[subject line changed to reflect the nature of this thread] On Thu, Jun 4, 2009 at 9:34 PM, Ken Schaefer<[email protected]> wrote: > UAC fixes this in Windows Vista and newer.
Windows NT 3.1 (the first release) fixed it with user accounts. There wasn't anyone holding a gun to anyone's head saying, "Make all users admins or else". Now, there's definitely a very significant momentum in the 'doze world, where many people just assume everyone has admin rights. Even Microsoft still has this problem to significant extent. For example, their latest and greatest software development suite has a long list of things that don't work right if you don't have admin rights. This reduces overall practical security. There are also legions of home computers that came pre-configured to auto-login to an admin account. If they were all running Linux or Mac OS X or BSD that way, they'd all have the same problems. Mac OS X has a few things going for it: * Smaller installed base means it's a less attractive target. * Since Apple started from scratch with it relatively recently, they were able to build in a much better overall default security stance. Application developers and users are all used to the idea of security on that OS. In conclusion, "Linux rulez, Windows suxors!" See also: "Every OS Sucks", by Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie. http://www.deadtroll.com/video/ossuckscable.html -- Ben ~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~ ~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
