well, you should never do anything as root that doesn't absolutely require you to be root. not being logged in as root protects you from a large number of viruses and other potential problems.
can you be more specific? where did you read this? i know a major, major problem was found in all of the bsd kernels and patched a couple of months ago (though i've searched and can't find any indication that os x has been patched to fix this particular, and huge security hole). i must admit i don't remember the specific problem, i did mention it on list a couple of months ago. there are a huge, huge number of viruses out there now, i'm on a dialup line and run a firewall and the number of incursion attempts the last few months has been absolutely insane! as bad as anything i've seen as far as volume and much, much worse in terms of how long it's lasted. i'd strongly, strongly recommend a good hardware firewall, i'll be setting up a free bsd firewall myself soon (too many projects, and i'm not running os x now, i'm using an older os which is less likely to be a current target, and i'm running a pretty good software firewall). remember, os x is built on a unix variant, and there are a lot of unix exploits, particularly when the victim is logged in as root, or to a lesser extent as an admin. it's probably best not to surf from an admin. account in any case, though like all security measures this can be somewhat inconvenient (i.e. it makes it more painful to download applications or updates and install them since you have to relog in as an admin. after downloading, but it's probably worth the small inconvenience). security in layers is a good idea, run the software firewall that comes with x, and preferably a hardware firewall, especially with broadband, and especially if you have a static ip. there are also a lot of firewall/router exploits going on lately, it's not a bad idea to power cycle your firewall daily, and it's definitely a good idea to power cycle your cable modem daily to get a fresh ip #. the half way serious people keep track of you by your ip #, change that and they can't find you specifically again. seriously, you should see some of the firewall logs i've had lately, it's ridiculous! (and remember, i'm on a slow dialup line with a dynamic ip). i've had multiple incursion attempts after dialing in before i could even download my email! and sadly, all of these incursion attempts taken together do make problems more likely as they tend to overload hardware and software and cause the types of stack/heap overflows and other software confusion that can be used to break in or just crash your' machine. sometimes it's bad enough that it's almost a DDOS attack, in which case i disconnect and reconnect which usually helps during the surges of activity (surges being several dozen incursion attempts from multiple sources in just a couple of minutes, and this happens all the time!). [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I just read about a security problem with OSX "URI handlers" -- have other people > heard about this? The advice I read for handling it was "don't browse the internet > as a user with permissions" What does this mean? Does this mean don't browse when > logged in as "root" or don't browse when logged in as an administrator? > > Thanks, -------- -- G-List is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- We have Apple Refurbished Monitors in stock! | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-List list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-list.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-list%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
