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Windows Users Ignoring LUA Security

Posted by timothy on from the until-it's-easy-it's-hard dept.

blankify writes "eWeek is running a story about the least-privilege, no-admin option available in Windows (2000/XP/2003) that has been mostly ignored by end users. From the article: '"To the average user, the notion of non-admin is abstract and obscure," said Michael Howard, a senior security program manager in Microsoft Corp.'s security business and technology unit. "Most users just don't know they can set up least-privilege accounts in Windows today, and that's just a sad reality."'"

2 of 522 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I wonder why by repruhsent · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    You're complaining about GeekSpeak with WINDOWS? How about Linux, where installation instructions for software frequently are:

    1. Download source tarball (mysoftware.tar.gz or mysoftware.tar.bz2)
    2. Unpack (I hope you know tar -zxvf or whatever)
    3. Run configure
    4. Oh, I forgot to tell you, if you want your new instant messenging program to include support for getting input from your keyboard, you need to modify the Makefile. I hope you know vi/emacs/whatever
    5. Compile package with sudo make install or whatever
    6. You know, I hope /usr/share/bin or wherever the program installs to is in your $PATH. Oh, what's that - it's not? Well, now you get to go muck around in /etc/profile and or /etc/bashrc to put it there ...and don't get me started on package managers like apt-get/emerge/rpm. They're just as bad.

    The fact is (and despite you zealots' fondest wishes), Windows is infinitely more user friendly than Linux.

    Nice try, though.

  2. Why not admin? by TorKlingberg · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    I never understood why home users should not run as admin. All files of any value will be in the user's document folder anyway.

    I use a non-root accout on my Linux box because everyone else do so. But I really don't care if my root account get compromised or just my user account. Both are eqally bad.