Microsoft Patents sudo

Jimmy O Regan writes "Justin Mason (of SpamAssassin fame) has this blog entry: US Patent 6,775,781, filed by Microsoft, is a patent on the concept of 'a process configured to run under an administrative privilege level' which, based on authorization information 'in a data store', may perform actions at administrative privilege on behalf of a 'user process'."

Comments

How can Microsoft patent the virus?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

They were inveted decades ago

Re:Prior Art?

[Saeed al-Sahaf]

Please, PLEASE do not mod the parent "troll" or "flamebait". It's at the very least, funny (thought REALLY, it's not very funny at all). Remember: the consept expressed in the parent is what a lot of people think.

Hahaha you lose again /.ers

[tsphere]

Listen up feckers, this isn't a patent for `sudo (8)!' Another poster said it was a patent for "runas" but that's not true either. If you read it carefully, it's for an administrative _process_, not a _program_ like sudo. So this means that there is a single system-wide "security process" that you request to perform restricted actions for you.

It's a slight destinction, I agree, but that's the whole point of patents. You only patent a specific way of doing things, any slight change in the implementation is a different (patentable) innovation! So we should patent the FUCK out of sudo(8) and chmod(1) and all the rest of them.

Tangentially, we can all agree that the implementation this patent covers is a piece of shit. One long-lived process responsible for all authentication? Can you imagine the attack surface it's exposing?

this is a very interesting discussion..

[Anonymous Coward]

or at least it would be if you geeks weren't all a bunch of worthless pathetic losers with no lives and less talent than a sock monkey. you're all a bunch of fat, lazy slobs chomping on snack chips and soft drinks, ruining your bodies and wasting your minds away with caffiene and alcohol. the world would be better off without you.

Re:What Next?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they will disappear because some server room linux nerd, who knows little about the subject, thinks so. You are better off letting the adults run the show and just keep doing what you are told.

Re:Why do they even try?

[severed]

Why not, that's sort of what they did with Xbox. Sell the hardware for less than it costs to make because they can afford to take a loss for several years if they feel like it.