network, and a lot more without getting nagged. Microsoft says that it is going through the entire operating system and will get rid of other notifications as well before launch.
Yeah, I bet they will "get rid of other notifications as well before launch". By the time they get done, Windows security controls will be full of holes and exceptions. Ease of use trumps security every time in the halls of Microsoft.
This looks like great fun, doesn't it?
*Originally published at APLawrence.com
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About the Author:
A.P. Lawrence provides SCO Unix and Linux consulting services http://www.pcunix.com
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